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The pain in Hunter’s chest made it hard for him to think straight. Skye was staring at where Liam had vanished beneath the surface. But Hunter could only look at her.
“You worked it out, what might happen if the curse was broken? And you still tried to make it happen?” The more it sank in, the more it hurt.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, Hunter. I tried to persuade him but he –”
“No. It’s not that. I’m...” He swallowed, trying to get the words out. “It’s... You guessed that the years of our cursed enchantment might catch up with me? That maybe we would all end,” Hunter’s voice was harsh. “My clan. Me. And you, if it’s the part of me that’s in you, and the stolen lives, keeping you alive. That I could be ancient dust instead of mist, scattered on the winds, and my clan along with me. You lying dead, drowned. And you tried to make it happen?”
Her eyes filled, and she nodded, pressing her lips together.
“Why didn’t you warn me?” he was devastated. Spinning away from her he stumbled a few feet into the shallow water and stopped, unable to work out what came next.
“It wasn’t even something I understood until the last minute,” she said, her words thick with pain. “I felt this wave of grief falling over me. Then I suddenly knew that if he was the one to end the curse, maybe he would end all of it.”
“And you were okay with that? You were trying to make it happen,” he repeated numbly. The world was falling out beneath him.
He heard her splash through the water, felt her beside him, the touch of her warm hand on his arm. “Not okay with it...but...for you. I thought it was what you wanted,” she said, her voice choked with tears. “To be free. More than anything, to not be Nemaro.”
He stared at her tear-streaked face, and sad, clear gaze. His world slowly tilted right way up again. “What did I nearly do?” he said hoarsely. He began to tremble as it sank in. “I put you in danger. Skye, we’re connected. Me with you, you with me. If I end, if the curse and everything about it ends... If it’s the stolen lives keeping you alive...then you end too. Why did you think I would want that?”
“I just wanted you to be free,” she whispered.
He felt dazed with awe. Once again Skye had showed him what it was to be human. What it was to be her. Skye. He waded from the water and sank down to kneel on the wet sand. In seconds she was in front of him, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes wide with concern.
“I was running so hard towards the idea of free, I didn’t think what it might cost us. What it might cost you.”
“It’s okay. I get it. You’ve been trapped, all of you, forever. Finding this one tiny, but maybe impossible, chance to be free... You had to take it. I understand.”
“You astonish me. You are, as always, so much more than I could ever hope to be. You are the strongest, most selfless, yet fragile being I have ever beheld.” Lifting gentle fingers, he smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear. Because he still could. He traced his fingertips around the delicate shell of her ear and along her jaw, stroked them over her curving cheek, and heard her fluttering intake of breath as he cradled her beautiful face in his hands and lowered his lips to hers. Her lips...
He’d meant to just brush them with his own, feel their petal-softness against his, knowing that he had nearly lost her forever. But they were addictive; so persuasive as they smiled against his. Her arms pulled him close, and he felt the matching hunger in her kisses. But this wasn’t finished. He pulled gently back.
“What?” She searched his eyes.
“I - I wonder. Could I really be like you, and do right by others even if it costs me everything.”
“I think if it was important enough, you wouldn’t hesitate.” Her clear gaze hit him in the pit of his stomach the way it always did. He couldn’t help smiling a little. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Make me want to be better.” His smile deepened in response to her bashful grin, then faded. “It’s the stolen lives, their stolen time. The way we have spent their years as arrogant thieves.” He looked out to the horizon, finding her trusting eyes too much for his shame. “It became clearer to me when they began to leave you. It helped me to really understand what we’d done. What we continue to do.” He looked back at her, needing her guidance.
“I can’t stop thinking about them. It isn’t right. But they could be the only thing keeping you alive. And when they run out -” he broke off as she shook her head.
“I don’t think they are. Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you remember anything that happened on Lithus Rock?”
“No. A little. Perhaps...I remember...” his voice trailed off. The horror and the sorrow crept back into his consciousness like a dark fog. He felt every bit as ancient as his existence made him. “I remember agony. Unbelievable pain. Unbearable loss... Leaving you. And then...bliss. Finding myself whole again. In your arms.”
Wonder flooded him again, along with devastating humility that was all the more precious for revealing Skye’s beautiful soul. “You did that. You - I remember. I knew what was happening to me - how could I not? And I saw in your eyes what you meant to do. I couldn’t stop you. And you did it.”
He looked down at his whole hands, arms, legs, all intact, still himself because of her. Her sacrifice. He crushed her to his chest again. “You could have died giving those lives back to me. You shouldn’t have done it.”
She drew back. “Done what? What you already did for me? You’re not the only hero around here,” her teasing grin made him feel weak and he pulled her close again, revelling in her slight form, and the warmth of her. How did someone so small wield so much power over him? A power as far removed from Thea’s hungry control as the sun was from the blackest part of the night. He wouldn’t change it for anything.
“How are you still alive?” he wondered. She put her hand on her chest, on the place where the hollow had ached when they were apart. She closed her eyes, and he knew she was searching for that tiny part of him that he had inadvertently passed to her along with the lives. He mirrored her, closing his eyes, wondering if the sense of completeness he felt was because they were close, or if it was something more.
The wind ruffled his hair, and foaming swathes washed about them where they knelt. But he blocked out all, seeking in the stillness within to sense the part of him that had rested against Skye’s soul. Yes, there, he felt the feather-light sense of her...and - he heard her sudden intake of breath, at the same moment his eyes flew open. “Skye. What did you do?”
“When you were dissolving on Lithus Rock, I think...I think I did what you did. How is that possible?” She stretched her hand towards him and pressed it against his chest, over a part of her, inside of him. How was this possible? “I just - I threw everything that you’d given me,” she whispered, “all that I had, back to you. To keep you here with me.”
“As I did when you were drowning. But the part of myself that I didn’t mean to give you, the reason I think you could breathe underwater, is still there inside you.”
They stared at each other, Skye’s eyes shining.
“So we really are connected. Even more. I mean. Like...connected.”
In reply he kissed her. Her lips were warm, not a heat that his kind would kill for. Her hands against his cheeks were...
She drew back. “Your skin - it’s...warmer, like mine. Does that mean –”
“Perhaps...” he smiled slowly, leaning close to nuzzle his cheek against hers. “But right now –” he straightened.
“Yes,” she sounded breathless. His smile widened. “Right now...” she echoed, her cheeks pink, “...the stolen lives. Now that you have them back, your people will be safe. Right?”
His smile dropped. “That depends.”
“On?”
“On if I let them go. If I should. And if I can.”
Her smile vanished. “No, you can’t. I can’t lose you. That’s not fair.”
“Is it fair for the ones whose lives we spend?”
She frowned, anger darkening her eyes. “But that’s finished, it’s not your fault. You have a - a responsibility...” her voice wobbled and her eyes welled. But he knew the sadness on her face was not just the idea of losing him. It was also for the spent souls she’d felt leave her one by one, their lives squandered by the Nemaro. And Thea had tried to do it all over again. Her father was right. They were a plague.
He swallowed. “It has to end.”
