Shadow's End (Elder Races, #9)(81)

Even though they sounded like they were fighting, a different kind of warmth and healing stole into him. Squeezing her fingers, he fell deeply asleep.

? ? ?

The spike burst out of Bel’s chest. Her dark gaze turned wry, before the light in them faded.

And there was red, dripping into the white snow. Blooming like roses.

With a muffled shout, he woke in a clench.

He was still in the hospital room. The remains of a dinner tray sat on a nearby table. Bel had climbed into the bed with him, curling against his side, with her head on his chest. She was sound asleep.

As he grabbed her, she woke with a start and rose up on one elbow. Her cheek was lined with creases. “What is it?”

“I dreamed you died,” he said from the back of his throat.

Quick compassion flashed across her face. She kissed his neck, the line of his jaw, his mouth. “I’m right here, just as I promised I would be.”

He said against her lips, “You’re not going anywhere.”

“No, never. I swear it.”

He drank in her breath that carried the words of that promise, kissing her deeply. She stroked his hair, kissing him back.

When he could bear to say it, he whispered, “Constantine.”

Her eyes filled with sadness. Wordlessly, she shook her head.

He had already known, but still, he had hoped against hope. He buried his face in her hair, feeling gut shot. She held him with her whole body.

After a moment, he asked, “Rune? Julian?”

“They’re both going to make it. Rune—he took a bad wound to the thigh. It nicked the femoral artery, but when he fell into the icy water, it slowed the bleeding enough. Carling and the medics got to him right away.” She ran her fingers along the line of his bare shoulder. “Julian’s hands were badly burned. I don’t know what his long-term prognosis is. But I know he’s alive.”

“What about Ferion?” He ran his hands down the long graceful curve of her back, pressing her closer to wipe away the ugly memory of the dream.

“He’s okay. He— For a few minutes, I was afraid he wasn’t going to make it. I don’t know much, yet, about what happened back at the Elven residence after I left except that I heard Ferion tracked down and killed a few of Malphas’s spies. Malphas had fixed the soul lien so that it would kill him if anybody tried to remove the spell, but Soren was able to break it before Ferion choked to death. Soren’s—” Through the palms of his hands, he felt her swallow hard. “He’s gone too. Malphas was trying to run when Soren stopped him.”

Two eternal souls, gone forever.

“I remember,” he said in a low voice. He thought of the crashing Power overhead, and the destruction on Hart Island. “Gods, what a high cost. Did anybody else die?”

“No,” she told him quickly, kissing him again. “Everybody else is okay.”

He nodded, turned his face away and covered his eyes with one hand. Pain tore at him, along with sickened grief.

Silence fell in the room. Bel nuzzled his chin and stroked his hair, offering comfort. After several minutes, he whispered, “I feel like this is all my fault.”

Her head had begun to drift down to his chest again. At those words, she straightened back up. “How can you say that? Why would you think this was all your fault?!”

After spending his whole life hiding his visions, it was remarkably hard to break the silence. He forced his way through it, saying through gritted teeth, “I’m—I guess you’d say I’m psychic. I see things before they’re about to happen. Sometimes I can change things just enough, so that something else happens instead.”

The alarmed concern in her eyes turned to fascination. “You have the second sight?”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Always have. I . . . saw what happened on the beach a long time ago.” Unable to look at her, he averted his face. “Not everything. I never see everything clearly.”

“I’ve had several conversations with previous Oracles over the years,” she murmured. “Every one of them said that visions can be terribly difficult to interpret.” She asked gently, “What did you see?”

“Blood, dripping from my chest wound. The white snow, the black rocks, the water—some kind of high building. Heart’s blood. Hart Island, only I didn’t know it was Hart Island until I got there. I’d never been to the place before, outside of my vision.”

She laid cool fingers against his cheek. “When did you first see it?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose hard, and whispered, “Two hundred years ago, when I saw you at the Vauxhall masque.”

“Two hundred years ago.” She sat up so that she could stare down at him, her expression filling with horror mingled with wonder.

He deserved her horror. It would serve him right if she walked out of the hospital room and never came back. He saw Constantine again in his mind, and another wave of pain washed over him.

“Let me get this straight,” she said. “All that time ago, you saw what you thought was your own death, and you still offered to help me?”

His jaw tightened. He nodded. “I didn’t see anybody else, or any details. If I had only seen Constantine, I would never have agreed to let him come. He died because of me.”

She twisted around to face him fully, some kind of extreme reaction tightening her face and body. Whatever her initial reaction was, she held it back until she calmed and looked more balanced. He respected that so much about her, how she found her own ballast and considered her words carefully.