CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX #3
Then he picked up the fallen arrow from the ground.
“But here we have yet another problem,” he said. His voice had gone hoarse. He ran his thumb over the glyphs.
The world seemed to tilt sideways. No; he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.
As he spoke, he kept his eyes pinned to the arrowhead.
“I couldn’t make sense of it, the picture of yourself you tried to paint.
Not when, at every turn, you put yourself in harm’s way.
For people you despised. For me.” The corners of his eyes wrinkled.
“I met Sabina and your friend Perrine, and they told me what you did. The hideous death you risked to save them. And I thought about what you said to me after you grew your wings, thought about it all night, though I did try not to. I tried to believe what you told me. But it didn’t make sense.
And then I realized – the beetles.” He laughed, a small, amazed breath.
“The liar’s pigeon. You were lying about being poisoned by the spore.
About your motives. About your curse being cured with the phoenix’s blood. Everything you said–”
He met her eyes. His, amber, flecked with gold; a bird’s eyes. And hers, dark, a void.
His forehead creased; but not in fear, or disgust, or cruel gloating. In pain.
“However much of it was true, however much a fantasy – when I saw you catch the bird, saw you lower your arrow, I knew.”
He placed his right hand behind her ear. His hand was warm now. Pulsing. He pressed his forehead to hers; his breath, warm and life-giving, caressed her skin.
“The arrow. The witch. The only way to break your curse.”
And then she knew, she knew what he was going to do. It hit her like lightning, like thunder, like wind from every side. Like absolute loss, the kind that steals breath.
She still couldn’t move.
“So you see, Anya,” he said, his voice catching, reverberating in her chest, “I’ve been over every angle, and this is the only way.
The only way to keep this power from the king.
The only way to save your life, and mine.
And the only way I’ll ever have a chance – just the chance – of laying eyes on you again. ”
That is no life, she wanted to say, to shout. To beg. If you go there, you will never come back.
If she could only keep him talking. Just a few moments longer.
Already, she felt the vines in her bones pulling taut; tendrils taking her deeper into herself, some dark sleep from which she would never claw free.
She tried to claw free from his spell, even just to shake her head.
Tried to speak with the voids of her eyes.
Whatever he saw there, whatever she said, his breath caught, and he kissed her. Wrapped his free hand in her hair, fierce and shaking. A tender ache wound through her, an ache to kiss him back like she would never stop, like maybe that could stop him.
But she couldn’t; and, almost as soon as he touched her, he abruptly pulled away. “I cannot free everyone, or even myself. But I can free you.”
He plunged the arrow through his left hand, and all at once, Anya felt her body return to her.
The wild humming of the stars, the stark whiteness of the dying night disappeared as she felt the wings on her back evaporate like mist. The snaking darkness, the vines wrapped around her bones, the vile hand hovering behind her head, all dissolved like a shadow under light.
Anya’s curse was lifted.
At the same time, the stunning spell wore off and she fell forward. A bright light blinded her. When the light faded, there stood the twin of the limp bird in the dirt.
Her breath stuck in her throat. He had not disappeared or flown away. He was still here. Perhaps the arrow hadn’t worked. Perhaps, somehow, he had broken her curse without it. The forest still had its roots in him, but there may be a way to fix this, to stop it; there must be a way to stop it.
But before she could speak to him, could even let the drop of hope flow from her mind to cool the pyre of her heart, he spread his golden wings, lifted into the air, and flew away.
The sky was robin’s egg blue before she could get herself to move. Even then, all she could manage was to wipe away the drying streaks of tears on her face. Eventually, when her knees began to pain her, she pulled them, stiff as stone, up to her bare chest.
He was gone.
Gone to the forest. Gone to the witch. Gone from her.
Been taken. Given himself. All at once.
As she sat, the meadow stirred to life. The first day of summer; same as the last day of spring.
Nothing had changed; everything was always changing.
The trill of songbirds cascaded overhead.
A mouse scurried onto the toe of her boot, sniffed her leg, and scurried away.
A fragrant edelweiss waved its lilting petals beneath the brush of a bumblebee.
The wind kissed her wet cheek. The open sky swallowed her sorrow.
The waving grass whispered. The forest was her home, too.
She wiped her eyes. Gathered her supplies and Sy’s pen kit, abandoned in the brush. Pulled her cut shirt from her bag, put it on backwards, secured it beneath her jerkin.
The odds were astronomical, and Sy was already gone.
But she knew where he was going.