Chapter 11 Silence Between Heartbeats
Koa
“I’d like to go home now, please,” Seri whispered just before the world folded, crumpled like paper in a giant’s fist.
My body stretched in too many directions. For one breathless moment, I was crushed and weightless at once, my cells scattered across dimensions I was never meant to feel. This wasn’t one of Seri’s clean moonlight paths. No, it was something oil-slick and ravenous that gnawed at the marrow of me.
My stomach lurched as reality snapped back into place, and I fought to orient myself as the world settled. We were back at Evermere, sprawled on the patio under the wisteria.
She’d brought us home. Across hundreds of miles. Damn near took us in the back door.
“Am I dead?” Zane groaned with a splash from somewhere nearby. “I feel dead.”
“If you were dead, you’d be quieter,” I muttered, pushing myself up on my elbows.
My gaze snapped to Seri. She lay porcelain-still in Casimir’s arms, her chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths. Her skin had gone ash-gray, her lips nearly blue.
“Night’s teeth!” Zane hauled himself from the koi pond, water streaming from his coveralls. Making a whooshing gesture with his hands, he crowed, “You just ninja-ed us right the fuck outta there, sugar booger!”
My focus was on our beloved, though. This was how we’d found her that first day, minus the bruises. Drained, pale, limp, her skin ice-cold beneath my fingers as I reached for her wrist.
“Serafina?” I whispered.
Casimir had already shifted into crisis mode, assessing her, checking pulse, breathing, pupils.
“What’s wrong?” he muttered. “She hasn’t fainted from shadow walking since her magic replenished!”
All my life, I was aware of the ?aumākua, but they had never acted as directly as they did right then, and I suddenly saw dark veins of something wrong, something hungry, threading through Seri’s silver aura.
“They’re consuming her.”
“What?” Cas snapped.
“She shadow walked through corrupted shadows. She’s—”
“Dark sick.” Cas understood at once and began barking out orders like the commander he was born to be. “Zane, get over here! Ko, carry her inside!”
I slid my arms beneath her, lifting her against my chest, and I didn’t like how light she felt.
It hit worse than any battle wound. She’d finally hit one ten last week, but now?
Now she somehow weighed less, like moonlight fighting through clouds.
I’d been terrified before in my life, but this was different.
This was my beloved suffering, and I couldn’t fight whatever was draining her.
As Zane joined us, sloshing and cursing, his eyes locked on our girl’s pallid face, and I could see he didn’t understand what was wrong.
“Think about it, Z. Those shadows had demon cores. They were tainted with Diabolical forces. They would have taken from her instead of carried her,” I explained as we ran. “She was fighting against the shadows even as she used them as a pathway.”
“Just to bring us home,” Casimir finished, his voice tight.
Bring us home? Seri had done far more than that; she’d reached into what could have destroyed her, bent it to her will through sheer determination, and wrapped it around all of us to keep us safe.
An immense wave of pride welled up inside me, unexpected and fierce enough to momentarily overshadow my fear.
Yes, I was worried about her. Yes, I hated that we’d led her into a trap.
Yes, I knew Cas was a breath away from going six kinds of sideways.
Yes, I knew Zane would insist on bombing the hell out of that place once she was stable.
But right now, in this second, my beloved was a goddess of courage and self-sacrifice.
“What are you smiling about?” Cas snapped.
“She saved us. She knew she didn’t have the strength, but she did it, anyway.”
“That’s not something to celebrate! That’s—”
“That’s our girl,” Zane said. “Breaking rules to save our asses.”
“She didn’t break rules until she had to, and when she finally did, it was in a way that broke her instead of us,” I added.
“She shouldn’t have needed to break any rules! She shouldn’t have needed to put herself in danger for us!”
That was truth, pure and harsh. We’d walked her right into a trap. The ?aumākua had tried to warn me all day, and I’d ignored it.
Never again, I promised them. I will listen next time.
Seri stirred slightly in my arms, a small sound escaping her lips, and I held her closer.
“Hang on, beloved,” I whispered. “Just hang on.”
Cas flung open the back door, and we burst into the kitchen, where Mrs. Wentzel stood prepping a leg of lamb for the oven.
One look at us and she transformed, the chef’s efficiency rivalling Cas’ as she swept everything off the kitchen island with one broad stroke of her arm, cookware and ingredients clattering to the floor.
“Put her here. What happened?”
I laid Seri down as gently as I could, my hand lingering on her cheek. Her skin felt like winter marble beneath my fingers.
“Dark sick,” Cas answered, checking Seri’s vitals again.
I didn’t even know if Mrs. Wentzel understood what that was, but her eyes narrowed. Without another word, she turned to her grandson, who’d just exited the pantry with wide, startled eyes.
“Addison, Lady Seri’s med kit,” she ordered, and the boy took off running, sneakers squeaking.
“She needs purification.” I never took my eyes off Seri’s face. “Something to neutralize whatever’s clinging to her.”
Zane had begun pacing, leaving puddles with each step, murmuring a litany of, “This is bad. This is bad. This is so fucking bad.”
“Elixir, Zane!” Cas barked. “Now.”
The command broke through Z’s spiral, as Cas knew it would.
“Which one?”
The question that launched a brief, but violent debate while Mrs. Wentzel tipped water between Seri’s lips.
“Moonlight distillate.” An obvious solution to me. “Gentle and appropriate for a lunar witch who has corrupted shadows lingering on her. Designed to purge and restore balance.”
“Too slow.” Zane shook his head. “Takes a day to work.”
“It’s gentle.” I gestured to Seri. “Look at her, Z. She’s barely holding on.”
“Which is exactly why we need something strong and fast!” His hands flew everywhere. “Wyrmwood and starlight elixir! Anti-possession and deep cleansing!”
“That shit is like drinking liquid fire,” I argued. “It’s an excruciating process that lasts an hour minimum.”
“But it purges everything,” Zane shot back. “We need to be sure!”
“It’s untested on witches,” I countered. “And it’s geared toward eliminating Dark magic, not Diabolical influences.”
“Dark magic is Diabolical!”
He had a point, and I clenched my jaw in frustration. I wanted Seri safe, but I couldn’t bear the thought of causing her more pain.
“Caladrius tincture,” Cas said in his ‘Don’t test me’ tone.
The kitchen went silent. Even Mrs. Wentzel, pure human as far as I knew, although obviously aware of the supernatural world, stopped and stared at him.
The tincture was a miracle in a bottle. A single caladrius tear mixed with several equally rare components.
Designed to purge everything harmful, heal any injuries, and forcibly reset the body’s energy.
Worked in under a minute and had no side effects, although it literally burned going down.
Worth a fortune, and we only had one of them.
“It’s going to hurt like hell, Cas!” I snapped, but Zane was already gone. “Way worse than the wyrmwood and starlight!”
“It’s fast and a guaranteed cleanse and heal.” Cas didn’t look at me, laser-focused on Seri. “And we have no margin for error.”
Zane was back before I could form another protest. In his hands, he held a tiny glass bottle containing what looked like a cloud flecked with pearl and opal.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Cas grabbed it and removed the stopper.
The scent hit me immediately: Petrichor, winter starlight, and something so pure and good, it stirred the hair on my arms.
“Hold her,” Cas ordered.
I cradled Seri’s head in my palms, tilting it back slightly.
“Hey, sweetheart.” Zane leaned down to whisper in her ear as his palm stroked her hair back. “This is gonna hurt, but only for a minute. It’s gonna make you better, baby.”
As gently as I could, I popped Seri’s jaw open with my thumbs, and Cas tipped the tincture into her mouth.
The liquid sang as it flowed, a high, clear note that resonated through the kitchen.
Zane involuntarily warbled out a few answering notes of swan song.
Any other time, I would have teased him mercilessly, but not now.
The effect was instantaneous and terrifying.
Seri’s limp body stiffened as if electrified, her back arching off the island as a fiery glow surrounded her.
Then something hissed as if water was hitting hot metal.
Shadows stinking of Dark magic writhed off her skin like smoke escaping a fire, twisting and dissipating in the air.
“Night’s moon-damned teeth and bat’s fang-rotted bones!” Zane shouted, taking a step back.
“Sanguine mortis,” Cas breathed.
“Cruor,” I mumbled, still holding her head.
“Fucking hell.” Mrs. Wentzel’s eyes darted around as if she couldn’t quite see the shadows, but sensed their presence.
And Seri gasped, a desperate inhale as if she’d been drowning and finally broke the surface, although her eyes remained closed.
Just then, Addison raced into the kitchen, the wheels of Seri’s med kit skidding across the marble floor as he dragged it along behind him.
Brumous trotted at his heels, tail wagging slightly as he scented his people.
When the wolf saw us gathered around Seri, he let out a curious whine, but then his eyes locked on the dissolving shadows.
Attack mode engaged in his fractured brain.
Using Zane’s back as a springboard, he launched himself at the shadows with a subsonic growl that rattled the pans in the cupboards.