15 #3
It’s very possible that I will die here, in the chilly darkness. I’m lucky that it’s not as cold tonight as it was last night, or I might have already perished from exposure.
I’m going to spend my last moments with my face in the dirt, inhaling air tainted with rot and feces. I’ll either die in this spot from lack of food and water, or the stone under my boot will give way and I’ll go shooting off the edge, plummeting to a brutal impact.
All my years of training, striving, studying—all my work at the Pink Lycan, the sacrifices I made, the effort I put in—all of it, worthless. So far, I’ve spent my youth working. I haven’t taken the time to enjoy any of it.
I’ve been disdainful of Vawn’s lifestyle.
I’ve judged him, even though I had no moral high ground from which to do so.
He might be an asshole, but I am too, in a different way.
The things I’ve done—I try to hold myself above them, so they won’t sully or stain me.
But truthfully, I’m no better than anyone else.
Maybe he’s the wiser one, after all. Faced with the state of his own mind, weighed down by a darkness he couldn’t shake, he chose to use his gift to cope with his mental state. He might have lived carelessly, but he lived.
I haven’t lived. I have worked, schemed, and planned for a future I won’t get to enjoy.
The only real living I’ve done has happened during the last several days, as I traveled with the prince.
And the best part of it all, the choice I regret the least, is when I tucked him inside me.
His cum is probably still there, deep in my body.
If I have to die, at least a bit of him will go with me.
Gods, I think I’m delirious. It feels as if the crevasse is slanting more sharply, turning upside down, and I’m stuck to it like an insect, hanging over the expanse of the sky, ready to drop into a sea of stars. My stomach is curdled and my head is tilting, prey to a dizzy euphoria.
I think that’s a bad sign.
“Severin,” I whisper. “Vawn.”
Something plucks at my brain, chimes in my head.
I don’t know when my eyes drifted shut, but I open them wide. “Severin.”
A shadow skims over me, its form threaded with glowing filaments in gold, blue, and red.
A dream. It must be a dream.
“Ugh, it’s filthy down there,” says the carpet. “I am not scooping you out of the dirt. I’ll dive below the edge. You can slide down onto me.”
“You’re not really there,” I mutter. “You couldn’t have gotten away from that horrible woman.”
“She left me on the table, burdened by the unicorn hoof,” he says.
“But I heard you, and somehow I was able to pull myself free. It shouldn’t have been possible.
” His tone is tinged with disapproval at the variance from all things normal and acceptable.
“I suppose our link is stronger than I thought.”
He moves out of sight, and his voice comes from somewhere below me, beneath the lip of the crevasse. “Let yourself go, Syth. I will catch you.”
“What if you don’t?” I rasp.
“I will.”
“And what if you do? I’m broken. I’m no good to the prince. I won’t be able to fight the men who took him.”
“Maybe not with your usual skill,” says the carpet. “But can you fight imperfectly?”
I choke on a raw sound that’s supposed to be a laugh. “I can try.”
“Come along, then.”
From where I’m lying, I can’t see him. I can’t be sure he’s in place, ready to sweep under me if I fly off the edge at the wrong angle. He’s asking for my trust, and if I want to save Vawn, I have to give it.
Gritting my teeth, I raise my boot slightly and kick the stone that’s been keeping me from falling. It dislodges and rattles away, and my body skims down the slope after it.
I shoot off the edge, a ragged scream half-uttered before the carpet’s surface rises to meet me. He catches me gently and hovers in place while I groan and roll onto my back.
“Fuck, that’s worse.” I gag from the pain as the pressure on my cracked rib increases. I force myself to a sitting position and dizzily grab one of the carpet’s handles. He’s holding something in one of his tassels—a glass vial. “Wait—you took the glyph paint?”
“She left it in a box on the table near me. I thought it fair to reclaim her payment since she betrayed you.”
“She should have locked it up immediately, or hidden it somewhere more secure.” I take the vial and slide it into the pocket of my pants.
“She isn’t a woman of business,” says the carpet. “She has no head for money… or so I gathered from hearing her talk with the bounty hunters.”
I shift my weight, trying to find a slightly more comfortable position, but with my injuries, it’s pointless. “I want to hear the whole story, but first—do you have any idea which way the bounty hunters went? Were they on a carpet?”
“They have a carpet, one large enough for three. But they were complaining that it wasn’t ideal. Big and slow, and it can only travel for a few hours without needing to recharge. It has been about two hours since they left Gwin’s house, so they will need to camp soon.”
“Can you catch up to them?”
“I can try. The woman may have been a greedy, treacherous sort, but she did a fine job on the repair. I should be able to fly straight and smooth again. Can you manage to hold on if I use my full speed?”
“We’ll find out.” I settle onto my stomach and grab the handles, whimpering as the movement tweaks the smallest finger on my right hand.
“You need healing.” Severin moves forward, gradually picking up speed.
“There are no healers out here, and precious few in the kingdom,” I mutter. “Forget it. I will have to recover on my own.”
“I might know a place with a healer.”
I sigh, closing my eyes briefly, letting my body relax against his soft fibers. “No. Once we rescue the prince, we must head straight for Anyssir Castle. He needs friends and allies, people who can help him reclaim his throne.”
“Are you sure that’s what he wants?”
“What’s the alternative? Disappear into some other kingdom?
Spend his whole life looking over his shoulder for assassins?
” I bite back a moan as the carpet dips toward the treetops, flying along the canyon.
“Besides, I thought he spent his life wishing for the position that his father and his brothers had.”
“Then you weren’t listening,” says the carpet blandly. “He spent his life trying to get their attention and earn their approval. He wanted that more than the crown.”
I imagine Vawn slouched on a throne, shirtless, decked out in countless necklaces and bracelets, pinching a charna cigarette between fingers adorned with rings and tipped with pleasure glyphs.
I picture his crown sitting at a rakish angle on his dark hair, his face still framed by those pink strands.
I see his full lips pronouncing the most lenient judgments, speaking the silliest laws into existence.
I dare not laugh at the vision, because it will hurt, but I can’t help grinning. “He might make an awful king at first. But I think he could learn.”
“You believe humans can change.” The carpet’s tone is crisp and disapproving.
“You don’t?”
“I am something more and less than human, and therefore I am in no place to judge.”
“But you will anyway.”
“Of course.”
I do chuckle this time, and I pay for it with a flash of pain through my torso.
“Hang on,” advises the carpet. “I’m going to fly a little faster. And while we travel, I will tell you the story of your betrayal.”
I renew my grip on the handles, clenching my teeth against the pain, while Severin describes the scene in Gwin’s house right after I left for the woodshed.
“She ceased working on me immediately,” he says.
“My repair was already complete. Everything she did to me for that last hour was unnecessary embellishment and reinforcement. I won’t deny that I enjoy a little extra ornamentation as much as the next carpet, but if I had known why she was extending the task, I would have tried to protest, despite the effect of the unicorn hoof. ”
“It’s all right,” I reply.
“After you left the house, Gwin sent her children upstairs and told her oldest boy to play the fiddle for the young ones so they could dance. I suppose she did not want them to see or hear the consequences of her treachery. She abandoned me on the table and began to pace back and forth, seeming quite unsettled. The hunters must have finished with you quickly, though, because it wasn’t long before one of them rapped at the front door. ”
“One of them?”