Chapter 36
thirty-six
Her tears soaked Vade’s leathers.
He was gone.
Everything they’d done, everything they’d encountered, had been for naught. Her heart was in ribbons. Nothing more than shredded muscle barely hanging on.
She squeezed him tighter, wishing he would hug her back. Wishing to feel his warmth instead of his cold, rigid body.
He still smelled of forest, fire, and the distinctly masculine scent that could only belong to him.
She cursed the gods for bringing him into her life just to take him away.
How savage a world this was. The irony of her truly seeing it for the first time and Vade not being there to tell her he was right ripped a sob from her throat.
Life was unfair. It was nothing but pain, and loss, and darkness. Nothing but turmoil, strife, and struggle.
She lifted her head and wiped her tears away enough to see. Orelia gently cupped his swollen cheek. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
A tear splashed onto his neck, sliding through the blood and leaving a clean line. She couldn’t stop looking at him, her heart breaking down the middle.
Finally free of the binding spell, and she’d lost him. The tears returned as she pictured him covering her body, knowing how vulnerable his wings were. He’d kept her safe, kept her alive.
And she couldn’t do the same for him.
She pushed his hair back from his face, her bottom lip wobbling. “I’m sorry.” The words squeaked out.
Orelia wished they’d still been bound so she could die with him. She didn’t want to continue on without the man who had protected her. The man who had finally felt safe enough to give himself to someone else.
“You’re mine,” she had told him as they lay on the floor of the cabin wrapped up in one another. The morning sun had kissed his bronzed face as he smiled at her, and there was a glint in his eyes she’d never seen.
Vade had been happy. Truly happy, perhaps for the first time ever in his life.
Now, she’d never be able to see that look again.
“You’re mine,” Orelia whispered.
A hollowness crept into her heart. A desolate hole burning through her. Her mind went blank, and the tears eventually stopped. She couldn’t feel anything. Not the wind. Not the grief. Nothing.
If she had just left the tavern when Vade had told her to, she never would have been attacked by Ivan.
If she hadn’t been attacked, Vade wouldn’t have had to use his seidr sana on her.
Regular sana wouldn’t have been enough with how injured he’d been and how quickly the poison had spread, but his seidr sana would have saved him.
And he’d used the last one to save her.
Her forehead dropped to his chest.
She was responsible for his death. The numbness that had overtaken her was replaced by utter agony. The agony of guilt, of knowing she could have prevented all this.
Orelia was tired of failing. Tired of being the one to fuck everything up for both of them, and so the agony turned into something else as the seed of a different emotion blossomed.
It felt like anger. It grew, small in its shape, then bigger. Changing. Becoming something else. Becoming rage.
Her breaths came faster. She sat up and placed both palms over his heart. “You’re mine,” she said with fervor. She would not accept her failure. She would not accept his death. “You’re mine. You don’t get to leave me,” she gritted out.
Her light came forth, and the markings on her hands glowed.
Orelia focused all her strength and might into her hands, visualizing her light seeping into his heart and stitching it back together.
She called on the Omnimagia, the all-powerful place of magic that was life and death.
She called on the gods to help, to show her they were good and kind and forgiving.
“Come on,” she muttered.
Vade didn’t move.
Orelia plummeted into her well of power, diving into herself. She pictured her healing like the seed of her anger, growing larger and larger. More light spread from under her palms in a wider radius, covering his chest. The light had never expanded like this, so she dug further. Harder. Deeper.
“Come back and share our home. Come back and claim me. Come back and love me until we’re old and gray.” Her arms began to tremble, insides warming. An internal heat she’d never experienced.
“Come on!” Orelia yelled, sweat beading on her temples.
She gave and gave, her light growing, almost blinding her.
Her view of Vade was blocked by the expansion of light, but he still hadn’t stirred beneath her touch.
“Come back to me, damn you!” Her arms shook uncontrollably. Orelia turned her screaming mouth up at the sky. She roared, giving all she had left.
Her light may have been brighter than the sun.
It may have covered the entire forest.
It burned inside her as she raged, and dug, and gave.
When she could give no more, Orelia stared at her hands that were almost unrecognizable in the gold glow.
“You’re mine!” she roared.
The light snuffed out, and Vade gasped for air.
“Oh, gods!” Utterly spent, Orelia flung her weak arms around him the best she could. She didn’t let go of him, even as he continued to suck down air. Eventually, she felt an arm wrap around her back.
“Orelia,” Vade whispered in a voice that sounded like he hadn’t had water in years.
She pulled back and looked him over. His face was no longer beaten and bloody. There was no gash in his chest and his wings were intact.
He looked perfect.
“You’re alive. Oh gods, you’re alive!” she said, not quite believing her eyes.
Vade sat up fully, blinking rapidly, looking at her like he was seeing her for the first time. When he coughed, she grabbed his waterskin, unscrewed the cap, and handed it to him.
He downed it all, water spilling out of the corners of his mouth. “I heard you,” he said. “I never stopped hearing you, even when I was . . .gone.”
“How?” Her voice shook. “I . . .I don’t even know how I did that." Witches couldn’t bring people back to life, even if that’s what she’d envisioned. “You were—You were dead.”
He cradled her face in his hands. “There was a light above me. Faint at times, but never gone.” He smiled. “Your light, Orelia.”
She burst into a grateful sob and he pulled her into a hug that lasted for minutes. When she finally felt like she could let him go, knowing he was safe, Orelia pulled back.
Vade ran his fingers over her brow. “You’re Marked.”
“What?” She touched her forehead, but all she could feel was sweat.
“And your hands,” he said.
Her healing tattoos had turned permanent, etched in black.
“The witch I met in Ricaboro said only witches who were deemed worthy received the Mark. I always thought worthy meant worthy of evil, but she told me she became Marked after saving her niece.” She couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
She’d been gifted the Mark of the Witch.
Vade brushed away the last of her tears with his thumbs. “No one is more worthy than you. Clearly the gods felt the same way.” He kissed her, and it took everything in her not to start crying again.
“I love you,” he whispered onto her lips.
“I love you, too.”
Orelia hugged him again, afraid he might disappear from her grasp. Only when they finally peeled themselves apart did Vade ask about the dead batalin lying a few feet away.
“You did that?” His eyes went to the seidr dagger sticking out of the guard’s chest.
She nodded.
Vade cocked an impressed brow. “Are you okay, though?” He took his hands in hers and kissed her knuckles with reverence. “I never wanted these beautiful, healing hands to have blood on them.”
“He took you from me. And I could not forgive that.”
Misty eyes met hers. “I owe you everything, Orelia. Everything.” He kissed her forehead. “You are the most important thing in this world to me.”
She slid her hands up his neck and tangled her fingers in his hair, inhaling his comforting scent and saying, “Don’t ever leave me again.”
“Never.”
After another lengthy kiss, they eventually stopped. Vade helped her stand and Orelia smiled up at him, arms wrapped around his waist.
“I think I’ve had enough adventure for a lifetime,” she said. “What do you say we leave all this behind for a while?”
Vade smiled the most devastating smile she’d ever seen. “Let’s go home.”