Page 63 of Ember and Eclipse
He did say that mates had started entire wars just to be together. The idea was absurd, especially in the state that she was in. That he would go to such lengths just for the chanceshecould survive.
But they were both dead anyway.
She didn’t realize she had collapsed until the sky came into focus. It held such expansive freedom that if she could cry, she would. She supposed that it and death had that in common. A great expanse, a glorious nothingness.
She was ready.
Perhaps she could meet the Lunae again in the next life, and they could be something other than a witch and a witch hunter. A stabbing pang cramped her lungs, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the thought itself or her body finally giving out.
Just as her eyes drifted shut, someone touched her.
“Alive,” the being muttered. And she wanted to rage more. Let her die here, where she was free. Couldn’t she at least have that?
“Hold on, witch. You aren’t dying this day.”
Her eyes opened, focused.
A man with umber skin and the warmest brown eyes she had ever seen crouched beside her head. He was older, gray and white threaded through his dark beard and the thick locs tied back from his face. A Lunae.
Dawn blanketed the world, and he was a man swathed in gold.
“She’s magic sick,” a weak-voiced woman said.
Rel looked beside him to find a dark red-haired woman slumping against him. She was frail but still alive. The witch from the execution. She washere.
The man swiftly pulled off his tunic and laid it over her bare form. “I’m going to get you seated upright.” His voice was a soothing, smooth smoke. Shifting the other witch so she wouldn’t topple over, he grabbed Rel’s arms and pulled her into a sitting position. The world dragged, blurring and righting itself.
She put the huge tunic over her head and pulled it down around herself. The task alone had her panting quietly.
“Saral can get you away from here,” the Lunae said.
“How?” she rasped as she studied the witch. Her eyes were hooded, and though Rel couldn’t see any injuries, it was apparent she was dying.
“With the same magic,” Saral croaked, “that they tried to use me for. I can get us home.”
“Where is your home?” Rel asked.
The witch shook her head and pointed at her.
Her home. The swamp.
Saral’s magic had no light to it, but she felt it ripple through the air, extend, and expand like a dying breath. It formed a watery doorway.
“Up we go,” the Lunae ordered as he pulled her to her feet and picked up the dying witch.
Rel swayed in place, the weakness in her bones threatening to knock her over.
When she was certain she wouldn’t fall, she asked, “We go through here?”
“Yes, but I can’t go. You’ll have to carry her through. Can you do that?”
Rel nodded and forced herself to move as close to the spelled doorway as she could get.
“Devdan, is he…?”
A severe look came over the older Lunae as he looked out into the distance again. “I don’t know, but the best thing we can do for him is to get you out of here. If he’s alive… I’ll do everything I can to find him,” he said, handing her the dying witch. Rel feared she wouldn’t be able to carry her, but she was so light that she was no burden at all.
“Thank you, Tabion,” Saral said.
