Tower of Dawn (Throne of Glass #6) - Sarah J. Maas Page 0,228

Hafiza lean down beside Duva and blow a breath onto the princess’s face, sending her into undisturbed slumber.

Nesryn. Her hair was windblown, her cheeks rosy and chapped—

And Sartaq, his own hair far shorter. The prince’s face was taut, his eyes wide as he beheld his unconscious, bloody sister. As Nesryn breathed, “We were too late—”

Yrene lunged across the stones to Chaol. Her knees tore on the rock, but she barely felt it, barely felt the blood sliding down her temple as she took his head in her lap and closed her eyes, rallying her power.

White flared, but there was red and black everywhere.

Too much. Too many broken and torn and ravaged things—

His chest was barely rising. He did not open his eyes.

“Wake up,” she ordered him, her voice breaking. She plunged into her power, but the damage … It was like trying to patch up holes in a sinking ship.

Too much. Too much and—

Shouting and steps all around them.

His life began to thin and turn to mist around her magic. Death circled, an eagle with an eye upon them.

“Fight it,” Yrene sobbed, shaking him. “You stubborn bastard, fight it.”

What was the point of it, the point of any of it, if now, when it mattered—

“Please,” she whispered.

Chaol’s chest rose, a high note before the last plunge—

She could not endure it. Would not endure it—

A light flickered. Inside that failing mass of red and black.

A candle ignited. A bloom of white.

Then another.

Another.

Blooming lights, along that broken interior. And where they shone …

Flesh knitted. Bone smoothed.

Light after light after light.

His chest continued to rise and fall. Rise and fall.

But in the hurt and the dark and the light …

A woman’s voice that was both familiar and foreign. A voice that was both Hafiza’s and … another. Someone who was not human, never had been. Speaking through Hafiza herself, their voices blending into the blackness.

The damage is too great. There must be a cost if it is to be repaired.

All those lights seemed to hesitate at that otherworldly voice.

Yrene brushed herself along them, waded through them like a field of white flowers, the lights bobbing and swaying in this quiet place of pain.

Not lights … but healers.

She knew their lights, their essences. Eretia—that was Eretia closest to her.

The voice that was both Hafiza and Other said again, There must be a cost.

For what the princess had done to him … There was no returning from it.

I will pay it. Yrene said into the pain and dark and light.

A daughter of Fenharrow will pay the debt of a son of Adarlan?

Yes.

She could have sworn a gentle, warm hand brushed her face.

And Yrene knew it did not belong to Hafiza or the Other. Did not belong to any healer alive.

But to one who had never left her, even when she had been turned into ash on the wind.

The Other said, You offer this of your own free will?

Yes. With my entire heart.

It had been his from the start, anyway.

Those loving, phantom hands brushed her cheek again and faded away.

The Other said, I chose well. You shall pay the debt, Yrene Towers. And I hope you shall see it for what it truly is.

Yrene tried to speak. But light flared, soft and soothing.

It blinded her, within and without. Left her cringing over Chaol’s head, her fingers grappled into his shirt. Feeling his heartbeats thunder into her palms. The scrape of his breath against her ear.

There were hands on her shoulders. Two sets. They tightened, a silent command to lift her head. Yrene did.

Hafiza stood behind her, Eretia at her side. Each with a hand on her shoulder.

Behind them stood two healers each. Hands on their shoulders.

Behind them, two more. And more. And more.

A living chain of power.

All the healers in the Torre, young and old, stood in that room of gold and bone.

All connected. All channeling to Yrene, to the grip she still held on Chaol.

Nesryn and Sartaq stood a few feet away, the former with a hand over her mouth. Because Chaol—

The healers of the Torre lowered their hands, severing that bridge of contact, as Chaol’s feet moved. Then his knees.

And then his eyes cracked open, and he was staring up at Yrene, her tears plopping onto his blood-crusted face. He lifted a hand to brush her lips. “Dead?”

“Alive,” she breathed, and lowered her face to his. “Very much alive.”

Chaol smiled against her mouth, sighing deep as he said, “Good.”

Yrene raised her head, and he smiled up at her again, cracked blood sliding away from