Chapter 30
Isla
We pass through a low archway into a wider space.
The air changes here. It smells of dried herbs and something sharp and bitter, like crushed root bark.
Animal pelts are layered thick across the floor.
Clay pots and bowls line rough-cut shelves along the walls.
Dried bundles of plants hang from wooden pegs driven into the rock.
A fire burns in a pit at the center, low and steady, giving off warmth and a thin curl of smoke that rises to a narrow gap in the stone above.
An older female sits on the far side of the fire. She’s smaller than the other shifterfae I’ve seen. Wiry, with deep lines etched into her face. Her gray hair is cropped close to her skull, and her eyes are a milky amber. She doesn’t look up as we enter.
“Put him down,” she says. Her voice is a low rasp. She gestures to the pelts in front of her without lifting her gaze from whatever she’s grinding in a stone bowl on her lap.
The males lay Sebastian on the furs.
“We have many wounded incoming,” one of them says.
“Please help him,” I whisper.
“Hush, child,” she tells me without looking at me. “I will be done here soon. Have Lenana ready to deal with the wounded in the meantime.”
They leave in a hurry.
The older female sets the bowl aside and rises. She’s slow but steady on her feet. She moves to Sebastian, dropping to her knees beside him with a grunt.
I kneel on his other side.
Her hands move to Sebastian’s chest, pressing flat against his tunic. She holds them there for a few breaths, her eyes half-closing.
Then she opens his tunic wider, exposing the eclipse marking. It should be vivid; instead, it’s faint. As if the life has been sucked out of that, too.
I make a strangled sound.
She clicks her tongue, much like the dragons did earlier. It doesn’t sound good. The tone is despondent.
“Help me undress him,” she says. “Everything must come off.”
Between us, we strip Sebastian down. His coloring is pale with hints of gray. His lips are still blueish-tinged. Even the warmth has left him.
I hold back a sob. I need to be strong.
The healer runs her hands along his arms, his torso, pressing here and there. She lifts his eyelids and looks inside. She presses her ear to his chest for a long while and then sits back on her heels.
She looks at me for the first time. Her amber eyes are steady.
“He is a long way from living and not far at all from dying,” she says plainly. “Whatever that queen did to him was terrible indeed. His body is here, but there isn’t much else. He’s cold because his flesh is shutting itself down. If we don’t do something to bring him back, all will be lost.”
My stomach drops.
“Can you help him?”
“I can try.” She pushes to her feet and moves to her shelves, pulling down jars and bundles.
“We shifterfae don’t hold magic the way the other fae do.
We carry our power in our blood and bone, in the shift itself.
I can’t heal with a spell or a ward. What I have are remedies.
Plants, roots, tinctures. Poisons that become cures if taken in the right measure.
They’ve kept my people alive for many star-cycles, but I won’t lie to you.
” She turns to face me, a clay jar in each hand.
“I’ve never treated a shadowfae before. I don’t know what his body needs, and I don’t know if what I give him will do anything at all.
I don’t want to give you false hope. It wouldn’t be fair. ”
“Give him what you can,” I tell her. “Please help him.” I sound desperate because I am.
She nods once.
“Thank you.” My voice hitches, and a tear falls. I wipe it away.
What follows is methodical and slow. The healer works in silence for the most part, mixing pastes from ground herbs, adding liquids from sealed clay bottles.
She smears a thick green paste across Sebastian’s chest, covering the faded eclipse.
She works it into his skin with firm, circular motions. The paste smells sharp, almost burning.
Then she tips his head back and opens his mouth, pouring a dark liquid between his lips. She holds his jaw shut and strokes his throat until he swallows. Some of it runs down his chin. She wipes it away and does it again.
And again.
She wraps his feet in soaked cloth, binding them tight.
She places warmed stones from the edge of the fire pit against his sides, tucking them into the furs.
“He needs to be warmed. You should try to go skin-to-skin with him. Lie close.”
“I’ll do anything,” I whisper.
She gets another pot and starts sprinkling a dust over him that makes me sneeze. I watch it all, feeling useless.
Then she packs everything away.
“Is that it?” I ask. “That’s all you can do?” I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I can’t help it.
It isn’t enough. I know it.
“It’s all I have to offer, child. You’re the one with the magic,” the healer says after a time, not looking up from Sebastian.
“It’s true. My mother is half-shadowfae and half-firefae. My father was human. I do have some power, but I used it all. My well is empty.” My shoulders slump.
The corner of her mouth moves. It’s not quite a smile. “Wells refill. That is their nature. You need to rest and replenish. Hopefully, it will be in time to save him.”
Is she saying it’s all up to me? Surely not.
“I’m not a healer. I don’t know anything about healing magic.”
“You don’t need to be a healer.” She sits back, studying me the way she studied Sebastian.
Reading something that more than likely isn’t there.
“Magic is magic. It’s life. It’s energy.
He’s been emptied of his and more. If you have power, even a thread of it, you can push it into him.
Think of it like pouring water into a dried-out skin.
The skin doesn’t care where the water came from. ”
She makes it sound so simple.
I stare at her. “That’s not how it works.”
“How would you know?” She lifts her brows. “Have you ever tried?”
I haven’t. The thought never crossed my mind.
I stare at her, trying to envision all she has said.
“Try then, child.” She stands, wiping her hands on a strip of cloth. “I’ve done what I can with what I have. It might help. It might not. But you’re sitting there doing nothing, and doing nothing won’t save him. I have work to do. I will be back.”
She leaves the space, ducking through the archway.
I look down at Sebastian. At his closed eyes, at the black smudges under his eyes. His cheeks are hollow. His chest rises and falls in the shallowest of movements, so faint I have to stare to make sure it’s real.
The shifterfae healer is right. I need to do something.
I reach for my magic and get nothing.
I reach deeper, down into the hollow space beneath my ribs where the fire and shadow usually live. It’s empty. I go even deeper, scratching at the bottom.
Come on, come on!
I try again. I push down hard, gritting my teeth, searching for any scrap of power left in me. Sweat starts to bead on my brow from trying. That healer made it clear: I am what stands between Sebastian and death. I have to save him.
Even with this knowledge, I get nothing.
I let out a cry of anguish and slump back. My eyes sting. My body aches. I’m so tired that the world has started to blur. I want to cry, but that would expend too much energy.
My well will fill. I need to give it time.
Only, it might be too late for Sebastian.
One of the shifterfae females appears in the archway. She carries a wooden bowl and a waterskin. She sets them on the ground near me without a word and turns to leave.
“Thank you,” I call after her.
She walks away.
I pick up the bowl. It’s a thick stew of some kind. My stomach growls so loudly it echoes off the walls. I can’t remember the last time I ate anything.
I eat. Not slowly or with any kind of grace. I’m famished and too exhausted for manners. The stew is good. The meat is tough but flavorful, and the broth is hot. I drink from the waterskin between mouthfuls. The water is clean and cold, and the best thing I’ve tasted in days.
When I’m done, I set the bowl aside and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
I pull one of the furs up and over Sebastian, tucking it around him. I peer at the door opening.
No one seems to care about nudity in this place, so I pull off my boots, then my tunic, chemise, and breeches. I put them in a pile next to the furs. Once completely naked, I lie down next to Sebastian, as close as I can get.
He’s colder to the touch than he should be. I put my head on his shoulder and my leg over his middle, trying my best to inject some warmth into him.
“Stay with me,” I tell him. “Please, Sebastian.”
After the day we’ve had, it doesn’t take long for sleep to take me.
I wake up, and I’m not sure how long I slept. I’m confused for a few breaths. The fire is burning low. The cave is dim and quiet.
I immediately sit up, turning to Sebastian. I hold my breath for a few seconds because he looks...he…
Then his chest moves and I heave out a sigh that sounds too much like a sob. His face is the same gray as before. The fur has slipped, exposing his bare chest where the paste has dried to a dark crust. The eclipse marking beneath it is all but invisible now.
I have to do something or I will lose him.
I say a silent prayer to Kakara.
Then I sit back on my heels. My hands are shaking. I press both palms flat against his chest, one over the eclipse marking and the other over his heart. I close my eyes.
I go down into that hollow space inside me.
Please!
Please!
I push harder, digging into corners I’ve never reached before. And there, right at the bottom, is a spark so small I almost miss it.
I grab hold of it.
Heat floods my palms. It moves through my hands into his skin. It isn’t much, but maybe it will be just enough.
It lasts a couple of heartbeats, then it’s gone.
No, no, no, no!
I open my eyes, huffing out a breath, and try again, but it’s to no avail. I groan in frustration, looking down at Sebastian.
He hasn’t moved. His color hasn’t changed. His breathing is still just as shallow and slow.
I sag forward until my forehead rests against his chest. My palms are still flat against his cold skin.
“It didn’t work.” My voice is hoarse.
The cave is quiet. The low fire glows.
I lift my head just enough to look at his face. At the dark sweep of his lashes against gray skin. At his mouth, colorless and still. At the stubble shadowing his jaw.
“Come back to me.” I press my lips to his chest, right over his heart. “Please.” My voice breaks.
There is nothing else to say, and nothing left to give.
I stay where I am, my cheek against his chest, listening to the long pauses between his heartbeats and praying to Kakara that each one won’t be the last.
Sebastian
I’m walking through nothing.
No ground beneath my feet, and yet I walk. No sky above me, and yet there is space. No light and no dark. Just an absence so complete that it’s louder than any sound.
It’s cold here. Wafts of mist leave my mouth each time I exhale.
I don’t know where I am.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here.
I’ve never been so alone. I speak, but there is no sound. This place is noiseless and soulless.
I pick up my pace because I need to get out of here. I have this desperation clawing at me. If I stay, I will die.
I have to find a way out.
How?
There is no direction. No up. No down.
I keep walking.
I stagger to a halt when I see a spark…tiny at first…growing. I run toward it, reaching out.
There’s warmth at the very tips of my fingers. I sigh, and there’s sound.
The warmth moves through my chest, through my ribs. It’s her. Wildflowers and rain. Then it’s gone.
No.
A memory stirs, but it is gone before I can grasp it. It pulls at something inside me, something important, something I should remember but can’t.
It fills me with more determination than ever to find a way out. I have to find her, even if I don’t know who she is.