Chapter 27 #2
Marian blinks slowly, lashes sticky with blood. Her lips tremble, but she forces them into a curve, fragile and defiant. ‘Don’t be . . . so angry,’ she whispers, voice thinner than thread. ‘I’d rather . . . end in your arms than . . . live a hundred years never knowing the feel of them.’
The words lance through him, sharper than any blade. Lox bows his head, jaw clenched so tight it could splinter. His golden eyes brim with the kind of grief that makes mountains crack. He gathers her hand against his chest as if pressing it there could make her pulse his own.
Her lips twitch, a ghost of defiance even now.
And in that moment, she understands that what binds them is not gentle, courtly devotion, but a deep-sea-creature kind of love.
The kind that thrives in the depths of the abyss where no light reaches.
One of them is vast and radiant, with their own terrible glow, while the other is drawn to that glimmer beyond all comprehension – until they fuse together, their veins running inside one another.
Two creatures become a single body carrying both hungers, both hearts.
So it is with them. Her body breaking, his soul burning, each consumed by the other. And for a heartbeat they are no longer separate souls but one, unyielding survival – bound not by chains, but by a love that consumes and remakes, refusing to vanish even at the edge of death.
Steps crunch up the slope. Will and Little John appear mostly unscathed, beyond a few slices to their exposed flesh.
Allen trudges up the hill, limping, hair plastered dark with blood, one arm clutched tight against his ribs.
Behind him staggers Eamon, face grey as stone, his hands shaking as if still stained with what he’s done.
They all stop short at the sight of Marian sprawled in Lox’s arms, silk drenched scarlet, eyes dimming like a candle fighting its own wick.
Will rushes up beside them. ‘What happened?’
Lox tips his chin toward his bound captive. ‘The Sheriff gutted her,’ he snarls. His hands shake where they’re pressed against her wound. Blood slicks his palms, runs down his wrists, soaks into the roots beneath them.
Allen limps closer, blood down his temple. His usual placid expression has been replaced by a grim urgency. ‘You can’t hold her together out here. You need to—’
‘There’s nothing I can do!’ Lox bellows, grief stripping him raw. ‘My magic . . . It wasn’t . . . I wasn’t strong enough.’
Allen places a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. ‘Perhaps Sherwood is.’
Lox shakes his head. ‘She’s losing too much,’ he mutters. Tears streak his cheeks, smearing blood and dirt down his face until it disappears inside his beard. ‘If I move her, she’ll—’ He breaks off, jaw working. Marian gives a wet cough as if to emphasize his point, crimson staining her lips.
‘If you don’t, she dies in the dirt. Take her to the Eldwyrd Hollow,’ Allen orders. ‘If there’s any chance left, it’s there.’
‘She’s mortal,’ Lox whimpers. ‘Marian won’t survive—’
‘Then you have nothing to lose,’ Will counters. ‘She’s done more for Sherwood than any of her kind ever has. She’s one of us in all but name. If an exception is to be made, this is it.’
Eamon staggers closer and speaks, his voice raw. ‘Listen to something other than your fury.’
Lox hesitates, trembling with the force of his grief, then looks down at Marian. Her skin has gone sallow, her lips are turning blue, and her breaths rattle as if each is a gamble. He shifts his grip, careful but unyielding, and gathers her up. She moans faintly at the movement.
‘Hold on, Marian,’ he whispers desperately. ‘I’m going to fix this.’
He surges forward and the world blurs. His stride is long, but no one should be able to cover ground like this.
The meadow rushes under them, grass folding in great waves, roots erupting to lift and level each step, stones rolling clear before his boots can strike them.
Trees bow, branches sweeping aside. Roots surge into bridges, curving up from the earth so he doesn’t stumble.
The very air bends, funnelling them forward, cool against the fever of her skin.
For a moment, Marian’s fear is replaced by awe.
She realizes it isn’t only Lox who is carrying her – it’s Sherwood.
Lox’s voice carries on the rush of wind. ‘Just a touch further, little fox. We’re almost there.’
Where? Her lips shape the question but only a tattered, saturated wheeze escapes.
‘The heart tree for all of Sherwood,’ he answers anyway. ‘The living tomb where Shéruel and Wodenna’s sacrifice seeded Sherwood’s magic.’
Her consciousness flickers, dimming with each spurt soaking through her clothes. As quickly as he set off, Lox halts. His body jolts against hers as they skid across moss. Marian’s eyes snap open as pain slices up her side.
Before them rises the Eldwyrd. It is colossal.
Its trunk vanishes upward with branches vast enough to cradle constellations.
Its bark is ridged and furrowed, a cathedral of living wood; its roots spill across the earth in vast braids that vanish into the soil and surface again like the backs of sleeping leviathans.
And then she hears it.
A deep, bone-vibrating tone rattles her teeth and thrums inside her wounds. It is not sound alone, but also sensation, flooding her chest until she cannot tell if it is her own blood rushing through her veins or the power ebbing off the tree.
Marian’s eyes swim with tears. It is beautiful. Terrifying.
Inevitable.
Lox drops to one knee and lowers her into the cradle of the roots. The wood groans under her weight, as though acknowledging her. Lox smooths bloodied hair from her face with shaking hands, his voice a hoarse plea. ‘You have to let it take you, body and soul, Marian.’
She wants to tell him how scared she is – how if she forgets everything else, she’ll be glad his face is the last thing she sees – but her voice has gone.
His mouth finds hers like it’s the last truth he’ll ever taste.
The kiss is bruising and trembling and wet with goodbye. ‘You will not be lost,’ he tells her as if reading her thoughts. ‘Trust yourself and you’ll find your way back to me.’
The ground beneath her shifts.
She gasps as tendrils curl around her legs and hips, sliding over her belly where blood slicks her skin. The bark parts with a low groan as living wood closes in. Marian tries to arch away, terror slamming through her. But she is too weak.
The roots cocoon her, tighter and tighter. Slowly, the forest disappears and the last light she sees is the gold of Lox’s eyes, burning bright.
For her.