CHAPTER 100
ZORA
There’s a moment before the stalactite spears Farin when I glimpse speckles of our life together.
Except, it’s not this life—abandoned on this strange island for eternity, making the best of such an existence.
It’s a dozen lives, blended together, overlapping, blurring the lines between this world and others.
But then there’s the snap of Farin’s bones, and the lives never meant for us fade away.
I have to battle the dizziness from where my head hit the cave wall, but I stagger over to Farin’s body.
For a moment, I think he’s dead, but then I catch sight of his chest, heaving barely. The stalactite juts from his shoulder, having narrowly missed his heart.
“Farin,” I say, my voice frantic, but he doesn’t respond. His mouth hangs slightly ajar. When he coughs, blood spews from his lips.
“No.” My mind races, and I shuffle through lifetimes of memories, knowledge, searching for what I’m supposed to do. I fear removing the stalactite will only bolster the bleeding, but the cave is still trembling, and keeping him here only risks another stalactite falling on him.
I don’t have time to think. I yank the stalactite from his shoulder, quickly wrapping my makeshift sail-blanket around my hand and using it to grab a stone from the border of smoldering fire. When I press it to his skin, he lets out a groan.
“Doesn’t feel good, does it?” I say. The words come out biting, though I’m praying to the Fates he’ll stay with me.
“You should be a healer with that bedside manner of yours, Wanderer,” Farin mutters, and I let out a relieved gasp. At least he’s conscious.
I drag him by his armpits out of the cave.
In the distance, smoke smolders at the top of the mountain in the center of the island.
“What,” Farin says, his voice slurred, “is that?”
For a moment, I think perhaps Farin isn’t as cognizant as I thought, but then it hits me. Farin describes the world from which he comes as having a flat landscape. Now that I consider it, I can’t even remember enough about Alondria to know if he would have encountered any while living in Nox’s head.
“That’s a volcano,” I explain, to which Farin frowns.
“A smoking mountain?”
“Yeah,” I say, gulping. “Let’s hope that’s all it does.”
An hour later, soot begins to settle on the island flora, coating the leaves of the canopy overhead and mixing with the sand. That’s fine with me. The more the ash settles, the easier it is to breathe.
I’ve found us a cave that doesn’t have natural spears dangling from the ceiling, though that’s going to be of little comfort if the volcano erupts again. If it spews out more than smoke this time.
I’ve managed to wrap Farin’s wound in strips I tore from the sail, and so far that seems to have stopped the bleeding. For now. His speech has gone back to normal now that the initial shock of the wound has faded, but he’s got this sparkle in his blue eyes that makes him look dazed. Almost innocent.
He catches me watching him, and his face breaks into a goofy, lopsided smile. “What is it, Wanderer? Swooning over the male who pushed you out of harm’s way?”
I punch his unharmed shoulder, though lightly. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I say, though I hardly manage the teasing lilt I intended.
“I don’t know. Seems like a fairly romantic gesture to me.”
My eye twitches in response, and I avert my gaze, focusing on his wound. Already, blood has started to pool through the cloth. “We both know who you’re saving the actual romance for,” I say, and I’m surprised by the lack of envy in my voice.
Farin might be attracted to me, and I to him. He might even be telling the truth when he claims he has no interest in killing me. That doesn’t change his reasoning for wanting to get back to Alondria.
“You jealous, Wanderer?” he asks, his chuckles broken up by the way he winces every time his chest moves.
I steady my voice. “No.”
A smile brushes his soft lips. “Pity. I think I would have liked for you to be jealous over me.”
The grunt I offer him is hardly an answer, but it’s the best I’ve got.
Farin’s voice is gentle. “Can I ask you a question?”
I nod, still refusing to look in his direction, to allow him to trap me with those stunning blue eyes of his. The memory of his lips on mine still burns into my skin, tempting me to slip back into a futureless daydream, a lie so easily slipped over my eyes.
“Why’d you bother pulling me from the cave? What’s the point of tending to my wounds?”
I still.
“You tried to kill me only a few hours ago. I’m the one who needs you to get me off this island, not the other way around. Succumbing to a moment of passion, I can understand. This,” he winces, lifting his uninjured arm to tap his wound dressing lightly. “This, I don’t.”
My mouth goes dry. “You can’t understand fae decency? An innate respect for life?”
“No. Believe it or not, that I can understand. As I’ve told you, I wasn’t always cruel. I remember a time when I felt compassion. Earlier, with the man on the beach. It hurt me—considering what he had suffered. Seeing his body mangled and limp like that.”
I snort. “Before or after you mutilated it?”
