Page 63 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
They hit a rocky floor.
Caer bolted upright, scrambling away from Aislinn. “Ais!” he rushed.
She wasn’t moving.
No, no, he hadn’t—he couldn’t—
He didn’t think her skin had touched his, but it was hard to be sure of anything. And if hehadtouched her, she’d still be moving, just… as something else.
She lay on the ground, inert and pale, as frosty as the stone at the mouth of the cave she’d portalled them to.
Caer crawled towards her, watching her chest.
She wasn’t breathing.
No, no, no…
His own breath started to mount, pressing against his heart, crawling into his throat, his nose. His chest speared with pain, like his own heart wanted to stop. She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be.
He was sure her brother could restart a frozen heart. He’d even seen Luna heal a bird once, that had flown into a window and seemed to be dead. She’d massaged its chest until it came back to life.
“It’s not magic,” she assured him, as it flew away. “just science. Don’t tell Diana I let it go.”
But Caer didn’t know what she’d done, and Aislinn’s heart was wrapped inside her chest, too hard for a human hand to reach—
But maybe not human magic.
Don’t do it,said a voice inside him.You could kill her.
If I don’t, I think she might already be dead.
He parted her shirt, and slid his palm against her still, warm chest. He’d brought Diana’s birds back to life. He could do this.
Don’t come back as anything else,he prayed.Just yourself. Just come back as yourself.
He was a necromancer. He had control of the dead.
“Come back,” he willed , pressing against her chest. He mimicked the beat of a heart, imagining its sound.Come back. Beat. I command you.
Nothing.
Ais. Please. Come on.
Her chest remained as solid as ice.
He placed his forehead to hers, still pressing against her heart, his own juddering in his chest like it was cracking under the pressure. She was the frozen lake, and he the rock rolling over it.
Come on, come on, come on!
Something thumped against his palm.
“Ais?”
Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.
Her eyes, barely open, flickered. She half smiled at him, her pallor still pale, but not grey.
“We’re all right,” she said. “We’re alive.”
