Page 44 of Swords and Curses

"If you wanted to kill me, you'd leave the arrow in. The Seelie poison would take longer and be crueler," Nimue answered, her pupils blowing out as the drug hit her. "I don't care if I live or die as long as it's in the sun. I'd rather it be at your hand than the queen's. It hardly matters. You've killed me already." The guilt inside him grew at the emptiness in her voice.

"The feeling is mutual then," he said. He twisted the shaft and tugged. She cried out, and he let it go.

"It's moving, Merlin! I can feel it burrowing." Nimue's voice filled with pain and panic. Ridges blossomed under her skin as the copper head of the arrow spread roots.

"I haven't seen anything like this before." He ran his fingers lightly over her skin, hating that he was weak enough to appreciate its softness. "I can't pull it or cut it out."

"Sing…sing," Nimue managed.

Eldon held a cloth to her nose as it started to bleed. "I don't know if it'll work, but it can only be removed with magic."

"If I am to die, I want it to be with your song in my ears."

Pale and bloody, she wasn't the monster that he'd created in his mind over the centuries, only that girl he'd danced, studied, laughed, and fought with.

"You aren't going to die," Eldon said firmly. He lifted her chin and fixed his golden eyes on her. "You and I have unfinished fucking business, and you aren't going anywhere until I get satisfaction. Do you hear me?"

Nimue nodded her head, her eyes not leaving his. "And to think I had to be at Death's door before I could really get you to see me,cariad."

"It's too hard to look at you. It only reminds me of all that I lost," he admitted, her endearment ripping old wounds.

Nimue's eyes glazed over, the combination of poison and pain getting her to drop her cool facade at last. "I'm so sorry about your mother," she wept. "You were right. I didn't think. I believed they were only after you. I couldn't let them take you, and I didn't consider anything else. You treat me like I'm some monster when everything I did was because I loved you."

"It's been a long time, Nim." Eldon let her face go and held a fresh cloth to her weeping wound.

"To me, it was but a moment."

"And that's the problem right there!" Eldon's voice rose, unable to stop it. "To you, it was yesterday. To me it's been hundreds of years of getting over you. Don't you understand? I'm not the man you think I am. I'm not even ashadowof that man. The person you love is a ghost, nothing more." Nimue's eyes had closed against the tears filling them. He waited for her to argue, to berate him, but she sat so still. "Nimue?" He held a hand under her nose to feel her breath. Nothing.

"Oh, no you don't." He pulled her down on the floor next to the fire and gave her CPR. Her lips tasted of blood, tears, and apples as he filled her lungs with air. "God, help me!" he cried out. "Don't give her back only to take her again."

Power licked up his arms, through his chest, filling him until it felt like the very tips of his hair were on fire. Eldon placed a hand over her heart, the other on her forehead and began to sing.

He sang life, pure and bright as the sun. He sang of her, apple blossoms and laughter. How her joy used to illuminate any room she walked into. He sang to the copper-headed arrow inside her arm, calling it forth and breaking down the enchantments that were still clinging to it. While he sang, he saw her life unfolding inside of him. He felt her driving need to save him, how she'd been mocked and tortured by the Autumn Queen after she'd failed to deliver him. He saw her calling out to her father to save her as the queen had whipped her, how Ryn Eurion had turned his back on her.

Bored at last, the queen had put her in the lake, the cold crushing blackness, locked in a place half alive and half dead. He felt the broken fissures in Nimue's mind and how the queen had created them to taunt her at every moment that she was back in the real world.

Eldon sang until he could sing no more. Underneath his hands, Nimue was glowing with power. The bloody arrow lay beside her, ejected from her shoulder. Eldon tossed the infernal object into the fire. As it caught alight, Nimue shuddered in his arms, and healing light flowed through her. Her eyes opened, and she touched his face, her gaze filled with light and wonder that had been missing since her return to Gwaed Lyn.

"You sang," she said with a smile that pierced him. Her magic rose and brushed against his, sending a tremor through him.

"Rest now," he replied gruffly, placing a blanket over her. "The Autumn Queen will torment you no longer."

"Thank you, Merlin," Nimue whispered as she curled into a ball, bringing the blanket up to her chin. "Thank you."

Eldon watched her a moment longer before stumbling up the stairs and throwing up in the toilet. Magic always came with a price, and healing Nimue was going to cost him more than his dinner. He stripped off his soiled clothes and climbed into the bath, turning on the hot tap of the shower. He watched the water turn red, brought his knees to his chest, and wept.

"I seethe Creator has blessed you with the return of your lost, Merlin," Zalan said as he sat in a chair in Eli's chambers. "I imagine it would've given you quite the surprise."

Eli couldn't help the smile that curled his lips. "The return of a son is a joyous occasion, even with one as stubbornly pig-headed as mine."

"His power has changed. He would almost be a match for you if you were really to butt heads," Zalan said thoughtfully. "It'll be good for whenshecomes. If the gods are kind, we may get to kill her this time."

In the light of the fire, Eli watched his brother's mismatched eyes darken. One was strikingly blue and the other black from an injury of the Autumn Queen's making. The strangely god-touched and beautiful Zalan hadn't stood a chance in the Seelie court when he was a boy. He had suffered in their hands, and he wouldn't miss the chance to get his revenge.

"Can you feel the power returning?" Eli asked softly. "There are so many Unseelie under her rule, and they won't know what is happening to them."

"Are you thinking of going back, brother?" Zalan replied. "I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to. The Aos Si, the Dark Lands and beyond are but a hazy memory to me now. You were alreadya man when the queen betrayed us all, and you remember what it was like."

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