32. Chapter 32
32
Zara
W e hit stone and freezing cold air swallowed my face and shoulders. Cas moaned and rolled to his elbows. I scrambled to my feet, blinking to clear my head and steel myself against the discomfort of my throbbing headache and dully aching leg. “What do you need?”
“In…side.”
I grabbed his shoulders and hauled him the rest of the way through the door, my spike of adrenaline the only thing keeping me going. When his feet passed through the strange doorway, it vanished, depositing us on a windy balcony outside of Nightsong. The starry sky was black, with no hints of daylight in the east or west, and I had no idea how long I’d slept in the sunlight on the other side of that magical door.
This time, oddly enough, I was relieved to be returning to the shadow palace once more. Taking hold of his booted feet, I swiveled him around and pulled. He scraped across the balcony’s rough stone floor.
“Ow,” he moaned, reaching up for his head. “What are you trying to do to me?” His arm was solid black all the way to his elbow.
“I’m trying to help you.” I stood and planted my hands on my hips. “But you’re too heavy.” I was exhausted, but he’d helped me when I’d needed it.
He curled around on himself. His skin was so black now that he looked like he was turning into shadow.
“Help me stand,” he said.
I curled my arm under his and heaved upward. It was little use. With a few heavy breaths, I pulled him into a seated position and then shifted my weight so that I was somewhat under his shoulder. From there, I pushed myself up as he shuffled to get his feet underneath him. He was thin but strong and currently so limp it felt like I was lifting an unconscious racehorse. One of his inky black hands steadied himself along the rock wall behind my head.
“Can you take a step?”
He shuffled one foot forward.
“Good. Okay, another one.”
A few laborious steps got us to the door, and after another two, we were inside his room.
I peered toward his study through the archway across from us, remembering walking through a magical door in his study the night he’d grabbed me from the waters. But instead of the carved doorway that had been on the wall the last time I was in here, I saw only a burned black scar on the stone wall.
His bedroom was large but not vast, and his massive bed lay in an alcove along the wall to the right. I wondered if he could feel my heart beating against him as I led him toward the bed. That seemed like the most logical place for him in this state, though the thought of him lying in bed in a room that I was also in made my skin tingle.
As I leaned forward to push him onto the bed, I stumbled. My hips crashed into the mattress, and he tipped onto the soft blankets. I backed away quickly, but his hand grabbed mine before I was too far to reach.
“No,” he said. He rolled so that he could see me, my hand still gripped in his. “I need you to get something. The antidote.”
I could barely hear him over the sound of my own heart beating.
“In the other room. Small bottle. Clear. Top shelf.” As I stepped away, he tightened the grip on my hand. “No, wait. It’s on my desk.” Then he dropped my hand, and I raced toward the archway that led into his study.
I glanced at the place Ariana’s unconscious body had lain as I rushed to his messy desk. Half full bottles, some corked, others not, littered the space atop books and loose papers. One book had a vial crammed inside, possibly functioning as a bookmark, and another had only the sleeve of a white shirt draped through it. The rest of the shirt was wadded up at the edge of the desk, and it had clearly been used as an inkblot at some point.
“Stars above,” I said, as my hands hovered over each bottle, searching for one that was clear and small. Small must be relative, as the largest bottle was still half the size of a typical bottle of wine. Finally, I settled on grabbing two bottles, both clear, both smaller than the rest on his desk. One was full, the other half-empty.
I ran back to the bedroom. He had pulled himself fully onto the bed and was lying at the edge. I raced toward him and held both bottles up to his face.
“Which one? They’re both clear.” He glanced between them and grabbed the half-empty one in my right hand. I set the other one onto a small table near the bed, then wiggled the stopper out of the one he’d selected. “Do you need to sit up?” I said, instantly reaching for the back of his head to cradle it. His head was hot, feverish.
I lifted his head a little and brought the vial to his lips, barely tilting it, as I wasn’t sure how much to administer. He grabbed my hand and shoved the bottle up, taking one giant gulp. A few drips ran down his chin as he pulled the bottle away.
“Save the rest,” he said.
I crammed the stopper back in, but he didn’t let go of my hand.
His eyes locked on mine. “I’m going to need one more dose,” he muttered, his voice rough. “You’re going to have to stay.”
I shook my head. I didn’t like where this was going.
“Zara. I need you. The pain,” he inhaled sharply, wincing. “The pain has never been this intense before.”
“What’s happening to you?”
“If the lines make it to my heart,” he ground out between gritted teeth, “it’ll alert my father, and he’ll return—and he’ll kill us both for what I just did. But I can’t take too much antidote at once, or that too will kill me. Wait an hour and then give me more.”
His eyes fluttered shut, and his grip on my hand relaxed.
For a moment, I stared down at him, hoping he’d rouse and say something else—anything else. My heart trembled in my chest at his words.
I gently pulled my hand from his and set the vial beside the full one on the table. For several long seconds, I stood there, hands crammed in my messy hair, staring down at the sleeping fae prince, surprised at how badly I didn’t want him to die.
Then, I sprang into action and reached for his arm, pushing his sleeve up to examine where the black lines ended. I pushed the sleeve as far as it would go, but the lines disappeared beneath his shirt. His skin was boiling hot.
One hour. I only had to wait one hour before giving him another dose.
I wasn’t certain how I could tell when an hour had passed, so I stuck my head back out the balcony door. I marked the first colored hues of dawn and the place where the light grew stronger behind the mountain’s jagged peak. I didn’t want to administer the antidote too soon or he might die, and it would be all my fault.
But what if I waited too long and the magic—the curse—called his father home? I didn’t feel equipped to do this.
Cas had asked me to stay, so I would. He’d waited with me in the sunshine, despite how uncomfortable it must have made him. I cringed at the thought that I might have drooled on him. But hitting my forehead with my palm wasn’t going to change what had taken place in that grassy field. I would stay for one hour.
I paced the room, my arms crossed over my chest and my eyes constantly flicking to Cas’s form as he quietly breathed. But after four revolutions around the room, a new sound sent a wave of panic down my spine. His body began to twitch on the bed. First his legs moved, and then his arms and chest joined in. Awful gagging sounds issued from his mouth, and I ran toward him. I tried to turn his body onto its side so he wouldn’t choke on his saliva, but his jerking movements flopped him back down again. I ran back out to the balcony, but the light had barely changed. It had only been maybe a quarter of an hour.
When I darted back inside, the twitching had stopped. “Cas.” I touched his shoulder. “Cas?” I shook him. There was no response. His face had gone slack, his mouth partly open.
Panicked, I grabbed the collar of his shirt and ripped at the first button. I had to know if the black lines were already at his heart. I tore the buttons open and pulled the shirt aside. No black lines touched his chest, so I pulled farther and farther until the fabric of his shirt was all the way off one of his shoulders. There. I could see the black lines. They were at the top of his bicep reaching into the curve of his shoulder, not yet at his heart, but they didn’t have far to go.
Relieved, I hung my head and focused on his steady breaths. My hand still rested on his bare chest, and for the briefest moment, I didn’t remove it.
What was happening to me?
Memories of the night I’d shot him in my garden played through my head, followed closely by the memory of how well he’d danced.
The fae I’d met in the garden had been nothing but a handsome trickster to me. But now…
The fever had soaked his hairline with sweat. I stroked some of the hair out of his face before moving to pace the room once more. After a few minutes, another fit took him, this time only lasting a few seconds.
The shaking stopped by the time I reached him. I inhaled deeply, trying to calm my own heartbeat.
To feel useful, I whirled around and marched back out to the balcony, marking where the sunlight limned the mountain. I didn’t think it had been more than half an hour.
I paced, trying to count the minutes and memorizing every detail of his personal quarters. The rug was mostly purple with silver patterns, not unlike those I’d seen in Avencia, though the pattern was more floral and less geometric than the current style at home. His furniture was an odd style as well, carved all over with swirling lines painted black. Other than books and clothes tossed here and there, and a chair draped with a discarded pair of pants—the sight making me blush—there wasn’t much to look at. A single chandelier hung overhead, filling the room with the same cool magical light that lit all the rooms in this palace.
After perhaps another ten minutes, I was going mad with counting. He hadn’t seized again, and I reckoned that was a good thing. I strode back over to him and pulled his collar aside once more to check where the black lines were. They were no longer at the top of his shoulder. They disappeared somewhere in the sleeve that was still on his arm. Carefully, I lifted his hand and slid the sleeve off of his left arm.
The lines now ended right above his elbow. I exhaled with relief; the curse was receding. My hands traced gently down his arm, grateful he wasn’t awake to see me do this. After placing his arm carefully by his side, I walked back out to the balcony to check the progress of the sun and shadows. I doubted it had been an hour yet, so I counted for what I assumed was another ten minutes then took another ten laps around his room, just in case I’d counted too fast. At that point, the waiting was killing me. It had been roughly an hour.
I grabbed the vial and slid my hand under the back of his head. “Cas, can you wake up?” At first there was no response. I shook him gently and tapped the cold vial against his chest. “Cas. You need a little bit more of this.”
A small groan issued from his parted lips, but his eyes didn’t open. I pressed the vial to his mouth and tilted until all the contents were in his mouth. The liquid started to spill out the sides of his lips, and I yelped. I clenched my hand over his mouth trying to shut the antidote in. By then his eyes pried open, and the point in his throat bobbed as he finally swallowed.
With my finger, I traced the corners of his mouth, pushing the last couple of drops of antidote into his mouth. If he needed every drop of it, I wasn’t going to let a single bit go to waste. I wiped my fingers on his lips to make sure he got it all. His eyes watched me the entire time, and pretty soon my skin was on fire, though not from a fever. My fingers lingered on his mouth a split second longer than necessary. I jerked them back toward me, but his hand reached up and found mine, and with the smallest of movements, he kissed the ends of my first two fingers before his head lolled to the side and he dropped off to sleep.