Beyond him, revealed by his fallen body, stood my uncle. Our eyes met over the corpse-strewn courtyard. Hatred and magic rushed through me, swirling together in a potent storm. The light beneath my skin surged. The snarls of his monstrous hounds turned to yelps as they turned tail, cowering behind their master.
Aliza’s screams fell silent.
No.
A roar shattered from my throat, and power burst from me in every direction, a blinding light cutting through the charged air. Maelgwyn and his dogs vanished a moment before my power reached them.
I sprinted the few remaining steps to the pyre.
For half a heartbeat, I hesitated, my breath trapped in my throat. Roaring flames, crackling, spitting. Hot. They towered over me, engulfing any signs of the woman I had failed.
Aliza was in there.
Smoke scorched my eyes, but I forced them to remain open. Sheathing one sword, I tightened my grip on the other, took one last breath, and stepped into the flames.
My scream curdled against my clenched jaw as I fumbled through the searing agony, reaching blindly. Searching. Every nerve in my body, every instinct, shrieked at me to recoil, to back away, but I had come too far. I would not be overcome. Not now, not if there was still a chance…
I couldn’t see, or hear, or think. Only feel. Feel my skin blistering and peeling and charring as I fought against every reflex I had, and kept my hand outstretched.
The ropes binding her were still intact, barely, but my sword made short work of them. Her scorched body crumpled, and I pulled her to my chest, even as she burnt through my leather, the stench of her cooked flesh finding its way inside me, choking me, even as I held my breath.
Together, we tumbled from the pyre. I wrapped myself around her, fighting the desperate urge to pull my skin away. To save myself. I would heal, but her…
Staggering to my feet, I hauled her out of reach of the flames, and only when the air was cool and clean again did I allow myself to let her go, laying her down on the blood soaked ground. What was left of her, at least.
“Aliza…” My voice scratched, hissing from my throat.
She was a ruin. Her features had melted away. There was nothing left, nothing to mark her as that bright, shining human girl who had mercilessly bullied me into being her friend. Even that rainbow of hair had turned to ash. Her skin was a monstrosity of split, red flesh. And her legs, her poor legs…
Tears streamed unchecked down my face as I took in her charred, bare bones. I was too late. I had not made it in time. I had failed her at the final test. I was always too fucking late.
My chest splintered.
Not again. Not again. I could not stand it. I would not allow it to end like this. I could not stand to lose another person I…
“Aliza,” I rasped, pleading, laying my shaking hands on her raw chest. My already healing skin sizzled, but I bit back my pain and focused on her. Only her. “Don’t go.”
I didn’t know how to use it, this fabled magic. Rhodd Anfarwol. I had not the faintest idea of how it was supposed to work, or if it was even real. In all my years before the curse, I’d never met anyone who’d used it. For all I knew it was just another piece of propaganda, designed to lure our human victims into our clutches. I’d trusted the stories, laid all my faith in them, but now the moment was upon me, doubt set it. But it was my last hope. Her last hope, however little she wanted it. Fuck the consequences. It was a small price to pay. I could live with her anger, but losing her? No, I could not live with that.
I screwed up my streaming eyes, and I wished. I wished with every piece of my ravaged heart, with every fibre of my shredded soul, with every breath I had ever taken, with all those I was yet to take. I begged. I pleaded. I bargained. I promised that, if only it worked, I would not give in to my darkness. I would not take the easy way out. I would live, for as long as fate would have me. I would do anything. If only it worked. If only.
Rain began to fall.
The first cooling drop landed on the back of my splayed hand, and my thoughts were only of her. Of how she would need this when she woke, to drive away any lingering heat. Because she would wake. I was going to fix her, and she would wake, and at least one thing in this wretched, fucked up world would be alright again.
Something new flowed through me. Not electricity, not pain. Something gentle. Something warm and bright and hopeful. Was that it? Was that the magic we’d all heard of in bedtime stories as children, in those tales of great love between our kind and theirs?
“Please,” I whispered, more to myself than anyone. “Please.”
I opened my eyes.
She was my Aliza again.
Somehow, against all odds, it had worked. Her skin was smooth and cool and as pristine as freshly polished marble. And the hair; I was in big trouble, but if she wanted to fight about it, I would do so gladly. Gone were the pastels, but so too was the scorched, twisted, hairless scalp. Beautiful, shining locks the colour of fudge spilled out behind her. And her face…
My breath hitched.
She was so still in her perfection. Too still. My hand, flat against her chest, felt nothing. No reassuring beat. No rise and fall. I dragged her into my arms, cradling her in my lap. She would open her eyes at any moment, she would smile, then tell me off.
Her head only lolled against my arm.
“Aliza.” I tapped her face. “Aliza, come on.”
There was no answer. No flicker beneath her eyelids.
“Please.” The word burst out of me in a sob.
Nothing.
It hadn’t worked. I was too late.
Only, it couldn’t be. I couldn’t accept it. She couldn’t be dead. I couldn’t give up.
As though she was made of cracked glass, held together only by the intricate angles of the fissures, still slotted into place, I laid her down on the ground.
I was cracking too, the already fractured pieces of myself crumbling at the sight of Aliza, still and perfect and dead.
There was no magic among fae or witches or elves capable of bringing back the dead, but the humans had a way. I’d knelt beside Aliza as she’d demonstrated. It hadn’t worked for the witch, but it would work for Aliza. I would make certain of it.
