Chapter 36 #2
“Kill him quickly,” I thought, as Varro’s Siren Song suffocated him from within.
Just as I hoped I’d seen the last of the convulsions, Zarif’s spirit sprung forth from the dying body and rushed straight toward…
me. I retreated quickly, preparing my wings to take flight, but the specter closed the distance between us with unnatural speed.
I shrank back in preparation for impact when, suddenly, Trace intercepted Zarif’s form, causing the two to collide.
Immediately, Trace’s body plummeted to the ground.
Without hesitation, Varro turned his Siren Song toward Trace in an attempt to restrain him.
Trace’s body writhed on the deck, convulsing.
In an instant, I was by Trace’s side, assessing him as his body seized violently against the floor.
His hazel eyes were gone, replaced by blue and brown.
His gaze was absent any recognition, and his teeth ground back and forth as spittle foamed at the corner of his lips.
“You’re hurting him!” I yelled at my mate, helpless to what I was witnessing.
Varro walked closer, still exerting the full force of his power.
“I can’t let up or he’ll escape!”
“But you’re killing him!” I pleaded.
Varro argued back, “What would you have me do?”
I grabbed Trace’s hand in mine, unsure if the male I knew was even still inside this body. He yanked and tugged against my grasp as Varro struggled to suppress him.
Zarif’s form tremored in and out of Trace’s body, appearing for a split-second before being pulled back inside.
Each time it hovered above his body, Zarif’s raspy voice screamed violently, clamoring to be freed.
I feared what would happen if he did escape; would he possess me next? Would anything be left of Trace?
That’s when I saw Trace mouthing words between Zarif’s untamed noises. I leaned in closer, afraid that if I got too close, I would be Zarif’s next victim. I knew of no magic in my arsenal to end this. Tears pooled and clung to Trace’s lashes as he succumbed to the pain.
“Do.”
Snarls and monstrous noises erupted from Zarif’s spirit, trying desperately to escape.
“It.”
“Do it,” Trace repeated. “Do it.”
Again, and again, he repeated those two words. Only those words.
My mental shields had been obliterated; Varro heard every rampant thought spinning through my mind in that moment.
I looked up at him, tears now welling in my eyes, knowing he was preparing himself for this burden.
Before I let him consider it for even a moment longer, I yelled down the bond, “Noooo!” forcing him to hesitate, forcing one brief moment of distraction.
Long enough for me to draw my own dagger and jam it into Trace’s ribs, directly below his heart.
The convulsing quickly came to an end as we both witnessed Zarif’s transparent spirit roll out of Trace’s limp body.
It curled on its side into the fetal position, facing away from us, clutching its chest before taking on its Fae form again.
The pallor of Zarif’s skin, now grey, was mostly flesh and bone.
A feeble body that had once possessed such rare and destructive magic.
Varro ran over to the corpse, ensuring he was good and dead, while I pulled Trace’s limp body into my arms in a panic.
I slid my blade from his ribs and placed my hand over the wound, channeling all the magic left within me.
“Why isn’t he healing?” I cried to Varro, who hurried to my side and knelt on the ground.
“Place your hand on him too,” I commanded my mate. “Help me heal him.”
Trace’s eyes were hazel once more, but all the light in them had gone out. They were glassy and hollow.
When he tried to speak, red gushed from the wound and over my hand, and all that came out was a hacking, bloody cough.
“Why isn’t it working? We have to save him!” I shouted. Fae could survive a wound like this one, if healed quickly. But nothing we did was working, and I knew we were losing him.
“Stay with us,” I yelled at Trace. Furious tears falling down my cheeks. “I demand you stay.”
I held Trace’s head in my hand while the other still pressed the wound to no avail.
He rolled his head to face Varro, who looked horror-stricken that I had chosen to end things myself. His throat worked to hold back the emotion I could feel emanating through the bond.
Trace finally choked out a few bloodied words, keeping his empty stare fixated on Varro, “Gods, let me have her in the next life.”
His head lolled back toward me and I witnessed him close his eyes, leaving my face as the last thing he saw in this cursed world. And I screamed to the heavens.
“I rescind the bargain! Send him back!”
I pounded my fists on Trace’s bloody chest, yelling through tears. I watched as the last of his glamour withered away, revealing the scar his father gave him on his brow, his arms now covered in blood-red tattoos.
“Send him fucking back!”
I cradled his heavy body into my chest and began rocking back and forth, my words a mantra of nothing more than, “Forgive me, I rescind the bargain, forgive me.”
The roar of cannon fire faded into the background. My head was filled only with the ringing in my ears, and my own pleas.
In my periphery, I saw the arrival of Cairis and, finally, for the first time since the battle began, Saryn. They were surrounding Zarif’s body but well aware of the other body in my clutches just paces away.
His skin was turning cold, and I imagined this was what Nori had felt like, though I never got to hold her in those final moments.
Guilt consumed me. It was drowning me from within, and I struggled to continue my pleas to the Gods as a sob wrenched forth from my chest. I wanted to die.
I deserved to die, for all the lives I had taken that day.
For all the lives I had taken in the mines.
I felt like a curse upon this cursed place.
Trace had only died because I made him bind himself to me, to put our lives above his own.
I wouldn’t allow myself to believe he chose this.
A distinct moment of clarity struck me as I held Trace’s lifeless body, his blood soaking through my clothes: I was the one who dealt him a fate he could not fight.