Lakesedge (World at the Lake's Edge #1)(75)
I grip Rowan’s hand. Put my other hand to the earth, the way I would for observance. But as my fingers sink into the softened mud, there’s no light or glow, none of the warm current of magic that flows through the world. I feel the Corruption. The poison. The endless hunger. The wound, the imbalance that Clover spoke of all those nights ago. And I know I can’t mend it—not here, not now.
But with this spell, I can make it quiet.
Magic fills me—my heart, my lungs, my skin. It hurts. I feel it blister at my palms, spark from my fingertips. I see myself, alone, only ash and decay and darkness all around me.
“Lie still,” I tell it. “Be quiet.”
The ground gives a final shudder. Arien and Clover watch, wide eyed, as the tremors stop.
“It heard you.” Arien’s whisper hangs between terror and awe.
I pull my hand from the mud and put it against Rowan’s chest. He looks at me—crimson eyed and poisoned and gone—and draws in a sharp breath. I feel the tremor of his heartbeat. I lean close and bury my face into the curve of his neck. I’m shivering, feverish; my bones are fire. Light flares and everything glows. I try to push away the ache and emptiness, remember a time when my magic was gold and sun and wonder. Slowly, the thread unspools between us. I can do this. I can save him.
“Lie still,” I breathe across his skin; the same words I used on the Corruption. “Be quiet.”
Rowan flinches as the sigil flares like a sparklight set to lamp oil. The thread of my power is knotted around my ribs, my heart; the other end is tied to him. I take a breath. He takes a breath. He sighs it out. My own breath slows, matching his, as though the sigh has passed between us. He looks at me, and his eyes blink clear. Under my palm, I feel the air move through his lungs. There’s no hiss or rush of lake water.
My temples thud with a headache, and my hands begin to tremble uncontrollably. A hot stripe of blood drips from my nose and across my mouth. I wipe it away quickly, but more comes.
I try to draw back the power. But instead it floods all around me. The thread between us winds tighter, tighter, until it aches. The sigil burns. My skin burns.
The world turns white.
I close my eyes and I let go.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I wake in the parlor, alone. My boots are gone, but I’m still in my mud-streaked bonfire dress. Someone has laid me on the chaise, tucked a blanket over me. The air smells of bitter herbs and honey salve. The curtains are drawn back, the walls turned amber by evening light. The altar looms over me from the opposite side of the room: the Lady all golden, the Lord Under darkly shadowed. The fruit I cut is still there, now dark and charred. The floor is still stained by my blood.
I get to my feet, the world tilting in a dizzying rush. I stagger out into the kitchen. Clover and Arien are at the table, while Florence stands beside the stove, feeding wood into the fire. Arien stays seated, his gaze fixed on the tabletop, but Clover stands up quickly and comes over to me. She takes my hands and peers into my face.
“You’re awake.” She brushes her fingers over the cut on my hand. “How do you feel?”
“Like I just fought off a monster.” I scrub my wrist across my face, then look around the room. “Where’s Rowan? Is he—? It didn’t—when I stopped him, was he hurt?”
“He’s in his room,” Florence says. “He went upstairs after he helped you back inside.”
I turn away from them and run up the stairs, stumbling slightly. The door to Rowan’s room is half-open. I tiptoe inside. He’s passed out on the bed, the quilts kicked into a pile beneath his muddied boots. I cross the room slowly, sadness rising in my chest. I kneel down on the floor beside the chaise, and put my hand against his cheek. His fawn skin is pale, and his brows knit into a frown when I touch him.
I close my eyes as, in a rush, it all comes back. I’ve done it. I’ve really done it. I bargained. I’m marked. I’m promised.
It’s what I wanted, and I’m not sorry for what I’ve done. But the hollowed place left behind from where I gave up my memories is a constant ache. It feels painful and wrong to have this vacant, blank space where my family once was. To know that I’ll never see them again, that when my soul passes to the world Below, I’ll be alone, without even Arien there beside me.
I know I made the right choice. Still—it hurts.
I take Rowan’s hand. The sigil on his wrist is a cluster of angled lines, like a sunburst. The identical mark on my own wrist pulses, as though there is still magic left inside it. For a breath I see flashes of color and catch a thread of emotions that don’t seem quite mine. The same uneasy mix of relief and despair I felt earlier, interwoven with some darker thing. Anger. Guilt.
I let go of his hand, and the images fade.
Florence comes quietly into the room. She has a tray set with tea, and a vial of sedative. “Oh.” She looks at him, smiling sadly. “He’s gotten mud all over the sheets.”
“Should we take off his boots?”
“No, let’s not wake him.” She sets down the tray and puts her hand against his forehead for a moment. “Come on, we’ll leave him to rest.”
We go back into the kitchen, where Clover sets a cup of tea onto the table for me beside a jar of honey. I sit down heavily. My whole body feels bruised. When I swallow the tea, I can still feel the grittiness in my mouth, like the mud is inside me. I scoop out a spoonful of honey and stir it into my cup. But even with the honey, the bitterness of the herbs stays on my tongue.