Page 70 of Curse of Darkness
“Open my present first, Vi,” he chortles as he shoves a box toward me. Inside the box is a book. One I’ve been looking for for years. “Happy not-birthday,” he says, because my birthday falls in the months when I’m returned to Asturia, and so we celebrate this date now.
And another.
“I’ve got her, Vi,” he whispers as we step through the Hallow, arriving back in Ceres after the shock of the Black Keep. I can barely breathe through the gaping wound in my chest, and he’s carrying Amaya in his arms even as he supports me.
Tears wet my eyes. A single tear slides down my cheek and lands on his forehead, flaring gold before his skin absorbs it.
Beneath his skin, the light blooms, travelling through his veins. It hits a branch in the capillaries beneath his cheek and separates. And again. And again. It’s a network of light spearing through him. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“Vi,” Eris whispers.
It hits his heart, and a sudden pulse of power throbs within him.
His chest rises and falls.
The wound across his throat seals.
And Finn’s eyes go wide as he sits up, his lungs heaving for air—and finding none.
“I accept your sacrifice.” I don’t even know where the words come from. But I can feel the heat of that single tear spearing through his body. It’s like there’s a part of me inside him. Neurons fire. Muscles clench. Blood pumps. And I’m inside every single cell of him. “Mine.” My fingers dig into his shoulders. “My knight. Bound to me until the breath leaves my body. Step forth and live, my knight.”
Power and heat gushes through me.
Finn clutches at his throat, his lungs making that horrible sucking sound.
Eris collapses over him, sobbing against his chest as she hugs him.
“You’re alive,” she whispers. “Alive.”
I can’t hold myself up anymore. Healing him—binding him to me—took everything I had left in me.
The last thing I see is Finn rolling onto his knees, one hand clasped around his throat and his eyes wild as he seeks me out and finds me.
I need to get us back home.
I need to get us to safety.
Reaching through the Hallow, I pluck at the thread that sings to me. Home. Evernight.Ceres.
A hum vibrates through the Hallow as the portal activates.
And then the slate floor rushes up to meet me.
* * *
“What’s wrong with her?”
Thalia?
Somehow I blink my eyes, and there are familiar walls around me. Light. Shadows.
Someone’s arms holding me.
“She’s fine,” Finn says, though I’ve never heard his voice sound like this before. Rasping. Thick as molasses. Virtually a growl. “She’s overextended herself.”
Finn.Finn is carrying me. His heart beats in time with mine, but the second I reach for it, brushing featherlight strands of my self against that… bond between us, the dark threatens to roll me under again.
“Do we need a healer? Do we need a magi?” Thalia blurts. A palm cups my forehead.
