Chapter 46
Chapter Forty-Six
“What happened?” Keegan panted, eyes wide. He directed his question at Thalia, but she’d already stumbled away.
“No, no, no,” she cried, falling to her knees by Cassius’s broken body.
His chest was a gaping hole; part of his hip was missing. She knew he wasn’t dead, not wholly.
She cradled his head with her good arm, the other still leaking blood.
Tears streaked down her cheeks, and Keegan came up, sinking beside her. Larellia and Lady Decima appeared too; the other Mages must have arrived and begun holding the fire at bay, trying to stop it from destroying all of Chaménos. But she didn’t care.
Thalia raised her bleeding arm.
“Thalia—” Larellia cautioned, and she paused. “Cassius was bitten. Even if your blood heals him, he will be turned into something else.”
“I don’t care,” Thalia snarled.
“He could bite you,” Keegan warned, his voice hoarse. “You could turn into one of us. He has the poison in him. If you turned into a bitten, he’d never forgive himself for it.”
“I don’t care.” Thalia’s tears dripped onto Cassius’ face. His face was so cold and pale it was as if he’d become a corpse.
Before anyone could stop her, she shoved her ruined arm against his mouth.
Nothing happened.
Thalia counted in her head, barely breathing, as time moved so slowly. She started crying again.
He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t.
Because she hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him that she loved him. That if he died, she was as good as a ghost. That this life meant nothing without him in it.
She cursed her mother, who was dead behind her.
Cursed whatever death god watched from the shadows, wishing to steal him.
She wouldn’t let them take him.
Cassius was good, and kind, and strong. He deserved more than to succumb to madness.
Thalia grabbed her dagger, slicing her arm to the bone.
Someone started, but she shoved her arm back against Cassius’s lips, forced his mouth to part so her blood trickled into his throat.
Slowly, like watching morning dew dry up in the sun, color began to bleed into his face, like an ink stain spreading across water.
Her tears mixed with her blood, but his skin began knitting itself back together, muscle and sinew pulling itself by the seams at his hips, then his gaping chest.
Her head lightened, but she ignored it. Ignored the way her vision blackened around the edges.
Cassius’s chest rose, a breath stuttering out.
Then his hand gripped her wrist, his tongue poking into the cut along her arm. His throat worked as he took drags of her blood, as she willed it to move into Cassius’s body, to fix what was broken inside him. Thalia ran her hand over though his hair, fingers snaring on the strands.
Her heart rate was slowing, each beat shorter than the last.
She didn’t care.
Because he would be alive, and that’s all that mattered.
“Get ready,” someone murmured, perhaps Larellia. “We’ll need to suspend him the moment he wakes.”
Thalia’s fingers were slowing their strokes, her vision spotting with darkness.
Cassius’s eyes flew open, the irises glowing.
“Now—”
“Wait.” Keegan’s harsh voice halted the command. “Just wait.”
Cassius focused on her, his pupils blown out, his fingers pressing gently into her wrist. She was nearly slumped over him, her braided hair brushing against his cheek.
Finally, he pulled his mouth away, just as Thalia’s vision went black.
“Shit.” Keegan caught her, and she fought hard to keep her eyes open. Someone touched her arm, a curly head out of the corner of her vision. Blinding white seemed to glow around her forearm, but she couldn’t tell what was happening.
Cassius lay there, his eyes open, although he didn’t seem to focus on anything. Merely stared up at the broken canopy of leaves above his head.
His chest rose and fell, but it didn’t seem like he was even really breathing. That any oxygen was getting down into his lungs.
Lady Decima stepped away; whatever she’d done to Thalia’s arm had healed it. Or at least patched it up enough that she was able to weakly shove herself out of Keegan’s hold.
“Cassius?” She crawled over to him.
She half lay across his body, running a hand over his face. “Cass?”
He stared at nothing, his eyes unseeing, although they were just as open as hers.
“Come back to me,” she whispered. “Please come back to me.”
Minutes dripped by, but still he lay there.
“What is going on?” Keegan got out.
Thalia shook her head, crying. She’d healed him, but something wasn’t right. Maybe because he’d been bitten …
She gripped his face in her hands. “You can’t leave me, you prick.” Tears splashed onto his cheeks. “You can’t leave me. I will not allow it.”
She pressed her lips into ice-cold ones.
She shuddered, willing him to feel her. Willing him to wake. To hold her. To yell at her. She didn’t care.
Thalia pulled away, running a hand over his face. “Come back, you asshole, so I can tell you that I love you.”
Cassius took a deep, shuddering breath. It blasted through him with enough force that Thalia rose as he inhaled.
Then he blinked, slowly focusing on her. They stared at each other, his chest rising and falling with such beautiful breath that Thalia cried harder.
His brow furrowed, hand reaching up to cup her face. His thumb swirled along her cheeks. “Did you just call me an asshole?”
“I love you,” she choked out, pressing her lips to his. Cassius kissed her back, gently.
Then he grunted. “What the fuck happened?”
Thalia pulled back, and dizziness racked her despite Cassius’s steady grip. Everyone around them seemed to be in varying degrees of shock.
“Are you feeling … well?” Larellia asked, her hands raised as if ready to blast him with her power.
Cassius’s brow furrowed further. “I feel like half my body was torn off. But yes … well.”
Keegan shook his head, his eyes glistening. “You were … Cass—you started showing symptoms of the poison. You were beginning to turn.”
Cassius glanced at Thalia. “Is that true?” She nodded, and his eyes flashed. First with anger, then relief, then back to anger. “I told you to kill me.”
“Well, I was trying to kill that thing.” She pointed behind her to the pile of ash that was the creature. Already some of it had drifted away, picked up by a fell wind.
“What happened to it?” he demanded.
Thalia shook her head, just as confused as everyone else, until Larellia gasped. “Your blood.”
Thalia stared at the Mage. “What?”
Larellia’s silver eyes flicked between her and the creature. “When it bit you, its mouth began to steam as if your blood was the poison instead.”
“How is that possible?” Lady Decima asked.
Larellia shook her head, her eyes landing on the dead queen.
The forest was forming around her—as if the wild magic in Chaménos had formed a pocket in that spot.
Roots from the trees wrapped around her body as she sank into the earth, covering her over in moss and rot.
“I do not know.” Her gaze landed on Thalia.
“But perhaps there is hope for a cure after all.”
“Are you okay?” Cassius gripped her face, but Thalia just stared at the place where her mother’s body had been. The forest had taken her, no doubt retribution for all the harm the queen had done. Harm that Thalia would have continued if she’d let her hate rule her heart.
Thalia glanced at Cassius—at the man who’d never faltered from his path, even when hers had led her astray. “I can fix this. I can fix Vaccarium.”