Page 90 of Of Songs and Silence

I can still fix this. I have tonics. I prepared for injuries. All I need is to reach him.

Madame drops his body and yanks me away like I hold no more weight than an insect, and I stumble to my knees in a pool of blood.

Damian’s. Einar’s. It swirls together on the ground, soaking into my pants and coating me in a feeling of wrongness so strong I heave the contents of my stomach. It doesn’t make sense.

Einar.

My Einar.

The strong, massive, beast of a man, my solid, unyielding mountain, lying prone in a growing pool of crimson. His eyes are unfocused, but they still find mine.

“Zaina.” His fingers spasm without his consent, and I stare, transfixed at the motion.

It’s wrong. Those are the hands that trailed along my skin and worshiped me and held me and made me feel whole again. He is always sure of their placement, always steady in their control.

“Please,” I say to Madame, not getting up from my knees. “I will do anything. I will come home, and we can be a family, and I’ll never leave you again.”

She looks down at me with disappointment, making a chiding noise in the back of her throat. She has a vise grip around the hand I need to access the makeshift dagger. I try to snake my other hand around, but she grabs that arm too until she holds both of my wrists in her inhumanly strong grasp, blocking my view of my dying husband.

“I gave you everything, Zaina. A throne. A family.” Her voice is quiet and deadly cold, not a trace of humanity left within it. “Everything you are is because of me, but you can’t appreciate it. We can never truly be a family as long as he lives.”

“Yes, we can,” I say, and I’m not lying. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to save him. “We can be a family, and I’ll find a way to get you the dragons. Anything.”

Something flashes in her eyes, and I wonder if she’ll cave. I need her to. If saving Einar means being the monster she wants me to be, I will do it. I will do whatever she asks.

“There will be time enough for that later, my daughter. For now, I’ve lost too many children as it is.” She looks at Damian’s corpse with what might be remorse, though it certainly isn’t grief.

Broken, anguished sobs echo off the walls of this room that has only ever known despair, and it takes me too long to realize they’re coming from me. Aika is turned away from me, kneeling on the ground as well. She’s huddled, facing the wall like she can’t bear the sight of any of this.

Of course she can’t.

Because we’ve lost. And I’ve lost everything.

Einar is dying and Aika will be enslaved to Madame once more and Mel is gone.

It feels like my soul itself is tearing apart, like I have a wound in my chest that matches his, only mine will fester for eternity after he’s gone. I struggle against Madame’s iron grasp, but it does no good.

“Honestly, Zaina, that’s enough,” she says with exasperation. “Come, Aika.”

Then she’s dragging me away from my husband for the final time, ignoring the string of pleas and begging and bargaining coming from my lips.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’ve been counting down the seconds, tallying every ounce of blood that flows toward me on the floor. Einar is strong, but even he is not invincible. Even if it felt that way, sometimes.

His time is almost up. I have failed, and we have lost.

I’m so busy desperately studying the stream of red that I don’t immediately notice the way Madame freezes, her sharp intake of air. A shadow falls over us and slowly, I lift my head to see what has utterly captivated her.

The sight is so ethereal that I wonder if I’m hallucinating. My younger sister stands bathed in a halo of light from the hallway, her deep red curls still damp from the sea, her body clothed in a gown made of turquoise netting and golden shells.

Her eyes are even warmer than I remember, filled with a compassion I couldn’t have concocted in my head.

Madame confirms it when she finally speaks, her voice soft and reverential and almost human again.

“Melodi.”

CHAPTERFIFTY-NINE

MELODI

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