I shuddered so hard I felt I might break apart. “Wh–what do you mean?”
“Giving in to your fate is not the same as accepting it. That requires peace. You aren’t happy to leave the upper world, and you’d do anything to return. But you didn’t.”
“I had no choice. There was no use fighting your pull anymore.”
“You did have a choice. You had a chance. The chance. But you chose to let it slip, chose to die.” He started closing the distance between us, footsteps a slow, ominous, staccato echoing in the cavernous hall. “Why?”
It would be pointless to run. There was nowhere I could go now.
But he got too close, and the sensations emanating from him, of sinister magic, of death and darkness, weakened my resolve, snapping the last thread of nerve I had left.
I wept harder, ceasing the fight to appear dignified. My heart hardened in my chest, as if leaking its blood out of my eyes, desiccating into a dusty husk, filled with my last memory of Robin. Of him holding Marian, pledging his help to her, forgetting I was ever there.
But Death was waiting for an explanation.
So I gave it to him. “Robin spent so long being pulled off his path, living to help others, fighting for everyone’s well-being and happiness but his own. He’d been deprived of his birthright, and now may never get it back, never do what he wants, what he should, because of the other part of his legacy. But he finally found Marian, and she needs him. They can now go on one last trip together, where he would save her, then they can spend their lives together. If I had told him the truth of my need, he would have dropped everything to help me. He would have forgotten about his own needs. He would have thrown away his very life. And I couldn't do that to him. I love him enough I’d rather die than see him unhappy.”
He cocked his head in a curious tilt. “Noble of you to put his happiness over your survival. But I’m afraid your selfless sacrifice was in vain.”
The tears stopped abruptly, as did my slow plummet into infinite misery. “What? Why?”
He pointed to the glowing green river, and steam rose in thick, swirling clouds. In their midst, a portal formed. Within it, images began to take shape.
It was Amabel, galloping among familiar greenery. A hooded figure rode on her back, his green cloak billowing behind him as they tore down a yellow path bordered by massive blue mushrooms.
Robin was riding back to Arbore!
“What is he doing?” I cried out.
“Your boy thinks there’s still time to save you.”
“He’s not my…” I choked up, not daring to blink as I watched the landscape shift around Robin from the in-between of the fairy path, into the field where we’d embarked on our trip.
The next images showed him approaching the castle in Briarfell. The field of thorns had impossibly worsened since I’d last seen it.
Spellbound by the sight of him riding back to me, I stepped into the river, needing to be closer to the portal, ignoring the burn of the frothing water. “How did he know that he could save me?”
“Does it matter?” I felt Death’s heart-bursting approach, and heard the metallic thunk of his staff hitting the riverbank. “He’s too late, anyway.”
Too late. These had to be the cruelest words ever spoken.
The sliver of hope Robin had uncovered within me slipped from my grasp, and I waded deeper, not caring if it meant I wouldn’t get out again. I needed to tell him not to risk going through this lethal barricade again, to go back to Marian, to give up on me.
But the portal kept receding, keeping his image out of reach. All I could do was watch as he dismounted from Amabel, then maneuvered through the black briar expanse that was engulfing my body’s resting place. He weaved through the labyrinth of glinting thorns, pain hissing from his lips as they stabbed at him. I cried out at each injury, feeling their agony in my own flesh.
The darkness of the Horned God bore down on me, but I no longer cared. I was rooted by my worry for Robin as he emerged on the other side of the lethal barricade, his enchanted cloak intact but stained with blood.
Not giving himself time to catch his breath, he leapt to climb up the castle wall. The images faded, and