Feverish and afraid, I stared at my slaughtered bride, unable to do anything else besides wait and wonder and apologize to her in silence.
Sceadulyr worked all night. The only reason I registered time passing was because warm dawn light began to filter through the room, though there were no windows, replacing the earlier moonlight. By the time dawn became full morning, cracks were showing in Sceadulyr’s control. He’d started out standing upright but was now hunched over Torrance, fingers curling with tension. His eyes were screwed shut, his nose and mouth twitching. His head was tilted slightly to the side, as if listening hard for something just out of earshot.
I wanted to whisper his name, to scream at him, but I was too afraid to break his concentration now. I felt that we were nearing the end of the process. I just did not yet know what the result would be. I’d watched Torrance so closely that I’d almost fooled myself into thinking she had started breathing several times when she had not.
“Almost there,” the Shadowlands god croaked through tense fangs.
Sceadulyr’s voice had broken the silence and shattered my fear of speaking. All the questions I’d held back poured out in a tumbling rush.
“Almost there? Almost where? Stone of the sky, will she live, Sceadulyr?”
Slowly, Sceadulyr straightened up. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, rubbing a hand down his face before opening his eyes.
“She already lives. I venture to think she will continue to do so as long as you don’t run her through with any more swords.”
I’d been standing, having spent much of the night pacing, but now I fell to my knees. I grasped Torrance’s hand, breathing so hard I almost missed the soft, whistling sound of her breath.
He’s done it. She lives.
“She will need time to recover,” Sceadulyr said. “I’ve done all I can, repaired the internal damage and pushed death’s darkness back, but it will take time for her to awaken, and more time beyond that for her to fully regain her strength, puny as it is.”
Her strength wasn’t puny. It was monumental. The most awe-inspiring thing I’d ever witnessed. Every breath she took was a testament to her power.
And, as much as I hated to admit it, to Sceadulyr’s.
“Thank you,” I told him, unable to tear my gaze away from Torrance’s face, where the tiniest blush of colour was ebbing into her cheeks.
“I already told you I don’t care about your thanks.” Sceadulyr bent to retrieve the blade from the floor, frowning at the dark, cracked blood. He held it out to me, but I ignored it. I couldn’t look at it. Couldn’t touch the blade now. Sceadulyr tossed it back down. He sidled over to a nearby wall, leaned back against it, crossed his arms, and stared at me.
“What is it?” I grunted. “You’re done here. Go rest.”
“Not quite done here, yet,” he intoned. “I have questions for you, Wylfrael.”
I suppressed a groan. I should have known that I wouldn’t have gotten away with a simple trade, offering my star map in exchange for Torrance’s life.
“Fine. What?” I asked. I held Torrance’s hand between both of mine, gently rubbing her smooth knuckles along my chin and jaw.
“Well, perhaps most obviously, how in the stone sky did this happen?”
I thought about lying, or not answering. But I’d have to share news of this eventually, at the very least to warn other stone sky gods away from trying to join the council. Haltingly, I told Sceadulyr of all that had come to pass after I’d left the gathering.
“Hmm,” he said slowly. “Well, that answers some things but confuses others. Only mortal gods can put themselves forward to join the council. Which brings me to my next question. Why are you alive?”
“I have not given her my knot yet,” I said, avoiding the whole messy truth of the bargain Torrance and I had created, our fake marriage, the lies we’d crafted together.
“So, you wanted to fool your way onto the council, even though you are not mortal yet?’ Sceadulyr probed.
I let out a biting sigh.
“Yes.” A sudden thought hit me, sent me reeling. “You do not think they knew? And that is why this happened...”
Could the council have somehow seen through our ruse? Was this a punishment?
“As much as I would love to take any opportunity to wax poetic about your stupidity and lack of foresight, Wylfrael, I do not think so. I know of at least two other truly mortal, mated gods who have not been heard from since they attempted to join the council. It now seems very clear to me that they killed their mates, as you did, but because they actually followed our rules and our ways, they died in the act.”
“Well, perhaps I’m not so lacking in foresight after all, then,” I grumbled. “If I’d played by the council’s rules, Torrance and I would both be dead now.”
“True.” He leaned his head back against the wall, looking down at me through lowered lids. “Word will get out about this, you know. The other gods must be warned. What will you tell them, about why you lived when others did not?”
“I’ll simply tell them that by some stroke of luck, I didn’t kill Torrance. She was badly wounded, and almost died, but I got her here just in time.”
“I suppose you expect me to go along with that flimsy story as well, then? Since you’ve now pulled me into this mess.”
“Yes.”
“Fine,” Sceadulyr said, pushing off from the wall. “Torrance can recuperate here. As soon as you are able, we will begin.”
“Begin...?”
“Our travels, of course,” Sceadulyr said brusquely. “I have many worlds to comb through yet before I find my mate.”
I placed Torrance’s hand gently down and rose to face Sceadulyr.
“No. As soon as I am able, I will open a sky door to Sionnach. That is where my bride will heal.” There wasn’t even the slightest sliver of a chance I would leave her here, vulnerable and unprotected in the Shadowlands, while Sceadulyr dragged me by my balls across the cosmos.
Sceadulyr regarded me with raised brows.
“And what do I have to ensure that you will actually return here and hold up your end of things if I let you take her away now?”
“My word,” I grunted.
He laughed bitterly.
“Ah, yes. Your word. It holds a lot of weight, very credible. Especially after you went before the council and lied about your mortality, and now will lie to every other stone sky god who asks about what happened here.”
“This is the deal,” I bit out. “I will not leave this world without her.”
“It’s like trying to reason with a block of ice,” Sceadulyr muttered. “Alright. I agree to your terms. Take her back to Sionnach as soon as your strength allows you, and return here in three days to open the first sky door for me.”
“Three days? It is not enough. I-”
“This is the deal,” he snapped, shooting my own words back at me. “You’d be wise to remember that everything I have done here I can yet undo.”
We stared at each other in silence until I finally agreed.
“Three days,” I acknowledged, turning back to Torrance. Sceadulyr smiled and strode from the room.
“Three days,” he called over his shoulder, as if I needed reminding. “I’ll be waiting.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO Torrance