OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE Wylfrael

By the time I crashed down into Sceadulyr’s courtyard, night had fallen, and all the other gods were gone.

“Come out, Shadowlands god!” I screamed into the star-pricked sky. “Come out here and face me!”

I need not have shouted so. He peeled himself out of nearby darkness, like seeping liquid freezing into something solid before my very eyes.

“I do not remember inviting you back here after your earlier insolence,” Sceadulyr said, walking agonizingly slowly towards us. I ignored his words, holding Torrance up, like an offering, a terrible homage to what I’d done.

“Save her,” I gritted out. “She is dying.”

Sceadulyr normally schooled his features into whatever emotion he wanted others to see. But even he could not hide his shock at what he saw in my arms.

“She’s dead, I think you mean,” he said, silver pupils large as he stared down at my bride. “And, if I am not mistaken... is that not the very sword you cut me with in my own home, Wylfrael?” The shock on his face melted into a taunting sneer. The cursed god was enjoying this. Enjoying my pain, enjoying how I suffered. “Clearly, you are entirely too careless with your blade.”

“Save her,” I hissed. My arms shook. “Save her, or I will destroy you and this entire world.”

I meant it, too. The agony inside me expanded like a storm, howling, burying everything. I’d kill him. I’d kill everyone. No one else deserved to live when she did not.

Especially me.

Sceadulyr’s silver gaze was flat and merciless.

“Your threats bore me, Wylfrael. Tell me why I should help you and your pathetic human mate when you have nothing that I want.”

My arms shook even harder. I’d never felt like this – so helpless. So weak. I hated it almost as much as I hated myself.

“I do have something,” I said, hoping against hope that it would be enough. “I have a star map.”

Sceadulyr tensed slightly.

“And?” he said. He sounded like he did not care, but I knew that he did.

“And I will lend my powers to you. I will open sky doors for you, sky doors anywhere, for as long as you want.”

I didn’t want to owe Sceadulyr like this. But there was no other choice. I was on the brink of begging him.

“Take the deal I offer,” I hissed. “Take it. If you save my mate, I will help you find yours and restore your star map.”

Sceadulyr regarded me emotionlessly for so long I thought he’d refuse.

But then, in the casually sudden way one might announce what they intended to eat for breakfast, he said, “Alright. I’ll do it. Bring her inside.”

“Thank you,” I said tightly as I followed him into his palace.

“I don’t want your thanks,” Sceadulyr replied. “Just your star map.”

He led me into a room at the base of a tower that had some furniture and directed me to put Torrance down on a chaise longue with a white linen cushion. Sceadulyr frowned as I did so.

“I hope you know you’ll owe me a new cushion if she bleeds all over that,” he muttered.

It took every ounce of stone sky will inside me not to smash his head in.

“Just hurry up,” I snapped. “Forget the cursed cushion.”

“Patience, Wylfrael, patience,” he chided. “She’s not going to get any deader.”

Sceadulyr was possibly, no, certainly, the most maddening god in the cosmos. But right now, the putrid shadow wielder was all I had. I ground my fangs against each other, swallowing everything I wanted to say, and focused on Torrance.

But looking at her was even more maddening in its own torturous way. My anger at Sceadulyr froze and shattered inside me, turning to grief that threatened to consume me. I’d lain her on her back, and her head was turned towards me. I peeled away the mask from her pale, cool skin, and knelt beside her, taking her little hand in mine.

Please, please don’t go.

“Stop holding her hand, you sentimental fool. I need you to pull out the sword,” Sceadulyr said. He stood on the opposite side of the chaise longue, his hands poised in the air above Torrance.

“You won’t let her bleed out?” I said, rising unsteadily to my feet and gripping the blade’s handle with both hands.

“Need I remind you of the cushions?” he said crisply. “Besides, her heart has stopped, so there won’t be much pumping out of her before I fix that.”

“Fine. Just fix her. Ready?”

“Always, Wylfrael. I expected you’d know that by now.”

I breathed in deeply, giving Torrance’s beautiful face one last, longing look before I slid the sword smoothly out of her chest. Sceadulyr’s eyes fell shut immediately, concentration furrowing his pale brow. Shadowy shapes swarmed over the table, sinking into Torrance’s wound, stopping blood from flowing out.

“Cursed skies, Wylfrael, you’ve really made a mess of her,” Sceadulyr growled, his lips twitching with the effort of whatever he was directing his shadows to do inside her body.

“Just fix her,” I said again, softly this time. I dropped my blade, unable to stand the red that coated it. Torrance wasn’t breathing. My hands curled into fists.

“Why hasn’t she revived yet? Why is it taking so long?”

Sceadulyr’s eyes opened, and he scowled at me.

“It is taking so long because, Wylfrael, every moment you deprive a mortal creature of blood flow after death is a moment that damage is inflicted, particularly in the brain. Perhaps you cannot appreciate that fact, as you do not seem to have one.”

I bristled at his insult but kept my mouth shut.

“My shadows have to work through every organ. I must make repairs, and her body is unfamiliar to me. If I woke her up now, she’d be alive, but would never stand, walk, or talk again. Is that what you want?”

“No!” I shouted.

“Then kindly make yourself useful by shutting up. You’re distracting me.”

I obeyed him, even though it physically pained me. I wanted to question his every move, wanted to understand what he did every moment. The feeling of helplessness came back, squawking and clawing at me, as I watched another god save my bride when I could not.

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.”