no more moons left,” she whispered. “And my night skies are going starless.”
“I will do what you need me to do.” He rushed the words, in the event she passed right now. “I will find your son, and I will get you medical help—”
“Too late … for me.”
He looked over his shoulder at Xhex. “Get the Brothers. Bring them here to help her—”
The hand in his own squeezed. “No, it’s all right. I know you will not fail … I cannot hold on any longer, and I do not want my beloved son to see me like this.”
Xhex disappeared, and he was relieved. She would bring aid.
“What is your name, female?” he asked as those lids lowered.
“Ingridge.”
“Where are your people?”
“I have been shamed. Leave them be … I told you where my son is. Go, rescue him, make him safe. He would have come unto me here if he had escaped. He knows of this place. We were to meet here if e’er we were separated.”
“Ingridge, stay with me,” Murhder prompted as she fell silent. “Ingridge … stay …”
“Find my son. Save him.”
“Don’t you want to see him again?” Murhder was aware he could not promise such a reunion, but he would say anything to keep her on this side of the grave. “Hold on, help is coming—”
“Save him.”
Beneath the faded quilts, her body jerked and she inhaled sharply as if a sudden pain had gripped her. And then came an exhale that lasted as long as eternity.
“Ingridge,” he choked out. “You need to stay here …”
As he tried to find words to compel her unto life rather than death, he thought about the testimony of wahlkers, those who had come up to the brink of death yet returned unto the living, those stories of a foggy landscape that parted to reveal a white door. If you opened the door, you were lost from the earthly world forever.
“Do not open that portal,” he said sharply. “Do not step through. Ingridge, come back from the portal.”
He had no clue whether the command made sense or even if she could hear him. But then her eyes popped open and she seemed to focus on him.
“Natelem is his name. I told you where to find him—”
“No, you didn’t—”
Ingridge switched over to the Old Language, the syllables muddled in places, the words running together. “Upon my bed of mortal demise, and with the Virgin Scribe watching o’er me, I hereby grant you all rights and responsibilities o’er my young, Natelem. I seek your acceptance of this precious gift upon your honor as a male of worth.”
Murhder twisted around. He wanted to see Brothers rushing in with a medic.
Not happening.
On to plan B.
Yanking up the tight cuff of the parka, he didn’t get far enough so he ripped off the jacket, and pulled his shirtsleeve up to reveal his wrist.
“Swear it,” she begged. “So that I might die in peace.”
“I swear it.” He met her eyes. “But you’re going to live.”
As she exhaled in relief, he bit into his own vein and then brought the puncture wounds to her mouth. “Drink, take from me and …”
She was still exhaling, her eyes closing, her body loosening, but she opened her mouth prepared to accept what he offered—
“Ingridge,” he said sharply. “Ingridge, take from me.”
His blood, red, warm, vital, dropped onto her lips. Yet she did not respond. There was no turn toward the source, no seal of her mouth upon his vein, no response whatsoever.
Murhder’s heart pounded. “Ingridge! Wake up and drink.”
With his free hand, he awkwardly reached under his extended arm and gently shook her body. Then he did this again, more forcibly—
She rolled off her side onto her back, but the movement was like blocks falling from a stack, not anything that represented volition.
She was gone.
“No …” Murhder swallowed hard. “Don’t go. Not now … please.”
As he argued against the reality before him, his eyes clung to her hollowed face and he prayed for some kind of rousing, his blood slipping down the back of her throat and entering her body, reviving that which was animated no longer.
Instead, she remained still. And the contrast between the vital red of what he wanted her to take from him and the pasty, deathly white color of her immobile lips made his soul scream at the unfairness of life.
With a shaking hand, he reached up to her mouth. He wanted to leave his blood where it was, but he couldn’t bear the idea that she looked unattended