Chapter 3
The afternoon waned. Her father’s condition worsened. He was in pain as he coughed up blood.
Serena sat beside him, her gut clenched with worry.
Her sister paced the short length of the cabin outside his bedroom door.
Her footsteps shuffled in a rhythmic way that started to grate on Serena’s nerves.
But Maris did not know how to deal with this sort of thing.
She was never good with the sick or the injured.
She preferred to hide and let Serena deal with it.
When their mother died, she did the same.
Serena had always been the strong one. The one to see after everyone. The one to take care of Maris and her father. She worked the herb garden. She hunted for pelts to trade. She baked the bread and did everything she could to keep food on the table.
And now she had made a sacrifice to keep them in their home. She’d paid the taxman. She’d helped the others in the village.
But now that the end was near for her father, a sense of helplessness shifted through her. He was so sick, and he was dying. There had to be something she could do.
There was something she could do.
Her body stilled as she sat up ramrod straight in the chair, her hands clasped in her lap as the thought shifted through her mind. Dare she? Should she? Could she?
She had to. It was the only way to save him.
She shoved up from the chair. Her father coughed again. She held the kerchief to his mouth. It came away speckled with blood, sending a stabbing pain right to her heart. She was unwilling to lose her father, too.
She reached for the cup of water on the side table and helped him take a sip.
“You’re going to be all right, Papa,” she murmured.
His eyes fluttered closed as he leaned back into the pillows, as though it were an effort. He released a shuddering breath between his dry, cracked lips.
She hated seeing him this way. She leaned down, kissed his forehead. One last look at him and then she turned away. Maris stopped her incessant pacing as Serena barreled out of the room and grabbed her cloak off the hook by the door.
“Where are you going?” Panic laced her sister’s voice.
“To fetch the doctor,” she lied. “I’ll be back. Watch over him.”
A choked sob escaped her. “Serena, I can’t—” Her breath hitched, her voice rising in dread.
She turned to her and gripped her by the arms, giving her a little shake. “You can. Stay here with him. He needs you. Do not leave his side. Do you promise?”
Maris chewed on her lower lip. Her glassy eyes were wide and shimmery.
“Promise?” Serena demanded.
Her sister nodded. “I promise.”
“I’ll be back soon.”
Serena was out the door before Maris could reply. She knew her sister did not want to be there alone when—if—their father passed. But she had no choice.
There was only one person who could help.
The girl returned. He sensed her long before he saw her.
Why had she come back?
Certainly not for another wish. He could not grant her another. Could not take another piece of her. Though he knew if he granted her wish, the price would have to be paid. And he would have no choice.
He was bound to obey the laws of magic, no matter how he felt about it. Or her.
She crested the hill, her feet swift on the footpath. She carried a lantern in the gloaming, the pale light flickering across her face, splashing in slashes across her worn clothes and scuffed boots.
The hood on her threadbare cloak fell back, revealing her halo of auburn hair in the faint light. She halted the moment she saw him standing by the well.
Her blue eyes went wide. Her mouth formed a silent O as she stifled a gasp. She did not expect to see him there. Waiting for her.
Hoping to see her once again.
“You,” she breathed. Her breath plumed white in the chilly air. “You’re here.”
He wanted to tell her to go back home. To leave him in this place, leave him with his solitude and his loneliness. And yet, here she was with her wide eyes full of hope. Hope she knew he could give her.
For a price.
“I am,” he said, his voice quiet in the night. Though he tried to refuse the burning magic within him, he added, “What is your wish?”
“You know I came for another?” She held up the lantern and moved closer, the light bathing her features in a soft glow.
Gods, she was beautiful.
Her face was delicate. High cheekbones. Full lips. Wide eyes fringed in dark lashes. Hair the color of spun silk pulled back at the nape and tied with a faded ribbon. Pale freckles dotted her nose and upper cheeks.
He wanted to refuse her. He knew he could not.
And he would regret taking another part of her if she made another wish.
“It is the only reason for your return, is it not?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Yes, of course. I wish—”
“What did you do with the gold?” he interrupted, though he wasn’t sure why he asked.
He wasn’t ready for her to make her wish, to take another little piece of her. He wanted her to remain a moment longer, as herself. Looking at him with those bright, blue eyes full of hope. If only to assuage the hollowness burning in his chest.
He’d given her more than enough gold as a test. To see if she would squander it away on herself.
To see if she was selfish like others. But she hadn’t, had she?
Judging by her appearance, she had not. She still wore the scuffed, worn boots and the threadbare cloak.
Her face was pale, thin, gaunt. As though she had not had a proper meal in days.
So, what, then did she do with the extra gold he’d spun for her?
She blinked in surprise, taken aback by his abrupt question. “The gold?”
The magic inside him allowed him to only grant wishes, not question the wisher. Though with her arrival, something had shifted inside him. As though her presence cracked the surface and her vibrancy slowly seeped through.
He nodded. “It was more than enough, wasn’t it?”
She flushed, her face going pale as she looked away. “I…I paid the taxman.”
But he sensed she concealed something. The magic deep inside him shifted, cold tendrils reaching for the truth. “And?”
“For my family and…” She tugged her lower lip through her teeth. “Others.”
“Others?” His brows rose. Shock rolled through him.
She kept her gaze downcast. “I paid for another family so they could keep their home.”
Color bloomed high in her cheeks at her admission, as though she were afraid to tell him the truth.
He gaped at her. She had used the extra not for herself, but for others in need.
A piece of the magic inside him fractured a little more as guilt wracked him for taking her precious memory of her mother.
This was most unexpected.
And now she stood before him with another request. Not for herself, he’d wager. Though the magic within him would not allow him to refuse, the compassionate side of him wanted to tell her to go home.
A knot formed in his gut. His throat constricted. Try as he might, he was unable to stop from saying the words.
“What is your wish, Serena Windriver?”
She lifted her imploring gaze back to his. The lantern lit her face with hope. “My father. He’s sick. Dying. Can you help him?”
Magic stirred within him. Ready to collect. “Of course, I can help him. What ails him?”
“When he coughs, there is blood,” she said.
If he did not grant her wish, then her father would surely die. How could he refuse? “Speak the words and it will be done.”
A pang of sorrow went through him. Because of what he would do to her when she said the words. That human part of him that barely existed. That he thought long dead. But there it was—alive. Surfacing. Becoming.
Because of her. Because he hated the price he’d have to collect from her.
“I wish for you to save my father. Please.” As she said it, she clutched the lantern tighter in her hand, her knuckles leeched of color. As though she were afraid he would refuse.
He would not refuse.
“And so it will be done.”
He removed his gloves, placing them aside on the crumbling stone, and lifted his hands to the Well. As before, light danced upward, swirling and curling around his fingers.
The runes carved along his skin from the cursed magic pulsed in their bright golden glow. The magic was stirring, creating, becoming deep inside him. And every time he chanted the words and brought it forth, it sent a searing pain through him.
Shimmering threads looped through his fingers as he thought of the girl’s father lying sick and dying in his bed.
Apprehension pulsed from Serena as she waited and watched him create the magic that would allow him to live.
As the light danced up from the Well and it swirled about, it formed a glass bottle.
Inside, the golden light shimmered and sparkled, danced and swayed, filling up the small bottle to the curve of its neck with its thick golden fluid. Then a cork sealed it.
And the magic finished.
He extended the bottle to her, his hand steady but his heart stuttering.
She hesitated, peering at it with doubt clouding her eyes. “What…is that?”
“An elixir. He drinks it,” he said.
“And when he does, he’s…cured?”
He nodded, watching and hoping she would not take it. She would not accept the magical gift and he would not have to take another piece of her.
But she reached for it. She slipped it from his hand, their fingers brushing for the briefest of moments, she likely didn’t notice. But he did, and the touch burned through him, cutting him to the core.
Years had passed since he touched another.
And now, he’d touched her.
And everything had changed.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice rough with emotion.
As she turned away from him, the light from her lantern splashed along the ground. He closed his eyes and claimed the magical price.