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Chapter Seventy-One

Jasce

The healers try to pry Annora from my arms, but I refuse to let her go. Instead, I carry her to my tent and lay her on the bed, then lie down next to her.

I’d give anything— everything —to see her eyes open again. To see her smile at me one more time.

How can I face tomorrow knowing I’ll never see her eyes light up when she discovers a new seashell or hear her laugh when I say something ridiculous just to make her smile?

I would gladly trade places with her, give my own life just to see her chest rise and fall once more.

She gasps as her eyes fly open, locking on mine with startling intensity.

A jolt of surprise crashes through me. “You’re alive!”

I touch her cheek, her jaw, her neck, where her heartbeat proves this miracle.

Confusion clouds her eyes as she lifts her hand to her chest, where the dagger went in.

“You were gone. I held you as you...” I can’t finish, can’t say the words, can’t make them real again.

“I saw your mother,” she whispers.

My chest squeezes. “What?”

“Mazaline. She said...” Annora’s brow furrows. “She said I wasn’t finished.”

“What else did she say?”

“She said her ring chooses life.”

I glance down at the turquoise ring on Annora’s finger—the one that allowed us to meet in The Elemental.

“Don’t ever do that again,” I say, my voice hoarse with emotion. “I can’t lose you. I won’t survive it.”

She shifts closer, as if needing to feel my warmth. “I had to stop Aleksander. He was going to make me hurt our people, hurt you, and I could never hurt you, Jasce.”

Fuck Aleksander!

I’d kill him if he wasn’t already dead.

“Can I have water?” she asks, her voice raspy.

I cross to the table where a pitcher sits and pour water into a goblet. Some of it sloshes over the rim as I bring it back to her.

She drinks deeply, her throat working as she swallows. I watch every movement, taking in the sight of her alive and breathing. When she finishes, I take the goblet and set it aside.

The mattress dips as I settle next to her and take her hand in mine, rubbing my thumb over the turquoise ring. For as long as I can remember, my mother had told me how special that ring was.

But I never understood until now.