Chapter 228: Heavy lids 2

EDELINA

The meadow was gray this time.

Not the brass-gold of the first dream. The sky hung low and heavy, the color of old pewter, and the grass lay flattened beneath an invisible weight. There was no wind, no birdsong, nothing to disturb the silence. It was so complete that I could hear the faint rush of blood in my ears.

I had taken only two steps when something struck me from the side.

I went down hard. The breath burst from my lungs, my shoulder slammed against the ground, and before I could gather myself, a weight settled over my chest. A hand closed around my throat.

Lycaon hovered above me, his lips drawn back from his teeth.

"You fought and fought," he said. His voice was soft, almost tender. "And it was a valiant fight. I will give you that. I did not think you would last so many hours. Do you know how many people have lasted that long against the existence of me?"

His fingers tightened.

"Well..." He considered it. "There was only the witch. And that is hardly a respectable sample size from which to draw conclusions. But you understand what I mean." His eyes narrowed. "You are the first, Edie. And now it is over. It is time to share this body or die."

"Wait."

The word emerged as little more than a rasp. I clawed at his wrist, but he might as well have been carved from stone.

"Wait. Lycaon. Please, wait."

His grip remained firm, although the pressure stopped increasing.

"I will free you."

Something shifted in his expression.

"I will free you," I repeated. "I swear it. I do not want to die. Not like this. Not when there is still a possibility that everything could go wrong."

"Go wrong?"

"If you take me now..." I struggled to draw a breath. "You know the risks. This is a gamble for you as much as it is for me. My body is sick. You know that. You have said it yourself. The curse is eating me from within, and if you force your way into a body that is already failing, the strain could kill the vessel before you have accomplished anything."

I watched his face, forcing myself to continue despite the pressure against my throat.

"You would have no opportunity to deceive my son into giving you his blood. You would never reach the tank. You would wake in a corpse, locked inside this estate, while my son remained imprisoned in his cell. You would have traded one cage for another, only to find yourself without the body, without the blood, and without the only person capable of helping you return to this plane."

For a long moment, he said nothing.

The darkness of his eyes remained perfectly still. Behind it, however, something was moving. I could almost see the calculations taking place, the rapid assessment of every possibility I had laid before him.

Then his hand opened.

I rolled onto my side, coughing violently. The grass scratched my cheek, and I pressed a hand against my throat while I struggled to draw enough air into my lungs. When I finally managed to push myself onto my elbows, I found him sitting back on his heels a few feet away, one wrist resting on his knee.

He regarded me with the detached interest of a man waiting for a performance to begin.

"Go on," he said.

"I have a plan." I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "One that allows everyone to get what they want. All I need is three more days."

"Three days."

"Yes."

"And what exactly do you intend to accomplish in these three days?"

"The Regent has gone to Lily of the Valley." I forced my voice into something steadier. "I intend to end his life there."

One of his eyebrows rose.

"Did he go alone?"

"No."

"Ah." The corner of his mouth twitched. "With the healer, then."

"Yes."

"Then it is a given that he survives."

"I would not be so certain."

"I am."

There was something particularly unpleasant about the certainty with which he said it. He did not sound suspicious or even amused. He sounded like a man stating an established fact, something as indisputable as the rising of the sun.

"I know what I am doing," I said. "I need you to trust me."

He laughed.

It was not the vicious bark I remembered from the night he had tried to claw my throat open. This was lower, almost weary, and for a moment it carried something so painfully human that I found myself watching him with greater attention.

He leaned back on his hands and turned his face towards the flat gray sky.

"Trust." He rolled the word around his tongue. "Is that what you want? You, of all people?"

He shook his head, a faint smile pulling at his mouth.

"Do you know why I came for you the other night? Why I lost my temper and tried to tear your throat open like a rabid dog?"

I said nothing.

"Because you have no idea what it is like in here." His voice lowered. "No. Listen to me, Edie. You have never been caged. Not like this."

His fingers curled into the grass.

"Twenty years. Perhaps more. I have lost count. Twenty years in a tank of silver, submerged in water with a current running through it constantly, keeping my teeth chattering inside my skull. I have had no sleep... No death... No end. Do you understand what that does to something that is supposed to be alive?"

He looked at me.

"And then, for a few days, I had a taste of it again. A body. Sunlight falling across a floor. The smell of a kitchen. Food. Sweat. Blood." His jaw tightened. "I could feel things. Touch things. Walk without being dragged back into the dark. And I did not want to lose it."

His gaze settled on me, and the weariness in his expression gave way to something bitter.

"And you looked at me as though I were a stranger you were obliged to tolerate. As though my presence were some terrible inconvenience you had been forced to endure. Despite everything I had done for you, despite everything I had given you, you looked at me as though you did not trust me at all."

I swallowed, my throat still aching where his fingers had been.

"I did not."

"I know." He held my gaze. "And as much as it pains me to admit it, I did not trust you either. I still don’t." His mouth twisted, as though the admission had left a bad taste behind. "Perhaps sacrificing that witch was a mistake. I think about her sometimes. She made a rather nice vessel."