Chapter 2 #2
It was happening again. That moment you see the world tilt and can’t reach fast enough to keep something horrible from happening. Time didn’t slow, it shattered.
Reyla twisted and dove toward the ground.
Prager's magic struck her again, hitting her in the back as she fell. The impact lit up the whole field. I felt Reyla’s cry before I heard it.
My knees buckled as I scrambled to reach her. Flit. I should’ve flitted to her. Why had I forgotten that this magic could make a difference?
The force of Prager’s power knocked Reyla across the ground. Her body seized, and her spine arched. As I reached her, magic rippled up her torso and burst out of her chest in a blinding arc.
Everything slowed. My ears rang with the echo of her scream.
When she stopped tumbling, when she finally stilled, she didn’t make another sound. She did not move.
What if freedom meant outliving her? What if all the talismans, the vows, the victories, only led me to her empty throne? I didn’t survive the labyrinth to walk out into a world where she wasn’t by my side.
My vision stuttered as I collapsed beside her in the grass. She wasn't moving. Was she breathing?
Something inside me cracked so violently I dropped her knife, the one she'd given me to use for defense.
“No,” I growled. “Fucking no.”
Twisting, I flung everything I had at Prager. Every. Damn. Thing.
I called wind, binding it with fire and metal, dragging the copper taste of blood from the breeze and forging blades from it as well.
I hurled them at the wizard, fire scorching along the rim of my boiling mass.
The ground beneath her feet tore open as I yanked stone from under the grass.
Dorion's power surged with mine, his hands alight, flames condensing into violent threads that spun out like whips and lashed across the wizard’s body.
Our combined strike should’ve been enough to punch holes in the sky.
Prager staggered backward, her breath hitching. Blood spilled from one nostril. She’d tried to pull magic together, but Reyla’s final strike had left her brittle.
With a groan, she fell, hitting the ground with a wet thud.
Ignoring her, I reached for Reyla.
She lay face down, unmoving, her fingers curled around the grass. A gaping wound tore through her mid-back, magic-burnt and rimmed with black. Her breathing was shallow. Too. Fucking. Shallow. Her chin rested crookedly in the grass.
“Stay with me, Reyla,” I whispered, my voice breaking through her name.
I rolled her gently, cradling her up into my arms, my hands slipping on the warm slick of her blood. With a gut-wrenching cry I did all I could to hold her form together with my will alone. I infused healing magic into her. Again.
Her head lolled, dropping against my chest, the same way she did when I held her, and she knew she could trust me to keep her safe.
Why hadn’t I kept her safe?
I didn’t care what spell it was. I grabbed onto power and pushed it into her. Save her. Save her, please.
I wanted to latch onto something, but the truth was unraveling in my arms. I searched her face to find a switch, some crack in the world where I could reach in and pull her soul back.
Was she breathing? I couldn’t tell if she was breathing.
She couldn’t be gone. Not my wildfire. I hadn’t told her I loved her enough, not even close. I needed to tell her that everything I was tilted toward her, that no throne or glory, no future or fire, meant anything without her.
I'd failed the only person who mattered.
She didn’t open her eyes. If I had been stronger, faster, she’d be with me now. If only I could go back and redo this. I’d give my life for hers.
“Come back, love,” I rasped. “Wake up. You have to.”
A small gasp shot from her mouth, a bare gust of air. Then nothing.
I could not breathe.
Her face slackened. Her lashes fluttered, but her eyes remained closed.
I felt her slipping away. More power. I sent it into her. “Heal her, damn you. Heal her!”
I pressed my forehead against hers. I needed her here. Please, please. This world needed her, and she was being torn away, slipping through my fingers like light fading behind dark clouds.
All I could hear was her laughter when we sat on the tower roof. I’d wrapped her in my arms while the stars flooded the sky above. We’d shared our lives and…I needed to share more. So much more.
Dancing after her coronation. The glow of happiness on her face. The weight of the crown on her head. The trust in her eyes.
Her voice so achingly hopeful when she told me we'd one day have a daughter. She’d believed, and because she could, I’d started to believe too.
Was she pregnant now? That question gutted me. I didn’t know the answer. I’d never know if she didn’t open her eyes.
I choked out one breath after another, breathing for us both, rocking her in my arms.
Her hand twitched, grazing my chest. Like she was trying to drag herself away from the fates to reassure me one last time.
That one twitch meant more than any promise ever spoken. She’d always reached for me. Even when she was furious and even when she couldn't speak, her soul knew mine. Was this her fighting to stay? Or was this her goodbye, spoken so softly it would break me with one blow?
Her head lolled, her lips moving, but no sound coming out. Her pulse barely ticked under my fingers.
I looked toward where Prager had fallen, tried to see through the smear of tears. Her body lay still. Slumped. Blood spread out beneath her like a second gown. Dorion hadn't moved. He’d remained where he'd made his last strike, watching her, his arms half-raised to strike if she rose again.
Farris paced near Reyla’s feet, sniffing, pawing at her boots as if some instinct told him it wasn’t over.
My elemental magic still clung to the air, threads of scorched metal and wind spinning clouds of ash and cracked earth. I let it go with a whoosh.
I cradled Reyla closer, gently. If I held her wrong, I might break her more than she already was. Her blood soaked into my shirt. Hot. Too hot. I didn’t know if it was pain or panic thundering behind my eyes.
I bent forward to speak in her ear. “You stay with me, Wildfire. Do you hear me? Don’t leave me. Not now. Evermore, Wildfire. We’re supposed to have evermore. I love you. Please.”
She didn’t answer.
I always thought there would be time. More nights. More stolen escapes. She was the rhythm that steadied me, the reason I could stand in a storm and not drown.
Now she was here in my arms, all of that slipping away.
Her hand twitched against my chest again. A thread. A flicker. It shattered me.
I saw her leaning against the ship’s railing, sea wind twisting through her hair. I hadn’t said a word, just watched her. She’d smiled, full of some secret that was only half-mine.
“I can fix this,” I cried out, sending more healing magic into her, though it didn’t seem to be making a difference. Part of Prager’s spell or what the labyrinth had claimed as its due? Well, damn her, damn the labyrinth.
Damn me for not doing enough.
What good was magic if it couldn’t keep her breathing?
“I love you, Reyla. Please.” If her soul hovered in the in-between, I begged it to look back.
To see me wrecked and undone and choosing her through the ruin.
Whoever guarded the veil, the gods, fates, or the ancients, I didn’t care.
Let them see me now, on my knees, offering every piece of myself as payment for whatever debt she had due.
“I’ll find a way,” I swore into her hair. “Even if I have to climb into the underworld and drag you back with my bare hands.”
I bowed my head and screamed.
Grief like this shattered everything. It didn’t feel survivable.
If I could trade it all, my name, my power, and every thread of legacy, I would. Just bring her back.
“I need you,” I rasped. “So much, Wildfire.”
Maybe that was Reyla's secret. She’d known we wouldn’t have evermore, and she’d still chosen to love me. Hard, fast, and without restraint. She’d burned herself down so I could rise.
I would give her anything, but I’d never believed I was enough to be the one thing she chose to keep.
“Fuck the world for taking you.”
The night stretched quiet and endless around me.
My arms ached from holding her.
I would never let go.