Bitterburn (Gothic Fairytales #1) - Ann Aguirre Page 0,83

where they stand, desiccated and withered, but part of Bitterburn so completely that I cannot tell where they end and the floor begins. They cannot be alive, but they’re not dead either, and their eyes burn like gates into hell, gazing at me with avid hunger.

“You finally bring our guest to greet us, son.” That speech is barely intelligible, a loose and flapping tongue in a sideways mouth.

The room is a disaster; no furnishings remain apart from an old mirror, propped against the wall. Though I had no clue what I was asking when I told Njål to fight them, I can’t let horror overwhelm me. The plan hasn’t changed.

Njål aims a tender look at me and then charges the true beast of Bitterburn, slashing wildly with the dagger. Wounds open and maggots pour out. He’s entangled in the flesh vines, and I can’t leave him struggling, can’t drop into the spirit realm yet. Desperately, I shout, “The ashes!”

And he manages to tip the pot into an open wound. Even I didn’t expect such an intense reaction. The creature thrashes and shrieks, smoke pouring from the cut. It must feel pain because Njål fights free and deploys the other ash pot, and then the whole mass goes up in a pillar of flame. He gets singed as he dives clear.

“They’re still here,” he pants, landing hard next to me. “I feel them, crawling in my head. They’ll try to make me hurt you.”

“Resist. Fight with all your strength to protect me. It’s my turn.”

I close my eyes and set to work on all those tendrils, cutting and pruning, because this is my garden, not theirs. Yet even with the writhing strands cut, they’re still present. I can’t force them out of existence. Brute strength isn’t my gift. I have survival and cunning, not the power to move mountains. But the solution is within my grasp. It must be. I haven’t come so far, only to falter now.

The mirror glitters in the spirit realm, twinkling like a pond, and I give an experimental push. A few strands struggle but they pass through. Elated, I keep nudging, and something on the other side of the mirror helps, pulling with inexorable force. It’s like water falling over a cascade. Soon, every last trace of the baron and baroness are gone, vanished into the looking glass.

I pop out to tell Njål that I’ve done it, only he’s . . . fading. Light and motes of dust, his body swirls with an otherworldly glow. As winter yields to spring, soon he’ll be gone entirely. In a dead panic, I dive back into the ether and snatch the fluttering ties that bind him to Bitterburn and keep him alive. There’s only one way to save him. I do it without hesitation, linking him to me, instead of this place. Cutting the ancient bonds would destroy him, so I embrace them instead.

If it means I only get half as long in this realm, and I spend every moment with him, it’s worth it.

31.

Gasping, I fall to my knees with the force and speed of that last working.

Hardly daring to look at Njål, I crawl over to him, afraid that it’s not enough, that I must watch him perish. But his color returns, the specter of death receding. Soon, he sits up and takes my hand, staring in awe. The air swirls with ash while the mirror flickers in the scant light, clouded, hateful shapes swirling in the glass.

“You gave me half your life,” he whispers.

“I’d give you all of it.”

“No. I won’t let you,” Njål says, wrapping me in his arms.

I settle against him, too tired to move. “If I can’t live without you, the opposite ought to be true as well. And I’ll learn to pull from the land. Not irresponsibly, like the baron and baroness did, only enough for us to live into old age without causing undue harm. But . . . that would mean we need to keep moving to spread the drain.”

“I’ve always wanted to travel. Is it truly over?”

“Let’s test it.”

I sweep the citadel with spirit sight and find that the wicked web is gone, no longer leaching from the world so that it threatens all life in the region. Njål helps me to my feet and I lean on him as we make our way back to the heart of Bitterburn. The kitchen still reeks a bit. Outside, in the courtyard, the ice statues are gone, a handful of sparkling