Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,65

my heart-shaped locket, to the one that lets me go a greater distance from my witch than just a mile and a half. For a while, in Vetris, the locket was that symbol for me. Something to hold on to—a taste of hope. A taste is all you need to keep moving forward sometimes. To do what needs to be done, no matter how afraid or exhausted you are.

Malachite gives a guttural snore and rolls over, flinging his uninjured arm around a root, and for the millionth time my anticipation for the moment when my guard shift ends and I can kick his arse awake builds even higher. Not that I need to sleep. But Malachite wouldn’t hear of it—we were going to do shifts like normal people do. Like mortals do.

I grip the locket tighter against the warmth in my chest. Being treated like a mortal…is nice. Being given consideration, my condition and life treated as something important. Worth preserving, instead of throwing away. It’s all very nice. Too nice, maybe. Maybe I’m getting spoiled. Soft.

Or maybe I’m growing. Growing up. Growing older, like I never thought I could.

The Blue Giant reaches zenith, and I gleefully lodge my booted toe in Malachite’s spine. He jolts awake, muttering obscenities, and blearily staggers to take over the log I was sitting on. He stokes the half-dead coals, sparks eating air, and I make my way to Lucien’s side. Still sleeping. I watch his chest rise and fall, his hair smeared with blood on the ends but his skin clean after I took the liberty of using the leftover hot water on him. He healed his own wounds—and Malachite’s—all in the same moment he healed Fione. That’s why he was sweating, exerting so much. And his magic healed my wounds, too, funneling into me like pure energy. I’m fine. Everyone is absolutely fine, thanks to him.

I watch his working hand twitch in his sleep as I lie beside him.

“But at what cost?” I breathe, my words brushing at his bangs. He’s not a High Witch. The Glass Tree hasn’t encased him, suspending him. What body part of his won’t work tomorrow? His other eye? His nose, or his lips? Or maybe something more internal—his voice, his lungs, his stomach? How many parts can he risk, until he hits something critical and dies?

Until the both of us die, together; me as his Heartless, him as my witch?

to kill him now would be an easy thing. to end both your suffering, all your suffering. you could kill them all and spare them this impossible fight.

The hunger can’t touch me. Not in Lucien’s arms. I carefully brush his hair aside, fingers glancing on his cheek. I press a kiss to his forehead and snuggle beneath his chin. The night sky twinkles down on us, and I know somewhere up there is Windonhigh—Y’shennria, Nightsinger, Crav and Peligli. I can’t see it. Hidden by magic, probably. All I can see are stars, and the blueness of the Giant, and my fear of falling asleep again…of dreaming. Of being connected forever to Varia—to the Bone Tree.

Malachite had a point. If I have the blood promise, the six eyes, if his eyes light up when I Weep and he smells me…am I a valkerax? Am I one of them?

Am I one of Varia’s tools?

No matter how afraid I am, life still comes. Lucien is still here, with me, warm and real and handsome as ever. That feeling of safety comes, like nothing can touch me, and I drift into the darkness of oblivion.

This time, in this dream, I can feel Varia’s excitement.

It’s not just hers—it’s her hunger’s, too. That twin hunger of mine, not-same and not-different. We—she—is so proud. I can feel her pride blossoming in her chest like the world’s biggest flower. She’s done well.

Because through her eyes, I see Windonhigh.

In flames.

She’s so happy—the voice is quiet for once. That terrible, aching hunger to destroy, to ruin—it hasn’t spoken to her once since she set the last witch city on fire. She’s done it. She’s obeyed, and more than that, she’s found out how to silence it. Zera—I—had Weeping. But she—we—have this.

Destruction.

As long as she destroys, it stops swallowing her mind whole. That’s when the tides of the Bone Tree’s power even out and she can surface above the waves of chaos. She can see the mousy-haired girl’s face now and remember her name—Fione. Flashes of memory—of stolen kisses beneath cherry trees, of slow, never-silent touches beneath silk