Page 123 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“Have. And don’t pretend like you didn’t know.”

He shook his head. “We were complicated, Rora. You relied on me and I relied on you, one of us was bound to feel like we owed one another something. Like you owed me your affections.”

“You’re an absolute idiot, you know that?”

“But you kind of like me.”

“Don’t die and I’ll show you how much.”

“I must have become a saint,” he groaned. “To resist the temptation and ask you to show me now.”

“With how much you are bleeding, you’d end up a martyr if I showed you now.”

“An honourable death. One every man wants.”

“Idiot.”

He chuckled, pressing his face to my hair and sighing. “Luckiest idiot.”

Somehow, he’d managed to stay awake the whole night. I’d only let him sleep when his fever had gone down and when he breathed loud enough for me to hear him do so. My ear was still pressed to his chest despite, listening to his faint heartbeat. It was all I had heard beside his breathing and the wind brushing against the roofs of the empty village. All until the little scratching noise on the window.

A ghastly face flashed against it, three pairs of eyes just watching us. The creature was all bones, its insides exposed and barely hanging to its body. I could see its heart slowly pump and its lungs expand at the same rhythm. When I stood, the creature blinked all its eyes and stepped a little away from the window.

Making sure Malik was all covered up and safe, I cracked the door open and peered outside, expecting to see the creature, not the thousand others surrounding the home on all sides.

Hells.

Every fibre in my body prepared for a fight, but my senses were calm, almost in harmony with the wind, the frost, the creatures. And I knew that because their hearts beat at the same rhythm as mine and they breathed as I did. When my heart raced, so did theirs. When I held a breath, so did they.

I stepped forward and they all stepped back and away from me. Kneeling down and putting my hands towards them, I said, “I mean no harm.”

“Why was your kind not spared the same sentiment?” something whispered against my ear, and my head whipped in its direction, finding no one standing close to me.

“I was owed a debt.”

“A debt? Why would human lives be owed to you?”

“Because they are trying to provoke a war I cannot give them.”

“But you’re already at war. A one-woman army now that your general is dying.”

“What?”

“He is dying, Thora,” the voice crooned deep inside my mind and a chill went down my spine, making all my limbs tremble.

I ran back inside, the door flying open with a bang. He was gone. Only a massive pool of blood was left behind. “Malik!” I shouted, searching the house corner to corner. “Malik!”

My knees weakened and I dropped to the bloodied floor. The reflection shifted. Someone else was looking back at me. Young. Long blonde hair carrying in the wind. Her face had always reminded me of my own. Her eyes like Snow’s. “It’s just a dream,” Lilith whispered, and the room carried her voice until my surroundings blurred. “Wake up. They are coming.”

“Wake up,” another voice called against my ear, and I gasped as the floor beneath me liquefied and pulled me under.

A hand grasped mine and air finally entered my lungs again.

“Bloodies hells, Thora,” Malik sighed, putting his brow against mine. “When I was imagining you screaming my name it was nothing like this.”

“You’re alright?” He had to be. He’d just made a joke.

“Apart from the permanent heart condition you almost gave me, yeah, I’m alright.”