Chapter 56
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
MORGANA
I woke with a jolt. It ricocheted through me, the venom lacing my veins and making me scream out into the open air. Only my voice echoed far too loudly to be inside the castle, or locked within a cell. I blinked past the blur, seeing endless night skies and a canopy of trees. My body broke out into chills the second the air hit my skin and I sat upright, my focus lurching to my wrists.
The blood had dried, so much of it as if I’d been sliced with blades and not bitten by vampiric monsters. I choked on a sob and twisted around, my entire body freezing when I saw Aster lying face down next to me.
I slowly reached over to him, halfway expecting his body to be cold. To see his lips blue and eyes sunken in as death took hold of him. But when my fingers wrapped around his forearm, he was still warm. I could still feel his heartbeat in his wrist. I choked on yet another sob, forcing him onto his back so I could see his face. His stupidly beautiful face that I hated. I hated, I hated, I hated?—
Yet, seeing him still, face down in the dirt upon waking invoked this terror. This deeply rooted fear that I’d lost him.
With this fear, I started to cry. I smacked him in the chest in hopes he’d wake. The tears dripped off my jaw, onto my hands, and I shook him. He didn’t move—and, for the first time, the dark markings on his one exposed hand were still too. I sniffled and backed away slowly, turning all around to catch a glimpse of anything that hinted at civilization.
But we were in an infinite night, rows and rows of trees surrounding us.
I shivered, hugging my torso before standing and stumbling off to get enough wood for a fire. It took minutes, but it felt like hours as every bone in my body screamed. I’d hardly fought much of anything, but it was as if I’d lost a battle. A war, rather. The incisions on my wrist stung too—stung like nothing I’d ever felt.
Once I’d gotten the fire started, I pulled Aster’s body through the dirt so he was closer to it. Then I sat, rubbing at the dried blood so my skin was free of it, and stared at the fire until my tears dried.
Aster didn’t move all night. I couldn’t stop watching him, afraid he wouldn’t wake up. I was frozen, unable to move, unable to sleep, unable to escape the feeling that something had changed. That the darkness within him had seeped in too deep. I reached for him, my fingers grazing his collarbone before I recoiled. I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t lose him. But I shouldn’t have given a damn.
“Aster,” I whispered, shaking him gently. “Aster, wake up.”
The name passed through the air like a plea. Slowly, the markings that swirled in the center of his chest lifted after my touch. My eyes widened, the tip of my tongue going dry at the sight. I moved my finger to hover over it, this warmth bleeding from me and swirling around his cold embrace. The aching, the stinging, the despair, it vanished—and new, clean energy coursed through me, into him.
And he gasped. His eyes shot open, this dark ichor spewing from his mouth as if he’d been bleeding the blood of the gods. He rolled onto his side and spat it up onto the grass. All the while, the tips of my fingers turned the color of charcoal. I lifted a shaky hand, watching the rot slowly dissipate until it was an afterthought.
He coughed wildly. The black goo that spilled from his mouth was thick, and the grass sizzled as it coated the individual blades. Reality hit me like a war horse and I grabbed him to help him sit up. “Aster, Aster,” I whispered, “I thought I’d lost you.”
“What… what did you do?” he wheezed and clutched his chest. He looked down at the markings that had once been still during his rest and were now breathing across his skin in ways I’d grown accustomed to. “How did you break me of t-that slumber?”
I blinked at him, my voice a raspy whisper. “I don’t—well, I don’t know. It just—” I paused, clearing my throat to try and bring forth the semblance of confidence. “I tried to shake you awake. The markings on your chest lifted off your skin, and when I touched them, you woke.”
Aster had grown silent, his eyes wide and set on me. “Do you realize what you’ve just done?”
I sputtered for my words. Aster twisted onto his knees and continued when my confusion did not cease.
“When I go too long ignoring my darkness, it taunts me. Harms me. It reminds me what it is owed. When I use too much of it, mind you—whether it is murder, or violence, or merely chaos for chaos’ sake. It consumes me. I lose who I am, and I plummet into this stasis that only I can break.”
“Okay? So you broke it. It was a mere coincidence?—”
“ No, I did not,” he said and grabbed hold of my wrists. He twisted my palms so they were facing the sky, studying the remnants of the rot that had slowly consumed my fingers. He was panting at this point, rubbing a finger across the ashen discoloration. “Morgana, you are?—”
“What is it?” I whispered, my head spinning. “Aster. What is it?”
He lifted his focus to me, a tear slipping down his cheek. “You are more than just part of my cure, little dove. You are my salvation.”
“Aster—”
“But the cost is too grave.”
“W-what do you mean ?” I all but wept, snatching my hands and holding them over my chest. My entire body was trembling. “What is the cost?”
Aster shook his head, his lip trembling. “You have the power to end this all.”
“I am not your answer, Prince Aster?—”
“But it comes at a sacrifice.”
My mouth snapped shut, and he cursed so loudly that some of the birds flocked from their nests. He jumped to his feet and started pacing, pulling the hair from his scalp. He was muttering that he was a fool, over and over and over, until he twisted toward me and collapsed to his knees so he was at my level once more.
“To save a life, I must take a life.”
I shook my head wildly, my vision turning to stars.
“To save me. To end this curse. To end Vespera’s pursuit of our world, it is more than the wretched mirror, or the ring that I doubt even exists anymore. Morgana, to save everything …”
“ No . No, this is a mistake. I didn’t even have magic before I met you?—”
“… you will have to die.”