Chapter 8 In The Dirt #3
I meet his eyes across the distance and give a single nod. I send the message down the bond.
End it.
The bond surges suddenly, raw and violent.
Not with fear.
Resolve.
Sorren nods back as his expression shifts into something I’ve never seen before.
The careful restraint. The prince. The strategist. The part of him that waits and plans and measures consequence.
Gone.
His lip curls, baring teeth that glint sharp in the strange light. Fangs.
The pupils of his eyes elongate, as does his chin. His nose twitches. Sorren hunches down on legs that thicken. The joints bend backward. Fur sprouts across the backs of his arms. He’s caught somewhere between man and rabbit, taking the strongest parts from each and melding them together.
The creature lunges again, ice flashing toward Sorren’s throat, but my mate does not dodge.
He catches the blade.
His hand snaps shut around the frozen center of the dagger. Frost spreads across his palm and up his arm, cracking the skin open, but he does not let go. The creature tries to wrench free, and Sorren’s other hand closes around the creature’s wrist, locking it in place.
For a heartbeat, they strain there with the blade clutched between them.
Then Sorren steps in.
Not away but forward.
His free arm hooks behind the monster’s neck, dragging it down into his space. Holding it there. Controlling it as the creature bucks, trying to tear itself loose. Sorren shifts his grip and forces the monster’s head back to expose the hollow seam where a throat should be.
He drives upward. The stolen dagger punches beneath the creature’s jaw in a single brutal thrust, angled toward the crown of its skull. Sorren does not stop. He forces the blade, tears up through it.
Up.
Through.
Until the tip bursts from the back of the monster’s head.
For a moment, they remain there. Locked together.
Then the creature shudders once and dissolves into a heap of broken twigs that collapse onto the dirt and crumble into dust.
Just like the flower petal.
I don’t have a chance to celebrate.
Sorren teeters, then collapses. Blood pours from his injured side in a rush, soaking the earth beneath him. The soil ripples as it drinks him in, darkening, swallowing, as if thirsty for his death.
The bottom of my cage vanishes, and, for the second time, I’m falling.
I land in a heap next to my mate. Dirt scrapes my already ravaged hands as I claw across the ground reaching for him, but before I touch him a sound causes me to freeze.
“Nora,” my mother cries, her voice thin and threaded with agony. “Please, Nora. Help me.”
I stagger to my feet and whirl around. Mom sits on the ground a few feet away, her shoulders slumped and her head lolling.
“Mom?” I take a step toward her, dread slicing through me.
She’s worse. So much worse than the last time I saw her.
Her hair has thinned to scattered clumps that barely cling to her scalp.
Her cheeks are hollowed, her eyes sunken deep into their sockets, revealing the skeleton beneath her skin.
Her lips are cracked and peeling, split at the corners and scabbed over.
“Mom! What happened? How are you here?”
“It brought me,” she whispers, and begins to cry, small, broken sobs that tear out of my throat. “The egg that is not an egg at all. It hurts, Nora. It hurts so bad. Everywhere.”
I lift my foot to run to her.
“Nora, help me.”
Sorren’s voice is ragged behind me.
I turn.
The blood beneath him has spread far beyond his body now. It’s no longer a pool but a widening slick, thick and black at its center. Steadily, it creeps outward.
“Please,” he croaks. “I’m dying.”
“You request Thornreaper, Heir’s Mate,” says the voice.
Light explodes around us, blinding, searing white. I throw up my arm to shield my eyes and scream. My mother and Sorren scream with me. Our combined cry rips through the air.
When my vision clears, a sword stands planted before me.
Its tip is buried deep in the earth, its hilt rising toward the sky.
The blade is the burnished bronze of old copper, mottled with veins of green patina.
Lichen clings to it in delicate patches, as if it has grown from the forest floor rather than been forged.
The hilt is carved with winding leaves and branches. Flowers bloom along the guard.
Around the grip…thorns. Thousands of them. Tiny, curved, vicious things. They jut outward like the ribs of a living thing. Like teeth sharpened to a point.
No hand could close around that hilt without being torn open.
But maybe that’s the point of it. That to take blood with this blade you must give some of your own?
The sword makes a humming sound. Not loudly or dramatically. Just a low, living vibration. Like blood rushing through veins or air whispering through lungs.
The voice of the Egg returns, no longer booming. Now it whispers directly inside my skull. “Thornreaper demands sacrifice.”
I stare at the weapon. Thorns glint in the strange light. Not metal exactly. Not plant either. Something in between.
Behind me Sorren chokes. “Nora…” His voice breaks into a cough. Wet. Weak.
In front of me my mother sobs, clutching her chest. “It hurts, baby. Please.”
I step toward the sword. The thorns twitch, eager for my blood. They’re alive. My fingers hover inches from the hilt.
“You may heal one,” the voice says softly. “But only by ending the other.”
My breath catches. Tears spring to my eyes.
“No,” I whisper.
“Yes,” says the voice. “In nature there must be balance.”
The blade shifts. The patina gleams like old blood.
“To save the Heir, you must sever the one who gave you life.”
Mother.
“To save the mother, you must end the one who bonds you with love.”
Sorren.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t…choose.
Behind me, Sorren coughs again, and the sound is thinner this time. Slowly fading.
Mother whimpers from the other side. Gives out a soft, broken sob.
“Please,” I whisper as the first tear tracks down my cheek.
“Don’t let me die,” cries Mom. “I’m scared, honey. We already lost your dad. If I go, you’ll be all alone. Who will care for you when I’m gone?”
“Me,” answers Sorren. “I’ll watch over you. Choose me so I can protect you. So we can save the kingdom. Save me and you save thousands. Hundreds of thousands.”
My head swivels, first to one and then back to the other.
That’s when I realize, this trial isn’t about strength. It’s about allegiance.
Family or fate.
Past or future.
Human or heir.
My heart pounds so violently I feel it in my throat. In my jaw. In my temples.
The choice is impossible. How could I ever live with it? Choosing one over the other?
“Please, Nora,” Sorren begs from my right. “We’re fate bound. Meant to be. Each other’s destiny. I will cherish you. Love you for eternity. Pick me and you never have to be alone.”
“He lies to you,” Mom says, pointing a shaking finger at Sorren. “He’s not one of us. He’s a trickster. Not even human. Stay with me, Nora. This is the miracle you’ve been praying for. A chance to save me. Take it now. I’m begging you.”
My heart clenches at that because she’s right.
So many nights I’ve laid awake, listening to her dry cough down the hallway, to her vomiting from chemo.
I’ve prayed for divine intervention. Brokered my own soul.
Anything to spare her. Maybe that’s what this whole journey has been about?
Not for me to find love? But to save my mother?
“Nora,” says Sorren.
“Nora,” says Mom.
I step forward. To the sword. The thorns pierce my palm the moment I grasp it. White-hot pain explodes up my arm, and I cry out but don’t let go. Blood runs down the blade, coating the copper surface. The sword vibrates harder as if my blood feeds it, powers it.
“Do you choose your lover,” the voice says. “Or your mother?”
“I choose truth,” I grit out as I lift the blade. It’s heavy. My muscles strain and shake.
I turn and drive the blade forward. Into my mother’s chest where red blossoms like the ugliest flower. She collapses. Boneless. Lifeless.
Then I spin and, with a single slice, draw the blade across Sorren’s neck. His skin splits like a second mouth, grinning as he dies. His body sways once. Then falls.
For a full minute, I stand there.
The blood of my mother, Sorren, and me mingles at the tip of the blade, dripping in slow, rhythmic taps to the earth below.
I wait for the illusion to dissolve. For the lights to blaze on and the audience to clap. To tell me I was so clever for figuring it out. That I solved the riddle. That this was the only way.
One minute passes.
Then two.
Nothing changes.
Blood crawls across the ground, warm and relentless, spreading until it kisses my feet.
The blood of my beloved.
My kin.
I look from one body to the other. Sorren’s green eyes stare at nothing. My mother’s are glassy and vacant. No chest rises. No fingers twitch. No miracle comes. Nothing moves.
What have I done?
What have I done?
Was I fooled?
Have I willingly destroyed everything good in my life?
A sob tears out of me, and I crumple to my knees. The sword slips from my blood-slick hands, hitting the ground with a dull, final thud. I drag those stained hands over my face, smearing warmth, my own blood, across my skin, as if I can hide from what I’ve done.
“That’s it,” says the voice. “There’s no one left to love you.”
I cry harder.
The voice circles me. Soft. Intimate. Cruel. “You built your entire existence on being indispensable,” it murmurs. “You mistake usefulness for love.”
My hands tremble where they press against my face. Blood slicks between my fingers. Mixes with my tears.
“I don’t,” I whisper.
“You do.”
The dead stay dead. Nothing moves in the circle besides the ragged rise and fall of my chest.
“You were never chosen,” the voice continues. “You inserted yourself. Filled gaps. Patched wounds. Stayed late. Came home. Picked up broken things.”
It laughs gently.
“You thought if you made yourself necessary enough, no one could abandon you.”