Chapter 34
I sit in the midnight grass at the prince’s side and cross my legs beneath me. I cannot yell for help. I cannot give Daerios CPR. At this point, I can do nothing but sit here and await Cara and Berendir’s return.
After they left, I turned Daerios onto his back and laid him across my legs.
His head is in my lap, eyes shut. Sweat still beads his forehead.
I pushed the collar of his tunic aside so I could monitor the progress of the poison in his system.
The veins of darkness have just crested his left shoulder, creeping slowly down toward his collarbone.
I stare directly at them, willing them to go no further.
Eventually, the quiet becomes too much. I’m sitting here, in an empty clearing, silently watching one of my best friends die. Because that’s the truth. Somehow, at some point, he’s become one of my best friends. And this might be my last chance to tell him.
I clear my throat, pulling a chunk of grass from the soil.
“Do you remember when we danced?” I glance at his eyes, which remain shut, face blank.
“That’s a stupid question. Of course, you do.
It was barely a month ago.” I pull out another handful of grass, laughing hoarsely.
“It feels like a lifetime, though, doesn’t it? ”
This is stupid, I think. I might as well be speaking to a cement wall.
Yet I can’t stop. It’s as if the sentences inside me are a tower of rocks, one that has grown taller with every unspoken word, every silent promise, every emotion not acknowledged between Daerios and me.
The tower has grown to an intolerable height.
It’s wobbling within me. It’s about to come tumbling down.
“That night at Endicott, when we danced…” I exhale, unwanted emotion starting to clog my throat.
“It changed me. Made me forget who I was. Forget the obsessive plotting, the cold numbness, the hatred that had consumed me for so long. Even the impulse to starve myself. When we danced, all of that just sort of faded to nothing. I was able, for the first time since Michael was taken, to just be a girl. A girl dancing with a boy who made the entire world fall away.” I glance again at his face.
I feel the urge to press my fingers to his damp forehead, to run them along the place where his skin meets his dark hair, but I resist. “It only lasted a moment, but a moment was enough. Enough to make me realize that my life could be different. Could be filled with so much more than it was.”
I glance back down at his shoulder. Despite all of my silent demands, the rot has continued to spread.
Its tendrils now reach just past this collarbone.
The sight sends a wave of panic through me.
How much time has passed since Cara and Berendir left?
Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Whatever the number, it’s far too high.
If they don’t return with the skyberries soon…
The panic swells higher. I rush on with my monologue, as if words could chase away the venom.
“That really does feel like ages ago, doesn’t it?
I mean, how much has happened between then and now?
How many meals have we eaten together? How many stupid linguistics homework assignments have we done?
” I’m not trying to comfort anymore. I’m babbling.
“How many times have I decided I hated you and then decided I don’t?
How many times have I fallen in and out of-of… ”
I trail off, breathing heavy, chest rising and falling.
I cannot think about where that sentence was going.
I cannot think about anything but Daerios surviving the next five minutes.
I clutch his sweaty palm between my two shaking hands.
“Don’t die,” I whisper to his closed eyes. “Please don’t die.”
His eyelids flutter open.
“Daerios?” I squeeze his hand too tightly. “D-Daerios? Can you hear me?”
His eyes are unfocused, darting about as he looks up at the sky. With painful slowness, his head flops to the side to look at me. His lips smack open and closed, as if trying to rid themselves of a nasty taste. After a moment, he croaks, “Quinn?”
“Yes,” I say, fighting to hold back tears. “Yes, it’s me. It’s me, baby.”
“Baby.” Daerios smiles. “I call you that.”
I smile back, even though tears have started to blur my vision. “Well, you don’t get to hog everything the way you hogged the blanket earlier.”
“Mmmm.” Daerios’s eyes flutter shut. He looks so fragile, like a soft breeze could scatter him into a million pieces. “From what I remember, we got equal enjoyment out of that blanket.”
I laugh, the sound sticking in my chest. “Maybe not equal. I think there was slightly more enjoyment on my end.”
Daerios shakes his head without opening his eyes. “There is nothing I enjoy more than making you happy, Quinn Kallister.”
The lump in my throat swells. “Then you better stay alive,” I say, my voice cracking. “Because you dying would do the opposite of make me happy.”
His eyes open at last. Bleary though they are, they search my face. “Would you mourn me, Quinn?”
The thought of a world without Daerios… “How can you even ask me that question?”
“Because I need to know.” His eyes start to drift away again, his grip loosening on my palm, but he keeps talking, voice low. “Would you miss me if I were gone?”
“Yes.” I choke on the word, its weight a stone in my throat. “Yes, God, of course I would miss you. Please don’t die, Daerios. Just hold on a little bit longer. They’re coming back with the skyberries.”
“Maybe.” A small smile wanders up his face. “Remember that night in Spot Pond?”
“Of course I do.”
“That night was, without question, the best in my hundred and sixty-three years of life.” Blinking, he turns to look at me again. “I would die a thousand times if it meant I got to spend just that one night with you.”
A sob rises in my throat. “Don’t say that, Daerios. You aren’t going to die. Not right now. Not like this.”
“It’s all right, baby.” His eyes flutter closed. “It’s all right. I’m going to… I’m…”
“No.” I let go of his hand and grab his shoulders. Their skin has turned a sallow, webbed black, like bat’s wings. I shake them violently, not caring that you probably shouldn’t shake a dying man. “No. Daerios. Wake up. You can’t die. I haven’t even told you. I-I—”
“Quinn!”
I whip around just in time to see Cara and Berendir burst out into the clearing.
Cara waves one hand over her head. “We found them! We found them!”
I almost collapse with relief. They found them. I look back down, still gripping Daerios’s shoulders, and say, “They’re back, Daer. They made it. Just hold on a moment longer, okay?”
Cara and Berendir slide in next to me. Berendir pries open the prince’s mouth while Cara stuffs a bundle of light blue berries inside. Berendir grabs his chin and moves it up and down, simulating the motion of chewing.
“Come on,” Berendir says. “Come on.”
I lower my fingers to his throat and brush them lightly downward, the way my mother used to do to our cat when she wanted him to swallow his medication. “Please, Daerios,” I whisper. “Please don’t leave me.”
“I swear to every god on Elaerion, if you die right now, I’ll kill you a second time,” says Berendir. “Swallow, you royal pain in the ass!” He thumps Daerios on the chest. “Swallow.”
With a garbled gasp of air, Daerios’s eyes burst open.
“Ha, ha!” yells Berendir, raising both hands and pumping them victoriously. “He lives!”
“Where—” The Prince glances around, eyes wide with fear. Skyberry juice drizzles from the corner of his mouth. “What are—”
“Shhh.” I bend over, laying my cheek on his chest and wrapping one arm around his shoulders. “Shhh. It’s okay,” I whisper. “You’re okay.”
One of Daerios’s hands finds my back. He clings to me as if his life depends on it. As if I were the only buoy in miles of empty sea.