Give the Dark My Love(82)

I finished speaking the runes.

In the center of the mummified hand of Bennum Wellebourne was a small lump of blood iron. I reached for it with trembling fingers.

I turned to show the creation to my sister, to prove to her that it had been worth the wait.

But Ernesta was no longer breathing.





FIFTY-THREE


    Nedra



“No, no, no,” I said, scrambling over to my sister’s body.

I pressed my fingers against her pulse points, but her heart was silent.

Her skin was already cold.

My empty stomach churned. Had I imagined hearing her say my name? Had I imagined her breath, shallow but steady? Had I, in my exhausted state, pretended my twin was alive as I pulled her body up the stairs? Or had she passed as I knelt beside her, playing with a darker magic than she’d ever dreamed existed?

“Nessie, Nessie,” I begged, tears blinding me so much that I could almost pretend her chest rose and fell, rose and fell again.

It’s not too late.

I turned back to the crucible—not a crucible. Not yet. The iron was made, a hard lump in my hand. But there was still one step left. I dropped the iron bead into the palm of the crucible cage.

A sacrifice.

I grasped for my father’s book, flipping through its worn pages. I remembered what Master Ostrum had said about Bennum Wellebourne, how he’d almost been bled dry. How there needed to be death in the blood.

I found it. My eyes lingered over the runes, but when I opened my mouth to read them aloud, no sound came out. I took a deep, shaking breath and forced myself to begin chanting. Take what you must. Leave me the power. Take what you must, leave me the power. An open promise, a blanket offering.

My mouth kept moving as I crouched over my sister’s remains.

Take what you must, leave me the power.

Ernesta’s body glowed, tiny bits of bright gold flickering over her body, rising like fog on the water.

Take what you must, leave me the power.

I felt the burning in my fingers first, fire traveling up my arm, past my elbow. My nails melted, white hot. I hissed in pain, but kept chanting.

Take what you must, leave me the power.

Anything for her.

My blood boiled. My skin ripped apart as tiny bubbles of red burst through, spilling out over my arm. The veins of my left wrist cracked open, a fountain of crimson spilling over my fingers. I screamed in pain, but through the sound, I did not stop chanting.

Take what you must, leave me the power!

My flesh unwound.

Strings of muscle and ligaments unraveled past my elbow.

My blood, my skin, my flesh was unspooling off my left arm, pulling into the hardened black center in the palm of the crucible cage, wrapping around the iron bead made of my parents’ ashes. My flesh wove between the bony fingers of the hand, around and around, forming a tapestry of gore. Blood hovered like red mist, staining everything.

Take what you must, leave me the power.

The chanted words were desperate now, my plea for this to end. The flesh of my arm fell away, leaving only bone.

I flexed my bony fingers, white stained pink with blood. I could identify the carpus, the ulna, the radius.

I had never thought to see the interior of my own hand, exposed and brittle.

Take what you must.

My fleshless hand started to glow with the same golden sheen my sister’s body did.

Each bone, at the same time, without warning, shattered.

I screamed, blinded by pain. My voice shriveled to nothing. The dust of my bones hung suspended in the air, forming the outline of my elbow and arm and hand, and then slowly, slowly, the bone dust swirled down, down, falling over the crucible like rain.

About four or so inches remained of my left arm, less bone, more flesh hanging limply. The muscle sizzled as if being burnt, the stench so sickening I gagged. The skin knit together, raw and pink and thin.

The words of the runes flashed in my mind.

Leave me the power.

I turned to my sister, prone and motionless beneath the illuminated clock. Her body still glittered with a glowing aura I could never describe with words, as if the particles of air were gilded.

Her right arm, amputated. My left arm, taken. We were still, even in this strange space between life and death, mirror twins.

Take what you must, leave me the power. The words were bitter in my mouth now, but still as true and sincere. I would give anything—my other arm, my legs, my heart, my soul—to just get Nessie back.

The glow lifted over Ernesta’s body. The air no longer smelled of blood and burning; it was sweet, but sharp. The bright mist rose higher and higher.

Take what you must, I said in the ancient tongue, just give me back my sister.

The golden light swirled into a stream, the end pointed like a pen tip. It flowed into the iron, wrapping around, hardening, shining so brightly that I had to look away. It formed the bead into a small, hollow cup, about the size of the tip of my thumb. I bent to pick it up, almost losing my balance as I reached out with my right hand, forgetting I no longer had a left one. As soon as I touched it, the crucible cage crumbled to dust.

The iron crucible was crudely made, but I could feel its power overtaking me, surging inside my body.

I turned immediately to my sister. “Nessie,” I whispered. My voice was raw and cracked, as if I had been breathing smoke.

She did not move.