The blood pours out but it’s nothing, a flesh wound, nothing compared to the knife embedded in my sister’s back. The knife that’s killing her while I continue to waste time with the king.
I leap back, hardening my jaw at the smile on Goff’s face. He moves in, still smiling, gaining confidence.
But when he slashes again, I’m ready, letting the knife slide past me even as I grab his arm, twist it, wrench it in an unnatural way that leaves the king screaming out as his bones snap.
Following through, I crush a forearm into his skull, aiming for the same spot I hit him before, feeling him rock back under the force of the blow. I land on top of him, punching with all my might, swinging and swinging, blood misting in my face as his nose explodes, his lips crack open, still swinging, fists hitting the face of pure evil, not ready to stop, not wanting to stop, but remembering, remembering…
Jolie.
It can’t wait any longer. I have to get back to her, but first Goff has to die.
His knife lies discarded on the floor. I reach for it, grab it.
I’ve never killed before, but this is a good place to start.
I raise the knife just as there’s a final, stone-crushing THUD! and the door crashes open.
~~~
I whirl around, knife still raised, ready, so ready, to fight them all. A hundred men couldn’t stop me when I’m this close to saving her.
My arm drops when I see her.
Skye.
Blood-spattered and fierce-eyed and here. The bodies of dozens of guards are scattered and broken on the floor behind her. She came. She came for me—for us. For Jolie and me.
She looks at me, at the king, at Jolie’s body, taking it all in.
The king groans and I turn back. One of his eyes is slitted open and he’s staring at me. His hand lifts, slides toward me as if beckoning for help. Instead I raise the knife once more.
“No,” Skye says, suddenly by my side, taking my hand, taking the knife. My fingers don’t protest as she uncurls them. I am powerless against her. “Go to your sister.”
My whole body numb, I manage to stand, unsteady on my feet, shaking, stumbling my way over to Jolie, seeing moving bodies around me, barely able to recognize them as the others. Siena, Circ, Wilde, Feve. They’re all here, all fought through the hordes of guards to get to me.
But they’re too late. We’re all too late.
Right where I left her, Jolie sleeps.
That’s how I want to see her—asleep—just resting, a child in her bed, dreaming a child’s dream.
My eyes play the trick, and play it well, but when Feve rushes to her side, coated in a thin layer of sweat, his markings glistening in the light, the truth returns.
Jolie, broken. Jolie, lying in a pool of her own blood. Jolie, covered in red and black, a knife sticking from her…from her beautiful…from her beautiful little body, and I can’t speak, can’t think, can’t remember another word about her, because it hurts too much, and I’m by her side, like I floated there, because I can’t remember walking, and I’m cradling her head in my arms and I’m crying into her hair, and there’s nothing left in this world.
Nothing.
And then Feve opens a leather pouch at his side, removes little glass jars and skins of herbs.
And then he reaches for the knife, the knife in my sister’s back…
“Don’t!” I shout, my voice husky and heavy, grabbing his hand, stopping him, meeting his eyes. “Don’t touch her,” I say.
“Trust me,” Feve says. He puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s her only chance.”
Siena kneels beside me, says, “Feve’s saved me ’fore. Let him save her.” Coming from her, it means everything. She’s the one who doesn’t even like him.
A dead girl doesn’t have a chance, but my shoulders slump and I release Feve’s arm. He couldn’t save Wes, but perhaps my brother’s life was too far gone. Maybe the Marked have magic. Maybe they have miracles. But I won’t hope for it; my heart can’t be broken twice.
Feve’s hand goes back to the knife handle.
I hold her limp head, brush her sweat-damp hair away from her face.
“Cloth, Circ!” Feve orders, and then takes a deep breath, adding a second hand to his grip on the handle. I hear cloth tearing behind us and it sounds like the rending of my own heart.
“Oh, Joles,” I murmur under my breath, touching my forehead to hers. “You can’t go. Please stay.” But she’s not breathing, not moving, not sleeping like I want to believe.
Circ slides next to us with a panel of cloth. He uses a blade to cut it into long strips. Feve looks at him. “You ready?” Circ nods. “When I pull it out, hold some cloth firmly on the wound. You’ve got to be quick, she can’t lose any more blood.” Circ nods again.
“One…”
I kiss Jolie’s head.
“Two…”
I close my eyes.
“Three!”
Jolie’s body shudders and my eyes flash open to Circ covering a deep stab wound with cloth, holding it in place with the heel of his hand. Jolie gasps suddenly, coughing in my face, her eyes shooting open, wider than the base of the mountain.
“Jolie? Jolie?” I say, holding her, but her eyes drift closed slowly, her head heavy once more. Lifeless.
But wait.
Wait.
Please, wait.
Her breath’s on my face. It’s weak, so frighteningly weak, but still there.
Feve pushes in next to Circ, lifts the bandages, which are already tinged with blood, pours clear liquid across the wound, refolds the cloths, and presses them back down, closing Circ’s hands on them once more. He looks at me. “To help close the wound,” he explains.
I want to know more, how he knows to do what he’s doing, how he’s going to save Jolie’s life, but not now. Now, all I want to do is feel her breath on my hand, on my face, as I watch her sleep.
Really sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Three
She hasn’t woken up and I haven’t left her side, sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair that hurts my back and my arse in equal measure.
Three days have passed with her little chest rising and falling, rising and falling, but other than that, she hasn’t moved more than a whisper, not even stirring for the dark dreams that surely plague her sleep.
Mother’s oblivious to everything.
I’ve held Jolie’s hand for hours and hours, just in case she can feel it and draw strength from me. And in case she can hear me, I speak to her, tell her memories of growing up together, when Father and Wes weren’t dead, when Mother wasn’t a ghost of a human. Good stories. Stories I can’t tell without feeling melting snow in my eyes.
Feve comes every day, gives her herbs in a drink that we dribble on her tongue, both for strength and for healing. I help him replace her bandages and watch as he sprinkles his strange medicines on her wound. Every day I hope it’ll look better, but it never does.
And every day I get plenny of visitors. Buff, Siena, Circ, Wilde—even good ol’ Yo from the pub comes by. My friends from fire country are staying at Clint and Looza’s with my mother. I never ask them how that’s going and they don’t offer the information.
Skye comes by more than anyone, at least six times a day. It’s weird, seeing her on a daily basis outside of the prison, outside of the woods, outside of battle. She can be so different when she wants to be. So much less strong, more tender. Sometimes she holds my hand while I hold Jolie’s, and I can almost feel her strength running through me and into my sister.
She might never wake up.
I think it all the time, but I won’t say it out loud, even when Feve cautions me that it’s a possibility. “There’s no way to predict how a body will react to something like that. And she’s so small,” he says.
“She’s strong,” I reply back, but still the thought is in the back of my head.
(She might never wake up.)
I’m so tired, so freezin’ exhausted, both mentally and physically, that all I want to do is curl up in a ball next to Jolie and sleep forever with her. But the bed’s too small and I’m too big and I’m afraid of crushing her in my sleep.