Page 134 of The Moorwitch

How much time has passed? How long has he been at my side? His hair is a mess, his jaw unshaven, and he wears a loose white shirt, half unbuttoned. The smooth planes of his chest rise and fall with deep sleep. My eyes trace the curve of his throat, the hollow of his collarbone, the small white scars on his shoulder from the battle against the fire-bears.

“He has barely left your side for a moment,” says a voice.

I stir, shifting my head just enough to see the faerie queen in the doorway. She wears a gown of black, the bodice studded with dark sapphires, the sleeves like dark snakeskin hugging her wrists. In her hair, her spiders weave between the spikes of her silver crown.

I tense all over, but she raises a hand.

“I am not here to hurt you,” she says. “The opposite, rather.”

I remember her breathing life into me, filling me with her magic. “What happened?”

“You committed the greatest sin a Weaver could. You touched the threads of fate, rewove the fabric of reality that is no one’s right to alter—mortal or immortal.” She steps closer, and I see how thin and exhausted she is, though being fae, she hides it well. “But you healed the Dwirra Tree. And you saved Conrad’s life. My brother’s last blow would have killed him, and he’d have slaughtered me and my daughter next, if you had not stolen his strength from him.”

“I hardly knew what I was doing,” I whisper.

“I know.” She arches a brow. “It was madness, to touch those threads. If your life energy had not been bound to my brother’s, you would surely be dead.”

“HowamI still alive?”

“Because another paid the price. And because for all your faults, mortal maid, your heart is strong.” She gives me a strange look,almost—if I can dare imagine it—respectful. “I’d thought I’d seen the last of the moorwitches centuries ago. It seems I was wrong.”

“Another?” I ask, my heart dropping. My eyes dart to Conrad, to assure myself that he is in fact breathing.

For a moment, she simply looks at me, her expression bemused. Then she sniffs and adds, “Conrad is well, save for the arm. And you have him to thank, for he would not let you die.” Her lips twist. “Or rather, he would not letmelet you die. I was able to draw a little of your life back out of the tree, just a thimble’s worth of you, but it was enough. I helped nurture that remnant back to strength. You may feel strangely for a while, and it would be best to touch no iron until the effects of my and my brother’s energy fades. A bit of us both still courses through you, supplementing your system until your own essence is fully restored.”

Judging by her gaunt form and tired eyes, she’s been healing me at great cost to herself.

“Lachlan?” I ask. “I felt him, at the end. That is, the link between us ...”

Her face darkens; she looks away, out the window. “My brother is dead.”

She goes on to explain that Lachlan had spoken true: to touch the Fate’s threads is to pay with one’s life. But my life was not my own anymore. It was Lachlan’s, thanks to our twisted bargain. My thread and his, tied together, our fates bound in that final moment. And when the Fates’ price was exacted, it washisthread that was cut. And the only reason I still breathe is because Morgaine pulled me back at the last minute.

I shudder, thinking of any part of Lachlan’s soul being tied to mine. I recall the thread of him running through me, like the wrong blood in my veins. How strange that it was his cursed bond with me that saved my life, like a rope tethering me to the world of the living after I’d thrown myself off a cliff.

How strange to think of him gone, so suddenly and completely. My terrifying phantom who has haunted me since I was a child, part protector, part tormentor.

In a warped way, he saved me twice.

With Lachlan fallen, Morgaine and all her fae—fueled with a surge of energy from the restored Dwirra tree—had quickly turned the tide and beaten back Lachlan’s forces. Of the scores he brought with him into Elfhame, nearly all the survivors bowed the knee then and there, their appetite for war lost along with their leader.

“And what about Sylvie? And the MacDougals? How long has itbeensince—?”

She lifts a hand, stopping me. “He will wake soon, and he can fill you in on the rest. Conserve your strength.”

She places her hand on my shoulder, and I feel a tingling current flow from her into me. When it’s done, her cheeks seem slightly hollower, her skin a shade paler.

“Cherish him for me,” she says softly, her gaze moving to Conrad. Her fingers brush his hair, almost hesitantly. Regret is heavy in her eyes. “I have loved him, you know.”

She leaves soundlessly, her willow-thin form still regal despite her emaciated appearance. I am left feeling strangely awed; I wonder if I could ever begin to understand her; how long she has lived, how much pain she has sown, and how much joy she has lost. I wonder if in all the world there exists another creature like her.

Moments later, Conrad rouses with a groan. He looks at me, then sits up quickly, sucking in a breath.

“Rose!”

I smile.

“You’re—you’re awake.”