Echo North(74)

“I am here to save you,” I tell him fiercely, “and I’m not leaving till I’ve done it.”

“But I’m not worth saving. Echo, you still don’t understand—”

“Come to the center of my circle,” thunders the Wolf Queen.

I lead Hal the few steps to where she’s pointing; he leans heavily on my shoulders. He feels fragile beneath my touch—brittle, impossibly old. And if what he and the Wolf Queen have said is true, he is old, more than four hundred years. “Echo, please!” Tears drip down his cheeks.

The moon is looking full into the Wolf Queen’s court. I have the feeling that it’s truly watching us, interested in the choices we make amidst the dust and the trees.

Hal faces me, standing a little straighter, a little grimmer than before.

I take both of his hands in mine; they’re cold, but they feel strong. “For the next three days, I’m holding on to you, Halvarad Wintar. And then you will be free.”

“What magic is stronger than hers?”

“The magic that made the world.” My voice cracks on the next word: “Love.”

He smooths his thumb across my cheek and smiles at me, the sad, hopeless smile of a man who has lost everything. He’s accepting my choice. “Thank you for coming to save me. My dear Lady Echo.”

“I’m just glad it’s not too late, Lord Wolf.”

He smiles again, and this time it’s a true smile.

From my peripheral, I see the Wolf Queen pacing toward us, and I have the sudden realization that this is not going to be as simple as holding Hal’s hands for three days. The Wolf Queen is bent on destroying us both—if she didn’t think it an impossible task, she wouldn’t have accepted my challenge.

“Don’t let go,” says Hal.

“Never.” I tighten my grip around his fingers.

And then the Wolf Queen raises her hands to the sky and begins to speak to the moon, a liquid, chanting language that seethes with fire and reminds me of the North Wind’s stories.

Hal begins to scream and shake, his eyes rolling back in his head. I slide one hand up his arm, my fingers digging through his thin shirtsleeve. He screams as if he’s being tortured with hot irons, and suddenly he’s burning, flames bursting raw from his skin, engulfing both of us.

And now I’m screaming, too. We both sink to our knees as the fire rages round. I can feel it eating away at my flesh, I can smell the stink of it. My hair catches fire and I am burning, burning, and yet I am not consumed. Hal weeps, ragged, rough, and anger cuts through my pain.

“You can’t kill us!” I cry out. “You don’t have the power!”

The fire burns and burns. I am in agony and Hal is worse. He shudders and shakes in my arms. His flesh chars black. His screams fill up the world, and mine are tangled with them.

But I don’t let him go. I cradle him in my arms, rebuking the fire and cursing the Wolf Queen. The flames slide away from me, but not from him. My pain evaporates. His does not.

He burns and burns and burns, but does not die. I think he will burn forever, or turn all to ash and blow away on the wind. I will not be able to hold him then. He will be lost to me.

I cling to him tighter than before. He screams and screams and weeps into my hair.

The fire abates, so slowly I don’t realize it’s happening until it’s suddenly gone, leaving Hal cracked and feverish in my arms. But he isn’t burnt to nothing, isn’t scarred beyond recognition. His screams fade to whimpers, and he’s trembling and human and somehow still whole.

“An illusion.” I wipe the tears from his eyes even as my own well up. “Only an illusion. Like the ones in our book-mirrors.”

He shudders and shudders. “It isn’t the worst she can do—” But his words are cut off in another cry of pain.

His body convulses. His bones crack and his skin tears apart and he transforms into a giant serpent, sinuous and black. He writhes and shrieks and I hold on, hold on, though his scales are sword-sharp and they slice into my hands. Hot, slippery blood runs down my arms. I dig my fingers under his scales, deeper and deeper, down into his flesh. I won’t let him go.

He strikes without warning, fangs biting deep into my shoulder, and violent, white-hot pain sears through me. I’m screaming again, the world white around me, but somewhere in the haze of agony I remember what I am, and what he is.

I screw my eyes shut. I don’t let go.

I feel him begin to change beneath me, and I open my eyes to see him growing larger and larger and larger, until I find my hands wrapped around the claw of a giant monster, with the shoulders and horns of an ox, the body of a lion, the feet of an eagle. His eyes glow fire red, and in one hand he wields a whip made of stars. He reeks of death and I am sick with fear.

The monster looks at me and laughs as he tries to shake me off his claw. But I wrap my whole body around his foot, tucking my head down between his claws, my feet cinched tight around his ankle joint. He cracks the whip and the tail hits the back of my head; excruciating light explodes in my vision. The fire and the pain tunnels into my mind, deeper and deeper, driving me mad.

But under the agony pulses a single, desperate thought: don’t let go, don’t let go, don’t let go.

The fire fades a little, and I open my eyes to see Hal again, kneeling on the forest floor, weeping and raging in his anguish. My hand is curled about his wrist. He lifts his face to mine, and there’s hatred in his eyes.