Page 71 of Kill the Beast
Alderic’s face loomed into her vision, pale and drawn with fear as he yanked off his cravat and shoved it against her wound.
She sucked in a sharp breath. Reached up to brush her bloody fingers against his cheek. “You’re still warm,” she murmured.
“Because I’m not dead, you fucking idiot.” He seemed to seesomething out of her line of sight and shouted for help, waving one hand frantically over his head. Then he looked back at Lyssa. Picked a leaf from her hair. Cupped her cheek with one hand. “I’m not dead, and neither are you, and it’s going to stay that way. Do you understand me?”
“But they shot you in the heart,” she said.
“No—feel.” He took her hand and pressed it to his chest; his heart was racing beneath his torn, blood-soaked shirt. “I’m real. I’m here.”
“How?” she whispered, trying to blink his face back into focus. She could barely keep her eyes open, she was so tired, but she had to know how he had done it, before she went to sleep.
His lips pressed into a thin line. “No matter how much I want to, no matter how hard I try, I can’t die. I’m…” A look of despair passed over his face, and he shook his head as if to clear it. “I’m immortal.”
“Oh,” she said. Her body relaxed against the cold grass, and she slipped into oblivion.
Lyssa jolted awake with a gasp. Someone was slapping her cheeks hard enough to sting. After a moment, the pale blur in front of her sharpened into Alderic’s face.
“Hnh,” she protested, but she was too tired to fight him off, too tired to lift her hands to bat his away.
“Lyssa, darling, you have to wake up,” he said, and his voice was as calm as his expression was panicked. “You have to stay with me, do you hear me? No,” he snapped at someone beyond her sight. “She doesn’t need medicine, she needsmagic.” He turned back to Lyssa. “We have to get back to Ragnhild’s. I need you to draw a Door. Here, take the chalk—” He pressed something into her palm. “We’ll do it together, okay?” He lifted her arm, and she felt her hand drag against something solid—a wall? But her fingers weren’t working right. She was too tired. Why wouldn’t he let her go back to sleep? If she could just…
The chalk slipped from her fingers. Alderic swore, moving out of her vision.
Lyssa’s eyes fluttered closed.
“Please!” Alderic screamed, jolting her out of that half-sleep. He had drawn a Door on the wall with three shaky lines, and was pounding on it with both fists, crying in earnest now. “She needs help! Please!”
“Doorknob,” she said. “It needs… doorknob.”
As she drifted out of consciousness again, a glow penetrated the thin flesh of her eyelids, washing the darkness in orange.
Alderic choked on a sob, and then there were arms around her, lifting her. She screamed, agony slamming her back into her body for just long enough to realize that Alderic was carrying her through the Door he had drawn.
They stepped over the threshold and into Ragnhild’s kitchen.
“Help me,” Alderic said, and the old witch screamed in surprise, dropping the jar she had been holding.
“How did you—” she started, then her eyes went wide. “What happened?”
“Help me,” Alderic said again. “She’s dying.”
And then Lyssa slipped back into the void.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
IT WAS Asong that dragged her up from the depths of darkness.
Not just any song.Thesong. “Blood on Buxton Fields.”
“No,” she moaned, but whoever was singing paid no attention to her. Or maybe they couldn’t hear her. Had she spoken aloud, or was she still drifting somewhere inside of her own head? She tried to move, but it felt like there were rocks pinning down her arms and legs.
“—saved his love that day, and when they buried his body, at his grave she remained—”
“No!” Lyssa bared her teeth and fought against the heaviness in her limbs, until she managed to lash out with one fist. Her knuckles connected with something fleshy.
“Ow.”
