34. End Game

The next time I woke up I was falling.
It was like waking up from one nightmare (Aster had been floating away in an ocean of blood, alternatively screaming for help and then cursing me because I was incapable of helping) and literally falling into another one. The wind screeched in my ears, the world a passing white blur. Then I was in the snow, body spread out as if I were making a snow angel. I shivered. My face, along with the rest of me that'd been warmed up nicely thanks to Kane was already cooling.
Kane. It was his turn to keep watch while I slept.
I sat up, wiping flakes of snow from my face. It was early morning but the forest was as deathly silent as the night before. Which made it even more disturbing. Weren't scary places supposed to lose their creepiness during daylight?
There was something in the snow.
The rusty smell had me jolting to my feet immediately, my eyes whipping back and forth almost as fast as my quickening heartbeat. Kane was bleeding out on the ground, five paces from me where he must've landed when we both fell. The hilt of Alpha's knife was protruding from his chest, each of his breaths a shuddering white cloud. The snow beneath him was entirely red. I raised my hands to my face, certain this was another dream, but my palms, slick with blood, told another story.
"Finally did it, did you?" Alpha asked, stepping out of the trees like a witch coming to collect a firstborn child. "Don’t worry, if anything, it was the other wounds that weakened him. Must’ve been playing the strong guy the whole time while he was really in pain."
He kicked at his cousin with a grubby boot, his hands deep in the jacket of his coat. He lifted his gaze, face gaunt and almost skeleton-like, but eyes were burning in that strange way again.
"Now we're both free, Ember," he said, voice a wheeze of breath. "Free at last."
Kane was lying there, chest barely moving at all, and I had his blood on my hands. Under my nails. And I was just standing here frozen exactly like the last time when Aster saved me.
Frantically, I tore off a piece of my dress, started towards Kane.
Alpha stepped between us with an eye roll, taking his hands out of his pockets. "Just can't leave him alone, can you?"
My voice came out guttural, managing to convey absolute fury and desperation at the same time. "Get out of my way."
But he wouldn't, I knew this as much as I knew I wasn't going to turn tail and run no matter what the odds were. I wouldn't because I knew Kane wouldn't have done so if our roles were reversed, and quite honestly... I didn't want to leave him. Ever.
Which left only one outcome.
Alpha's left hand was completely finger-less, but the right one, the one he began reached for me with, had at least three.
"Guess we'll all go together," he said.
The hand fell off.
In the same second the hand became disengaged with the rest of his arm, when the blood works had only begun and Alpha's blue eyes began to widen, I had a strong and clear sense of déjà vu.
Alpha screamed just as Kane sat up. He pulled the knife out of his chest with a grunt, the ring on his finger as black as midnight.
"You weren't around to see what happened to the last guy that touched her," Kane gasped out, each word bringing blood bubbling out of his mouth. "But that was long overdue."
He didn't say anything more. Gray curls of smoke seeped from the ground at his feet, spiking, elongating. Alpha didn't run though, he stepped in my direction, arms outstretched almost as if to hug me- and the spikes shot through him like drills. He didn't utter a single cry as his body slackened and the blood poured like rain on the snow.
Like red rain.
***
"Go back for the backpack- the blankets, you'll need them," Kane whispered.
He was lying beside the tree I'd dragged him to, about five yards from where he collapsed next to Alpha. If he was going to die, he definitely wasn't going to do it next to that thing.
"Ember-"
"Shut up," I barked, pushing down the part of my dress I'd torn off at the gaping gash in his chest that refused to close. "Shut up."
I was so stupid. Leaving the knife in my boot, selfishly allowing myself to be blind so I wouldn't be afraid, and now... Now he was going to die.
"I wish I never met you," I sobbed.
"That's an awful thing to say to a dying man."
At first I thought it was Alpha, back from the dead, lips curled back from a set of reddened animal teeth, eyes glowing as he crawled over to us- then I saw it was just a man. A man with dark curly hair that fell over his shoulders and eyes the color of forest green. His cloths were entirely white, enough that he could've laid out in the snow and completely blended in from the neck down if not for his tan complexion. His ears were both pointed like the ends of a blade. A faerie.
But not just any faerie, I thought.
"I am the brother of Aster, Arius," he said, confirming my suspicions.
"Here to kill me?" Kane muttered, then- amazingly- attempted to sit up.
Probably dying in some other way from the fact that he was displaying weakness in front of a stranger.
I pressed down on his chest, ignored his wince and gave his ashy face a glare. "No one's here to kill anyone. Stay down or I'll be the one to put you down."
"Actually, I am here to kill him."
That statement pulled at my heart despite the situation- it sounded like something Aster would say. But that didn't mean it was alright. I shot a glare at him. "You'll have to get through me first."
He smiled faintly but his gaze remained cool. "I'd expect no less from my sister's friend."
"If you know that I'm-" I swallowed. "Was Aster's friend then help us."
"I did come here to help you, and since I can no longer claim vengeance on the one who caused my sister's demise, I might take it from the person who allowed her to die under his service." He raised a single finger. "Although my interests overlap, I am still willing to provide my aid in exchange for a demand. To balance the scales."
"What demand?" I asked, body beginning to shake.
"He is unconscious," Arius said, tilting his head. "He will die soon."
I turned. Kane's eyes were closed, his breathing barely a whisper.
"What do you want?" I repeated.
"That depends on what you are willing to give. How does eternal servitude sound?"
I deadpanned. "You're not serious."
He smiled. "I would take better care of you than that wolf."
"Plus that way you could take me away from him."
"That's an interesting way of seeing it..."
"I won't be your eternal slave, but I'll give you anything else you want. Slay a dragon, be your personal guard, or paint a thousand portraits of you. You name it, just help him. Aster would've."
I was certain she would've too. If not for Kane, she would've done it for me. Suddenly, I felt a pang of dislike for him. Despite the resemblance he had with Aster, he was pretty much just another cunning fae looking for a sweet deal.
Arius sighed, crossed over to us with what was less like walking and more like a lithe movement of limbs. He knelt, moving my hands gently away from Kane's chest and replacing his there. Warm light unfurled from his long fingers, seeping into Kane's shirt almost like when Alpha's order had sunk into the skin of my arm. It branched out, thin golden threads as smooth as silk, then began pulling the torn tissues together.
"I'm simply cleansing the poisonous silver from the wound and accelerating his healing. It'll knock him out for a while afterwards," Arius explained. The light glowed onto his face like sunlight. "He isn't worthy of you."
"I don't think anyone is worthy of anyone," I replied, watching the wound close up with slow wonder. "So what do you want from me?"
"I don't know yet."
I wanted to look his way, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from his hands, at the magic of them. "You don't?"
"You're a good fighter when the terms are equal and not a death match, but that's mostly because of your fast healing abilities. You hit hard enough to break bones- both yours and your opponent's- but while the other person beginning to yowl in pain your already recovering, already mending. You keep hitting until the other person can't move and that's it. In a sense, your perseverance is your main strength. Although I must add that not anyone is brave or tolerant enough of pain despite the fact that it doesn't linger long."
This time I had to look at him. He was staring back, gaze purely analytical. "How... Did Aster tell you all that?"
He shook his head, the dark curls framing his face. "I have my sources."
"How come those sources know about me?"
"They only know because I wanted them to, but that's not of much importance here. The question is, what will I collect from you?"
I shrugged at him, returning to my previous task of making sure he was mending and not tearing instead. "Anything I can do, I'll do it."
"That's not a wise thing to say to a man."
I gave him a sidelong look. "You wouldn't ask for something like that."
He gave me a sidelong look as well, and I could've laughed, if I knew him. "Because you think I wouldn't?"
"Because you're Aster's brother."
He nodded. "You are right."
I smiled at that. Maybe he wasn't so bad.
Kane gasped- coughing out a large glob of blood. I leaned forward, wiping it from his mouth and cheek gently. He didn't open his eyes but I noticed his breathing was becoming more steadily now, even though his chest shuddered occasionally. Better shudders than no movement at all.
I bit my lip, wondering how you could go from hating a person so much a week ago and then suddenly the thought of them never taking another breath is enough to stop yours. I still thought he was a jerk, and maybe I still did want to punch him around...but not too hard. I wasn't in love with him though, that'd be an overstatement, but I thought back to the question he'd asked me at the party. When he asked if I could've loved him if he hadn't done any of those awful things.
I sat back, watching Arius slowly put him back together, and thinking about the things Kane had taken apart to keep me safe.