But she’s gone now. Part of me knew it the moment the Old Magic separated from her body. Part of me knew it before then, the moment Az’s blade punctured her chest.
When the dagger sliced through her skin, my first thought was how that couldn’t be, because Az had entered a fae vow not to lay a hand on her.
My father would have beaten me for making a vow like that. One with loopholes that don’t account for figurative language.
The curse can be so literal at times.
Even then, I don’t know if I would have thought to be more specific. Because as deluded as I knew Az was, as likely as I found it that he might force himself on her having convinced himself that was what Asha wanted, never did I dream he would try to kill her.
“Asha.” I crawl to her, the guards who previously detained me still in shock over their queen’s death.
As I draw closer, her blood coating the slippery floor soaks my hands.
I’m transported to Rivre, where over a year ago I held the same position, cradling my wife in my arms. There was still life in her that time.
There is none now.
Her scars have returned, whatever magic the healer wrought on her skin having dissipated with her spirit.
I feel for her pulse in the crook of her neck as I brush her sweat-ridden hair away. All I find is an absence of the vitality that thrummed there only moments ago.
That’s the strangeness of it all. That Asha was here, just a moment ago, looking into my eyes and trying to communicate something to me.
It’s a moment so fresh in time; it feels wrong, that she’s no longer here. No longer breathing. That her chest no longer rises and falls, her eye no longer sees.
It remains open, staring at the ceiling above, and I brush the side of my hand, the part that’s not sticky with her blood, over her lid. There’s a part of me that’s selfish in doing so, like if her eye is closed, I can pretend she’s sleeping. Something that’s impossible to do with her staring into nothing.
It doesn’t help.
Asha doesn’t look like she’s sleeping.
Asha looks dead.
Because she is.
Something within me cracks. Rips. An anguish I’ve never experienced before. I came close the day I thought I’d lost her. But she’d been hanging onto life by a thread, and I’d still been clinging to the other end.
There’s nothing for me to cling to now. Nothing but her corpse, which is already cooling to the touch, and I don’t even have my magic within me to warm it.
“No,” I groan, but the word is fruitless, empty on my tongue. “No, you didn’t die before. We saved you before.”
Had we simply postponed the inevitable, then? When Asha’s heart had beat again at the Council meeting, had it been because she simply hadn’t fulfilled her purpose yet, and now she has, so she’s been taken away from me?
I take her hand, and it hurts to touch her limp fingers.
Something comes hurtling for my head. I catch it, the vial of liquid moonlight cooling my palm.
I glance over to Blaise, who shrugs and scrapes her foot against the floor. “I swiped some from a warehouse a while back.”
I stare down at the vial in my hand, and I know then I could have her back. Know that the same process that led to Farin inhabiting Nox’s body could bring her back to me.
It’s then that the plan unfolds. We wouldn’t even have to use someone who is alive to do it. Hadn’t Blaise admitted that Nox’s initial plan for his spell had been to use a fresh corpse?
She wouldn’t look like Asha. Talk like Asha, but I don’t care. It’s never been about Asha’s body. It’s like I told her all those nights ago in Rivre. Her body is the anchor that ties her to this side of the sun. It’s what keeps her here with me.
It’s what keeps her here with me.
Suddenly, I feel as though I can’t breathe.
I can’t be here without Asha.
I can’t survive in a world she doesn’t inhabit.
I know now that my father was right. That males aren’t meant to outlive their females. I’m not made for this, I’m not…
The vial is cold to the touch. Silvery moonlight swirls inside the mixture, and I find it difficult to look away.
“We’d have to burn the body,” says a voice from the corner. Blaise’s.
I turn to look at her, to challenge the judgment on her face, but there is none.
I can tell by the set of her jaw that she understands. That doesn’t mean she approves. But she won’t stand in my way. It’s her fault, after all. Her fault for planting the idea in Asha’s mind. Her fault for putting my wife in the hands of a lunatic.
But Blaise’s use of the word “we” tells me she’ll help.
I can decide how I’ll punish Blaise later, but first I need to know. “Is it so awful?” I ask. “Being what you are?”
Blaise looks down at herself, and for the first time I notice there’s something different about her. Something I can’t place. “I don’t think I can answer that for anyone else.”
