Page 129 of The Death Wish

Byleist sighed, flopping onto his back, draping his arm across his eyes. ‘Gracious, I told Jacquetta to have him sign a blood agreement before he toddled off. I told her you’d not believe it.’

Silas whirled onto his knees, no easy task when his skull felt heavy as a cannonball, his limbs weighted like they were turning to stone. ‘Toddled off? Where the blasted hell has Pitch gone?’

Oh, the ants were scattering now from his thoughts. Fleeing for their bloody lives, as they should.

‘Off to the lake, of course.’ Byleist was infuriatingly matter of fact about it. ‘I’ll be honest. Both Jacquetta and I were shocked at his selflessness.’

Shock squeezed Silas’s lungs. He could barely speak for the rage. ‘He left me?’

‘Good of him, don’t you think?’ Byleist withdrew his arm from his eyes, smiling up at Silas like a lover ready for his due. ‘Never thought he had it in him. You are quite safe now, Lord Death.’

‘Fuck, I don’t wish to be safe, Byleist,’ Silas shouted, but this strange twilight held him deadened in all ways, stuffed with cotton and stones. ‘It is not selflessness, it is utter stupidity. Let me out of this place. I have to go to him.’

The damned ants weren’t done yet, nibbling at his remembrance of how to get to his feet. Hard as he thought on it, he could not recall which limb moved first.

‘Of course you think you need to go to him, my lord, but the daemon was quite right. It is best you stay here, Jacquetta has you quite safe, trust me. And I’ll be there the moment I’m given the go-ahead to retrieve you.’

‘No one will bloody wellretrieveme. And not a one of you may determine what is best for me.’ Silas had never been more furious at Pitch. It made his blood thunder in his ears. ‘Release me. Now.’

Byleist’s seductive smile melted like heated wax, and his gaze shifted to the sky. The clouds were dark smears now, where they had been white puff balls before. He sat up. ‘My lord, calm yourself. It is not that simple to walk away from a royal claim of the UnSeelie Court.’

‘Make it simple. Release me.’ The voice rose from the bottom of Silas’s chest, that guttural depth of voice he’d discovered in the cockaigne. The one that gathered all his years in its wake and used their mass to propel it from his lungs.

The sunshine wilted. Byleist tilted his head, his hair sweeping at the grass that was now turned brown and crisp beneath him. He appeared as close to worry as Silas knew him capable. ‘You must understand, it was your prince’s choice to renege –’

Silas grabbed at Byleist’s shirt and dragged the elf in close. ‘I promised him he would not see this through alone, do you hear me? He may renege on his promise, but I will never, ever go back on mine. Never. My vow is as certain as death.’

Byleist smoothed the alarm from his face. ‘The lake is the daemon’s burden. His fate lies in those waters. He fears you seeing what he will become, and was sickened by the thought you’d be there, watching as he fell. Stay here, Silas. It is what your mighty prince wished for you.’

‘Wished for me?’

‘To save you from any suffering.’

Silas’s heart truly ached, not just a pinch of muscle at his ribs, but the pumping, frantic vessel itself.

‘This does not save me, Byleist. It curses me.’ He loosened his grip on the fae’s shirt, his hands shaking. ‘Pitch is a fool if he thinks this death wish shall spare me any suffering. You say you are my protector, and my friend?’ Byleist nodded. ‘Then help me. My days, my hours perhaps, are numbered, and every breath will be an agony if you do not let me go to him.’

Byleist rocked onto his knees, bringing them almost face to face, for the fae was a tall, lithe creature. The brittle grass crackled with his weight. He cupped his bone hand to Silas’s cheek. He allowed the intimacy, too busy searching the fae’s face for a sign he would agree.

‘My Lord, my friend…this is for the best. You are the only one who cannot see it. I cannot let you go.’

Silas’s fury sat like dark, smouldering coals in his belly. The earth rumbled beneath his knees. Byleist shot a look of unconcealed fright at the shaking ground.

‘My lord, I beg you, calm yourself. You are in neither one world nor the other, and I fear what shall become of you if you damage this place.’

‘Then let me out.’

‘I cannot.’ Byleist sounded truly anguished. ‘I don’t want to.’

Silas dragged in a deep breath, finally clearing his head. The scent of the soil found him; loam and iron and coppery depths. Rich and teeming, the giver of life.

The scythe hummed against his finger, waking along with him. Sending a surge of clarity.

The soil; giver of life, but formed by death. The result of living things returned to the earth, and broken down hungrily. Made immortal.

Silas edged away from the fae and leaned down to plant his hands upon the ground. He dug his fingers into the dying moss, and it dissolved like sand between his fingers. The moss that had swallowed most of the faerie circle stones now fell away, making naked the granite stones; dull with their rounded tops and mediocre size, their uninteresting parched surfaces, smoothed by time.

‘My lord, I beg you, take care.’