Chapter 87 Serena
SERENA
Death is no stranger to me.*
You can cling to a body all you want, but it’s like clinging to air. It will never be yours. It will never fill the holes. It will always leave you grasping at nothing.
Zadyn lies on the wooden table, drenched in eerie stillness, his long legs dangling over the edge. The Matron lights candles and spreads them at eight points throughout the room. Taking a piece of white chalk, she scribbles a series of runes on the ground.
My Zadyn and the body that lies before me are two different people entirely. It sickens me to see him without color. To watch the gray set into his once vibrant skin. To see his beautiful mouth frozen in a tight line. To not feel the life and vitality rolling off of him.
No, this is not Zadyn.
And yet I cling to him, praying against all odds that I can make something out of nothing. That our bond is strong enough to rip him back from death’s unrelenting grasp and return him to my side.
For Zadyn, I need to be a god.
So for Zadyn, I will.
“You are his anchor,” the Matron says.
“What does that mean?”
“You are the only thing linking him to this world now,” she murmurs, concentrating with her eyes sealed shut. “He remains on the other end of your bond. I can feel him there—eager to pass on, but reluctant to let go of you.”
I squeeze his hand tighter, smoothing his brow with my fingers.
It isn’t right. It’s too rigid, too cold.
“You will need to speak to him. Remind him who he is. Remind him who you are.”
I nod, drawing my hand over his hair.
“On my mark, you call to him.”
A pit forms in my stomach, but I refuse to let doubt creep in.
The Matron begins to murmur the incantation in Ancient Fae.
I join in, just like we practiced, praying I don’t mess up a single syllable.
I can feel the room growing farther away.
My vision zooms out, like a camera switching to a wide shot.
Everything grows smaller, more distant, as I’m sucked backward—the color fading from the edges of my periphery.
“Now,” the Matron says.
I plunge into darkness.
It is complete sensory deprivation. I know that I’ve left behind my body and entered into a place outside of time and space. There is nothing here but endless blackness.
Zadyn? Are you there?
He doesn’t answer, but I feel him in the emptiness around me, in the absence of air. He’s here somewhere.
Zadyn?
Nothing. I wander further in, my senses offering no help. Then I see it, like a tiny shivering candle in a sea of darkness. It’s him, even though it’s not.
Zadyn, it’s me. Serena. You have to come back.
I can’t see his form. But I feel him here stronger than ever. His soul is unmistakable.
Please, Zadyn. You’ve been with me my entire life. Even when I felt alone, when I couldn’t see you, you were there. So I’m not leaving. I’m not leaving here without you.
This was not enough time. Not even close.
Unending silence answers me.
I’m so sorry. So fucking sorry for every time I took you for granted. Every fight we ever had. Every time I was so damn blind to what’s always been right there.
I can’t be without you. I just can’t. So you need to come back.
I wait, counting seconds that don’t exist here.
Come on, Zadyn, I plead, I beg, I bargain. Come back to me. Come back to me. Please come back to me.
He’s there on the other side of my call, reluctant to answer, but I don’t falter. I hold onto him for dear life—his essence, his heart, his soul. I cling to him, pulling him back from the divide that bars him from my sight.
Come back.
I strain against the bounds of my own mind. Tugging at him is like tugging at myself. Plucking one of my own heartstrings that belongs to him, has always belonged to him. It sings a song of woe, of howling pain, and the echoes of sadness.
I pluck again. And then I pluck harder.
Come. Back.
And he does.
My eyes fly open the moment his do. His chest rises beneath my outstretched palm as we both gasp for air.
“Did it work?” I breathe.
His wild eyes find mine, bewildered and confused. He stares at me as if I’m a stranger he’s seeing for the first time. I watch him fight to concentrate, to sift through two hundred years of memories for one of me.
I don’t know why that hurts, but it does.
Then I see the recognition flash over his face, and I burst into tears, throwing myself across his naked chest. My sobs shake the table as Zadyn settles back into his body.
Almost reflexively, his arms reach up to hold me. His skin starts to warm against mine, and I send up thank you’s to whatever god is listening.
After an hour, he speaks.
I beg him never to stop again.
We lie on our sides, facing each other. My hands are tucked beneath the pillow as I study the lines of Zadyn’s face, my gaze hopping from freckle to freckle.
I fight the urge to touch every single one—to commit them all to memory, their size and exact location on his perfect skin.
His chest rises and falls with even breaths, each exhale tickling the tip of my nose. He looks so tranquil, so young.
“Are you asleep?” I whisper. His eyes remain closed, but one corner of his lips pulls up slightly.
“Yes.”
“I’m not.”
“I know,” he replies, cracking an eye at me. His smirk spreads into a smile as I shimmy closer.
“I’m furious with you.”
“For what?” he scoffs, his voice hushed.
“Why do you think? For dying.”
He chuckles. “You can’t be mad at me for dying. You’re the one who stabbed me.” His eyes fully open, and I can see the instant regret over his joke.
You’re right. This is all my fault. I…I killed you.
You didn’t know.
“I don’t care. You should have told me. What you did—disguising yourself as Kylian—was reckless. And dangerous.”
“It was necessary. It stopped the armies. It kept you safe. Alive.”
“But you were dead. My life is worth no more than yours.”
“You’re wrong.” He slides a bit closer, bringing his chest to touch my bent elbows. “This was what I was made for, Serena.”
“You were not made to lay down your life for me—”
“I was, and I would do it again in an instant—”
I lay my fingers against his mouth, stopping the words from tumbling out.
“Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t ever say that to me. If you had stayed dead—if I hadn’t been able to bring you back—I don’t think I would have been able to go on.”
“Serena,” he says an inch from my lips.
“It’s true, Zadyn. When you died”—I trace his face, pushing back his hair—“it felt like something died in me too. It was like a tether snapping. It hurt.”
His fingers close over mine.
“It hurt here.” I place our joined hands over my heart and lift my gaze to his. “It physically hurt to walk and talk and breathe.”
Tears spring to my eyes, the memory too fresh.
“Now you know how it felt when I almost lost you.”
Zadyn’s thumb gently strokes up and down my palm.
He closes the gap between us, tucking me against him.
I breathe in that cool, familiar scent of his—black tea and cedar—alleviating some of that horrible ache still lingering in my chest. He traces lazy lines up and down my back, each sweep erasing the horrors of the last twenty-four hours.
“You were so pale.” I shudder at the memory, wishing I could take a sponge and scrub it from my mind, sand it down to ash and scatter it to the wind.
“I’m right here,” he murmurs, resting his chin on my head. I feel the rumble of his words through his chest as he repeats, “I’m right here. Try to sleep.”
I snake my arm around his waist, holding him tighter. “I don’t want to. I’m afraid you won’t be here when I wake up.”
“I’ll never leave you. Not if I can help it.” He plants a soft kiss on my forehead and smooths my hair until I lose my battle with sleep, and she overtakes me.
* Cue: Killer + The Sound Phoebe Bridgers, Abby Gundersen, Noah Gundersen