Page 11 of The Minotaur's Little Peach
The sound that tears from my throat doesn't feel human. It comes from somewhere deeper than breath, more primitive thanlanguage. A keening wail that belongs to animals mourning their dead.
Hands try to hold me back—gentle at first, then more insistent as I fight against them. My vision swims, the world tilting and spinning like I'm drunk on grief. I tear free with strength I didn't know I possessed, stumbling toward the stretcher.
"Korrun." His name breaks on my lips as I fall to my knees beside him, my hands finding his face. The familiar warmth is already fading, his skin taking on the waxy pallor of death. The scar over his left shoulder that I've traced with my fingers countless times is lost now in a web of new wounds, fresh blood still seeping into the sand beneath him.
"No, no, no." The words spill out of me in a desperate litany as I try to gather him closer, as if I could somehow pull him back from wherever he's gone. But he's too heavy, too still, and my hands come away slick with his blood.
The metallic scent fills my nose, sharp and wrong and final. This morning he kissed my forehead and teased me about sleeping late. This morning he was warm and solid and mine, complaining about a loose board in our kitchen that needed fixing. Just days ago, he was planning names for our baby and talking about building a cradle with his own hands.
Now he's nothing. Empty. Gone.
"I'm sorry," Mirath's voice breaks somewhere above me, but the words sound like they're coming from underwater. "Soreya, I'm so sorry."
I fold over his massive frame, my body shaking with sobs that feel like they're tearing me apart from the inside. The grief is raw and primal, bigger than my small human form can contain. It fills every space inside me that used to hold joy, love, hope for the future. It devours the part of me that believed I was safe, that believed the world was a place where good things could last.
His horns, polished smooth by years of careful tending, catch the afternoon light one last time. I press my face against his chest, searching desperately for the steady heartbeat that used to lull me to sleep. Finding only silence.
The world has narrowed to this—the weight of him beneath me, the smell of iron and death, the terrible stillness where life used to be. Everything else fades to gray noise, meaningless chatter from a universe that kept spinning even though mine just stopped.
Mirath's hands circle my wrists, trying to pull me away from Korrun's still form. Her fingers are firm but gentle, the way she touches patients when she's trying not to cause more pain.
"Soreya, you need to let them take him." Her voice carries that steady healer's tone she uses when delivering bad news, but I can hear the tremor underneath it. "There's nothing more we can do here."
I shake my head violently, my grip tightening on Korrun's bloodstained shirt. The fabric is already cooling beneath my palms, another small death in the wake of the larger one.
"I can't." The words scrape my throat raw. "I can't leave him."
"You have to." Mirath's voice breaks on the last word, and when I look up through the blur of tears, I see grief carved into every line of her face. She loved him too, in her way. Loved how he made me laugh, how he brought me fresh fish from the market because he knew I wouldn't eat properly without someone looking after me. "The stretcher bearers need to?—"
"No." I press my face back against his chest, breathing in the scent that's already wrong. Usually he smells like leather and sweat and the salt breeze that follows him home from the docks. Now there's only copper and something sharp that makes my stomach clench. "They can't have him. Not yet."
But they're waiting, these men who carry the dead with practiced efficiency. Patient but implacable, like death itself.One of them shifts his weight, and I hear the soft clink of coins in his pocket—payment for services rendered, for hauling bodies away from grieving lovers who can't let go.
"Soreya." Mirath's hands move to my shoulders now, her grip more insistent. "Look at me."
I don't want to. Don't want to see the pity in her dark eyes or the way her mouth has gone tight with worry. Don't want to acknowledge anything beyond this moment, this last chance to pretend he might somehow come back to me.
But she's stronger than she looks, my friend with her compact build and deceptively gentle touch. She pulls me up with surprising force, my hands sliding away from Korrun's body like I'm drowning and losing my grip on the only solid thing in the world.
"Please." I reach for him again, but Mirath blocks me with her body, her arms wrapping around me in a fierce embrace that feels more like a restraint. "Please, just a few more minutes."
The stretcher bearers take this as their cue to move. They lift him with efficient care, their movements respectful but businesslike. Korrun's massive frame makes them strain—even in death, he's formidable. His arms hang loose over the sides, hands that used to trace gentle patterns on my skin now slack and empty.
I watch them carry him away and feel something fundamental tear loose inside my chest. A sound escapes me that belongs more to wounded animals than grieving women—high and desperate and utterly broken. My knees give out, and only Mirath's arms keep me from hitting the ground.
"I know," she whispers against my hair, her own voice thick with unshed tears. "I know, love. I know."
But she doesn't know. Can't know what it feels like to watch your entire future being carried away on a stretcher. Can't knowhow the absence of him creates a vacuum so complete it feels like my lungs have forgotten how to work.
The crowd begins to disperse now that the spectacle is over. They drift away in clusters, murmuring among themselves about the fight and Varkas and poor Korrun who was just doing his job. Some of them cast pitying glances in my direction—the pregnant human girl who couldn't keep her minotaur safe. As if love alone should have been armor enough.
"Come on," Mirath says, trying to guide me toward the gates. "We need to get you somewhere quiet."
I resist, my feet rooted to the bloodstained sand where he fell. "This is where it happened." The words feel important somehow, like bearing witness might change something. "This is where he died."
"Yes." Mirath's honesty cuts through the fog of denial I'm trying to wrap around myself. "And staying here won't bring him back."
The simple truth of it hits like a physical blow. Won't bring him back. Nothing will bring him back. Not crying, not pleading, not the fierce love that's still burning in my chest with nowhere to go.
