Chapter 15 If I Begged
If I Begged
Of all the places life could take her, Sascia has never imagined she’d be sprawled on her bedroom floor cradling a princet from the Dark. The impossibility of it strikes her like a sucker punch, pumping panic into her veins.
Help me, Nugau rasped.
She glances around: The door is locked, thank god, and the nova-lights in her room are turned to low.
Her phone is in her pocket, but who would she call?
Danny is downstairs, and the rest of the cohort is a train-ride away.
They would rush over if Sascia asked, but what if Nugau became violent?
Sascia’s not risking anyone’s life again, not after the rightful wrath Aunt Rania just unleashed on her.
Moths swirl in a tempest around the room.
Shadows have taken on new form. Dark pools in the pockets of black beneath the furniture and in the corners of the ceiling.
It drips down the walls, a thick tar that fizzes and boils.
Bubbles pop in sickening, wet spatters. She has never seen the Dark behave like this before.
“What happened?” she whispers to the elf. “What am I supposed to do?”
At once, the moths surge in a whirlwind above her head and begin pelting Nugau’s body like pattering rain.
Sascia yelps and covers Nugau’s torso with her own.
But the moths aren’t attacking—from her new vantage point inches away from Nugau’s face, Sascia can see they are landing on the elf’s lips, on the black veins that trace down their chin and neck, then bouncing off again.
The moths are showing her.
With trembling fingers, she pushes Nugau’s silken hair away.
Her thumb skims over the bow of Nugau’s lower lip—the soft skin is slick with a black liquid that sticks to Sascia’s fingertip.
Its smell is putrid, as though Nugau is already a half-rotten thing.
Down their neck, veins protrude in stark black against their porcelain gray-blue skin.
Sascia lowers her ear to their mouth; their breaths are a rasp, slow and loud.
“You are poisoned,” Sascia realizes.
A clawed hand fastens on her wrist. She jolts but doesn’t try to pry her arm away; Nugau’s eyes are open.
The white around their irises is marbled by blue, crisscrossing outward like burst blood vessels.
For a moment, the two of them share the same air, exchanged in short, stabbing bursts, like shrapnel breaking the skin.
“Who did this to you?” Sascia asks.
The elf has to force a swallow before rasping, “We were betrayed.”
We, Sascia wonders. Other elves?
“I was trying to find you,” Nugau mutters. “But they found me instead. With their light-woven chains. Their ray-sharp arrows. Their mortars of white ash.”
Dry coughs rake their body. Spots of black stain Sascia’s T-shirt. When Nugau’s head lolls back, thick black tar is dripping from their lips. Their hand drops from her wrist, landing limp on the carpet.
They’re dying. Sascia could let death claim them and be rid of this threat once and for all.
But then what of I would not forget you?
What of An Ariadne in love with the Labyrinth itself?
Of the two Nugaus she has met, the vengeful killer and the wide-eyed visitor, which one is this? Which one would Sascia be saving?
The pressure in her chest eases. It doesn’t matter. Sascia can make no other choice than the one she’s been making all her life: she will love and protect, even if it dooms her.
Overhead, the moths are in a frenzy. The feverish beat of their wings hazes Sascia’s hearing. They land on Nugau’s body, on Sascia’s, on the carpet, then fly off again, agitation bouncing through their every move.
“Calm down,” she whispers to them, but for the first time, the moths don’t heed her orders. The swarm flurries around the room, making it hard to focus.
Hoisting with all her strength, Sascia manages to lay Nugau on her bed.
They are ridiculously tall—their feet stick off the end and their arms hang from the sides.
She crouches over them, her mind spinning.
She’s watched enough medical dramas with her sister to know the first order of business is to check the injured person’s vitals.
A clear airway is the priority. Sascia begins pulling armor pieces off, stripping the elf down to a silk chemise that sticks to their chest and arms. She turns them on their side; in seconds, their breathing eases.
Next up, diagnostics. Brushing away moths, Sascia inspects Nugau’s body, where she locates several open wounds: a deep gash at their temple, a cut on their right arm, and four round wounds at their back.
Dark blue blood is oozing from those, but the ones on their head and arm seem to be clotting, which feels like a step in the right direction.
But none of these wounds appear to be the source of the poisoning. No, the dark ooze and bulging veins originate at their mouth.
Nugau swallowed something.
Kneeling before the bed, Sascia pries the elf’s lips open.
Their teeth and gums are entirely black.
All around the room, the Dark swells into bulging orbs of black, some of them so enormous they swallow her furniture and knickknacks.
Their surface is a thin layer of sleek tar; Sascia fears that when they burst, something terrible will happen.
The moths go absolutely berserk, a tempest of black wings over her head.
Her heartbeat spikes—are they warning her or trying to stop her?
There is no way to know, no time to decide.
She eases Nugau’s jaw open and shoves her fingers into their mouth, feeling around: there’s their tongue, coated with the sticky tar, there’s the roof of their mouth, there’s—
Something is lodged at the back of Nugau’s mouth.
At her touch, the something squirms. Sascia freezes.
As one, the moths assault Sascia with their small bodies, their wings transfigured from crushed velvet into sharp gemstone.
Like all Darkcreatures do when met with a threat, the moths have gone into defense mode, hardening their skin to dispel predators.
Nicks and cuts jewel Sascia’s hands where she’s holding the elf, but she doesn’t stop.
There’s something in there. It needs to come out.
Nugau convulses, but Sascia takes hold of the back of their head, keeping them still. The bulbous masses of Dark on the walls swell even bigger. Black oozes over Sascia’s fingers, down the elf’s jaw. Her fingertips close around the body lodged in Nugau’s throat.
With a quick, decisive movement, Sascia pulls it out. At first, a clump of black sits on her palm. Then the liquid begins to melt and its form becomes clear—it’s a moth. The moth.
Its wings are tucked in, slick with tar, but its body shivers in short bursts.
The other moths have formed a cloud around her hand, pressing against Sascia’s fingers with their whetted forewings.
She reaches for an abandoned hoodie and carefully places the moth on top.
The others follow, swooping to land protectively around their injured leader.
Nugau’s mouth is still open. Liquid shadow drips from their lips onto the pillow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers to the elf as she grabs her trash can. “But it needs to come out—all of it.”
Then she sticks a finger down Nugau’s throat.
Their torso seizes as they retch into the wastebasket.
With a sickening quelch every bubble of Dark in the room pops, splattering its foul-smelling innards onto Sascia’s room.
Putrid Dark coats her skin, her bedding and carpet, her walls.
Nugau heaves while Sascia holds them and rubs their back and says inane things like there, there.
When it’s over, Sascia doesn’t realize straightaway.
Her shoulders are hunched to her ears with tension, her mind fogged with adrenaline.
The floor looks like the scene of some vile, black-blooded massacre.
It’s the elf who signals it’s over. They roll to their back, going liquid-soft.
Their swollen veins have smoothed to a dull gray.
Sascia glances around and spots her water bottle stuffed in the side pocket of her backpack. Hydration—that sounds like the easiest task right now. Her hand trembles with the aftershocks of panic as she tips the bottle over Nugau’s lips.
The first drip goes straight to the pillow, but on the second, the elf parts their lips and swallows a good mouthful, then another.
When Sascia lowers the bottle, Nugau tangles their hand in her hair.
Their violet eyes pin her to the spot.
A drum of fear builds in Sascia’s ears. She remembers their scythe posed inches from her neck. She remembers their menace, their fury. You die tonight.
The princet’s fingers knot into the short strands at the back of her neck.
Their thumb nestles in the corner of her jaw, just below her ear.
With their other hand, they take the bottle from her, swirling clear water into their mouth, and wiping their lips clean.
Their gaze is heavy-lidded, but it is on her, burning with intensity.
Their grip tugs Sascia closer. Their nostrils flare against the column of Sascia’s neck.
“Sweet,” Nugau whispers. “You always smell sweet.”
Their eyes fall on Sascia’s lips.
“You always taste sweet.”
Sascia’s mind just…flees. She has no thoughts, no reflexes, no feelings. She is a body curved over another, and every inch where her flesh meets theirs is seared with heat.
“Little gnat,” the elf whispers. “If I begged, would you kiss me? One last time?”
Before Sascia can answer one way or another, their hand drops and they slip into the dreamless black.