Page 38 of The Villains of Winter

He kissed her. Pressing his lips on top of her hair.

At last, the droves of attendants parted for them in their final moment together. His words were suffocated.

“Please, don’t. Please, don’t leave.” Her eyes shone with furious tears. “Don’t let them end your life.”

“You will be alright, Kitty. You will be okay.” Despite his horror, he held his strength. He couldn’t cry in front of her. It might’ve been her last image of him. “You will grow elderly and wrinkled. You will own a rabbit farm and a kitten shelter for the both of us. I will be with you, even after death–”

“You can’t die. Please.”

There was no choice left. It was his fate. Elliott was considered a year older as an orphan. In their eyes, even though he was twenty, in order for him to be eligible for higher taxes in the Banebury bylaws he was twenty-one years old. Therefore, open for the sacrifice season.

“Please, no!” Kitty wept, wrapping herself around him as they were pried apart. “No, Elliott! No, please!”

“I love you with everything in me–Kitty–until my last breath–” He tried to speak through his anguish, but he was wrenched from her by the woodsmen who twined his arms in knotted ropes. His hands were bound in front of him. Blood leaked into the hemp rope as he shouted for her. “I love you past the stars–”

Mrs. Ledgerman held onto Kitty, preventing her from clawing at the woodsmen. It was a crime to exact violence during the ceremony, particularly against the rector, the practitioners, and the woodsmen.

A rare sight of misery filled Mrs. Ledgerman’s aged, gray eyes. “Leave with dignity, boy.”

If Elliott put up a fight now, he would put Kitty in direct danger. He was not allowed to refuse his fate. He could not decline the sacrifice to Winterfylleþ. He could be shot.

He did not want to be slaughtered in front of Kitty, the sight of it would break her.

Elliott Archway was this winter’s honorarium. It was decided.

He had to respect the tradition for Kitty’s sake. Even if his heart cleaved in grief for himself.

His chest heaved as he felt familiar hands gather his shirt in fists. Passionate golden eyes fiercely gazed at him and all at once, there was no longer a well-attended winter ceremony surrounding the two young men. It was only them.

“I’ll meet you in the end–” James’s eyes were filled with ache and determination. “Hold on for me.”

Hold on for him? Elliott didn’t understand. This is the end.

“Do not die on my behalf.” Elliott’s voice was an order but he trembled. He knew James Wilde wouldn’t listen to him. Elliott wove his injured palms into James’s rugged hands. He couldn’t stop shaking. “Do not die for my sake. Alright? Do not drink yourself to death. Do not starve yourself–”

“Elliott–”

“The letter–”

“Elliott, never mind the letter.” James pressed his mouth against Elliott’s forehead. He rested his temple against Elliott’s temple. “Never mind the letter, alright? Hold on for me in the Eisenhower Woods. Promise me that.”

Elliott didn’t know what he meant. Hold on for him?

In the end, there was little that Elliott wouldn’t promise him. “I promise.” Elliott’s voice was strangled. “Keep Kitty safe for me. Vow to look out for her. Please.”

“You don’t need to even ask, Elliott.” Afterward, James whispered the words that always took Elliott’s breath right out of his lungs and flooded him with warmth. “I care deeply for that soul of yours. Anima tua anima mea est. You understand that I will protect it? I will always protect what is mine.”

Elliott nodded. “Of course. You’re the best friend I ever had.” His heart disintegrated in his chest, knowing even in the final minutes of execution, James would not return the words. Nevertheless, Elliott smiled brokenly. “I love you past the stars, James.”

“Hold on for me.” James slid his hand into the nape of Elliott’s waves. He settled Elliott’s head against his shoulder and Elliott was grateful for it, because for a full minute, he was a mess of tears and snot. He wept like a child for his fate. He did not want his peers to see it.

He did not want that to be the last sight of him.

How could Elliott not have realized he would be chosen to punish James?

Of course, Lucien never intended to kill James for stabbing him. A sadist like him would’ve wanted to hurt James more than death itself through Elliott. James would mourn him the rest of his life. Tortured.

Elliott merely handed himself over on a platter.