Page 266 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
And just like that, as if it had never been there at all…the pain evaporated.
He opened his eyes to a world clearer than any he’d seen in some time.
His vision was no longer clouded with shadows and pain and an endless abyss.
Ash drifted down; dying flames roared around him, above him. He looked down at his hands. Deep scratches crisscrossed his skin. Fresh blood—black and deep crimson—ran down his fingers. Had he done that? Or was it Eravin’s blood? The ground beside him was coated in blood like black tar. The scratches on his hands were deep, jagged. The torn flesh stung.
His eyes travelled from his hands to the body lying in a pool of black blood, the flames surrounding them reflected in its depths. Her hair was like the deepest fire, the braid coming loose and soaking in the gore. A necklace of purple fingerprints hung around her throat. The hand bearing Ana’s ring draped limply across her stomach. Her eyes were closed, light brown lashes dusting her freckled cheeks. Her pale lips parted slightly as if frozen in a soft sigh.
“Hallie?” The voice was so small, he almost didn’t recognize it as his.
Nothing. She didn’t move.
A fierce wave of nausea rocked him.
“Hal—Hallie?Hallie?”
The tingles began in his fingers and surged throughout his entire body. Pins and needles, hot and cold. The pins became knives. He couldn’t work his throat or his voice or even his fingers right. Hands shaking, desperation stealing the breath from his lungs, he dragged himself to her side and scooped her up, clutching her limp body to his chest.
“Hal—” Her name broke on his lips. “Please no. Please, stars, no.”
She wasn’t breathing. He couldn’t feel her breathing.
He cupped her cooling cheek. Panic whined in his head like an overheating hover, white-hot and wailing until he couldn’t hear his own thoughts.
“Wake up,” he begged. Like he’d begged her after Skibs had fallen from the sky, but she’d been breathing then, she’d been warm then, and this… “Come on, Hals, wake up.”
Her head only lolled to the side onto his arm. Too cold. If he’d had the blanket from his hover, he could’ve made her warm again. He didn’t have it. He didn’t have anything.
He couldn’t fix this.
He hugged her to his chest and wept tears so hot, so heavy, he was going to drown in them. He pressed his forehead to hers.
“Sorry,” he rambled, rocking back and forth. Half trying to rouse her, half afraid to break her in more ways than he already had. “I’m sorry, I’m…please?” She hated when he was rude, always had, couldn’t stand it when he acted like an entitledhelviter… “Sorry, please, Hallie. Please wake up.”
Please, not her. Take me. Take my very soul—some of it, half of it, all of it. I don’t blasting care.
He pressed her hand to his lips, kissing the ring he’d given her—the metal warm, as if stolen from her, his tears spilling over her too-cold fingers, and his blood dripping onto the band. Her blood from some unknown cut on her hand mixed with his. If his uncle could give his soul to cold, dead metal, why couldn’t Kase give his to Hallie? He didn’t care what it did to him. He’d go to the gallows for her. He’d doanything.
Please.
The fire wall surrounding them shattered into a million tiny dust particles.
“Kase!” someone yelled, trying to tug him away from her, but he resisted. He would not let her go. He would never let her go. “Kase! Let Navara help!”
Someone wrenched his arms away from Hallie, but she didn’t fall; she slumped against another arm, one that guided her out of his lap. He fought with all his might, screaming or sobbing her name, he couldn’t tell which—but he was too weak. He couldn’t see clearly through the tears. Her weight was gone. It was too cold without her in his arms. They couldn’t take her. He had to keep her warm.
“You didn’t mean to. It was Jagamot. You didn’t mean to,” chanted Skibs in his ear. He, too, couldn’t control his emotions. Tears choked his own words as he held Kase back.
The golden light flashing in front of his eyes helped clear them enough so he could see the woman before him. Her mostly dark hair had come free, flowing down her back. She was bloody all over, and her arm was missing below the elbow, but she’d survived. Navara threw dust over Hallie, singing an almost familiar song. She was trying to save Hallie the way Kase could not. Trying to undo what Kase had done.
He’d done it. He’d killed her.
Those werehisfingerprints on her neck.
He’d been fighting the invisible darkness. He’d won, but the cost had been too high.
Not her. Please.
