33. Tassarion
Tassarion
“My Everheart, please wake up.”
Sniffles sounded all around me as if I were in a funeral procession.
I leaned over the bedcloud, looking down at Nahomie’s unconscious body.
Her last breath was taken an hour ago. My anxiety was through the atèmos as I waited by her side, silently begging her to take another.
Lying in our bedcloud, she looked like an image out of my nightmares.
Bruised. Broken. Dead.
I trembled, taking in her still body. My sole consolation was that our bond was still there. The thread of gold beamed on. Its light had dimmed significantly, but it was still there. Which was all that mattered. If our bond still lived, then so did my wingmate.
There was going to be hèls to pay for what Marcèllian had done to my wingmate.
For what... rot, what Saundeiah did. I still hadn’t wrapped my mind around that betrayal.
I had been too late, too far from Nahomie when the Nanmiess struck her with the dagger I instantly knew was a shadowblade laced with shaelfire.
A particular poison only derived from dark majik, its source of which was the Belial Realms. Saundeiah who’d raised me since I was a youngling.
Who’d been Manmi’s closest confidant and friend while also being her honored maiden.
Saundeiah who’d held me when I sobbed in this manor alone in the initial dawns after my exile.
Saundeiah.
The blow of her betrayal hurt in a way that left my chest aching.
Before I could get my hands on her, she’d gotten hold of a boneraven, with an attending bloodhound, and they’d both taken off into the twinight.
I couldn’t guess where she escaped to, but if I ever laid eyes on her again, the Nanmiess would be dead. Permanently.
I sat beside my wife, thrumming with rage.
There was nothing I could presently do about Saundeiah. But Marcèllian...
This twinight, I would have his head and his wings.
He’d left before I could fully avenge the blood that stained his soul black. I would go after him. But I had to know Nahomie was alright before I went anywhere. Khaziah checked her pulse while pressing the back of her hand to Nahomie’s forehead.
“Losing blood while she was still fyused is taking its toll, mi Roi. And the poisonous majik... Our Roièssa lives, but there is no telling how long it will take for her to recover. If she recovers at all. This is beyond even my abilities, and I am the one who helped you heal after you escaped Belial.” She sighed.
“I’m sorry, mi Roi. There is nothing else I can do. ”
I heard the Raephim’s words, but I refused to accept them.
Nahomie had to get better. I would not live this wretched life without her. Not after she’d been dropped into my world and resurrected everything she touched back from the dead.
The Gargorètti felt the same.
The entire contingent of gargoyles encircled our bedcloud, their large frames taking up every inch of space in our lair.
They glared at Khaziah as if they would dismember her head from her shoulders.
Coralai took a step toward the Raephim. I lifted a hand to stop her before the gargoyle disemboweled my healer.
“Try again, Khaziah.” I looked at Nahomie’s face. Her skin was losing its color. I trembled with fear at the thought of losing my wingmate. If Nahomie’s spirit left me for the Ellelights, I would stop at nothing to follow right after her.
“Everheart, I need you to wake up. Please. A breath. A movement. Anything.”
I released souls down our bond, flooding beyond the planes of my spirit, pouring into Nahomie.
The souls entered her spirit easily, tumbling into an endless pool of blackfire that thrashed violently inside of my bride.
She had been leashed by the Belial poison.
Her power was shackled in her spirit, unable to help her heal. To recover. To wake up.
“So you didn’t listen the first time, hmm?”
Rot. No. Not this. Not now.
“I told you already, Slave. You and the Nebulari are mine.”
I closed my eyes, vexed. How in the stars had Zemshaza gotten to Nahomie?
How had he seeped into her blood and turned her blackfire against her?
“Have you forgotten so quickly? Don’t you remember your wingbinding?
You wanted a bond to break your curse. I knew through your idiocy, you would hand-deliver the Nebulari to me.
” A dark and cruel chuckle. “Thanks to you, soon all of Mortevain will also belong to me. Then our conquest of Sorellien will begin, and Namenthys will never rise again.”
A rush of tears fell down my cheeks. I had done this.
I was the reason Nahomie was dying.
I trapped her by bond to help me break my curse.
Instead, I’d ensured her own demise. By bonding to me, she would now lose her life, and it was too late to break the bond.
To set the heart of my hearts free. My tears fell like rain.
Hatred for myself grew. I would lose the best thing that ever happened to me... and it was all my fault.
I opened my eyes and looked at my beautiful bride. Leaning down, I took her face into my hands and kissed her forehead before I pressed a soft kiss to her lips.
“Come back to me, Everheart. I love you endlessly. Please. Come back to me.”
The chamber fell deathly quiet as my words fell on a lifeless Nahomie. The thread of our bond was fading, and fast, growing dimmer. Gold now turned white. A sure sign the love of my lifetimes was about to cross into the Ellelights.
“No,” I breathed. “Don’t go. Please. My love. Stay.”
My vision blurred. I sobbed, powerless to do anything. The bond kept fading. In my warms, Nahomie grew weaker and weaker. This couldn’t be how this ended.
“Infinite, I beg of you. Please. Not her. Never her. Please. Let my Everheart live. Take me instead.”
Sniffles sounded around me like a melancholy choir.
The symphony of mourning. The manor walls shuddered.
Windows dimmed. Curtains swayed gently. A gentle breeze sifted through the room.
The manor had mourned, and so did those who called her walls home.
Nahomie had unknowingly become the pillar of joy for us all.
The bright light that made everything better.
And now the Phantimèssa of Everthorn Manor was dying.
I poured more of my ethèr across our bond. Held onto it, curling the hand branded with our wingmate mark into Nahomie’s. I intertwined our fingers, dropping my wings on either side of her body. Then.
The bond pulsed, stretched taut, and snapped back into place.
Iridescent light poured along the lines of the bond like a river. There was no beginning to the chromatic river, nor was there any end. The more the chromatic light poured, the stronger the bond became. I sucked in a sharp breath as I focused within, watching in awe.
“All good things come from me. I will not take whom I have given from you. Do not be afraid.”
I gasped, trembling in awe.
The Infinite had heard me. He met me here. He answered.
A raucous sob of gratitude erupted from my throat, drenching my cheeks with fresh tears.
Then Nahomie took her first breath. And then her second one.
I wept like a youngling, my nerves unraveling at the sight of her coming back to life, breath by breath. I grabbed hold of her soft hands, placing endless kisses along her knuckles over and over.
“Roièssa?” came a shy whisper from somewhere behind me.
A heavy thump rocked the floor as the Gargorètti collectively dropped to their knees in relief. Bright light poured through the windows as the manor brightened at the sight of color returning to Nahomie’s cheeks. My wingmate, my love, my Everheart released another breath.
And her eyes fluttered open.