Page 107 of The Blight of Hollowmire

“I was full of faults,” he says. “I… am full of faults—cowardice, pride, festering grief that became easier than living. I made ruin of things I should have protected. I let shame have dominion over my life.”

“You are not your faults,” I say fiercely. “You told me as much, and I am holding you to it.”

His lashes lower, and my stomach drops.

“No,” I snap. “Look at me.”

He does—barely. His eyes struggle to focus and his breathing sounds worse, going from wheezing to rattling.

“Listen to me,” he says, voice thinning. “If I could go back, I wouldn’t take any of it away—all the wrong turns, all the grief. Everything that broke me.” He swallows, and blood darkens the corner of his mouth. “I wouldn’t take it back… because every path led me to you.”

His voice is thin now, his breaths slowing dangerously. My whole body caves around the sound that escapes me—an animalistic scream that begins in rage and ends in such despair.

His hand moves weakly against the stones, searching. I seize it. His fingers are cold already, despite the blood, despite the morning, despite the fact that he simply can’t be this cold. He can’t.

“I love you,” he says.

I shake my head because surely if I deny the words, the moment cannot finish forming around them.

“I love you so much,” he continues. “I should have said it days ago. I should’ve said it when you saved my life, when we made love, and every moment in between.”

“You will say it tomorrow,” I choke. “You will say it a hundred times more, Renard. You must not give in. Please. Please!”

His thumb moves over my knuckles, so soft, it almost feels like someone else, because this Renard—my Renard—is strong. He is strong, and he will survive this. He must survive this, because I don’t think I can survive without him.

“If the Death Goddess takes me,” he whispers, “I’ll tell her about you.”

A laugh breaks out of me, cracked and hideous. “I rather think she’s heard enough.”

“No.” His eyes search mine with desperate focus, as if he is taking the memory of my wretched face with him. “Not enough. I’ll tell her your eyes are like garnets in the candlelight. That your hair is like moonlight caught in briars. That you smell like a forest after rain.”

My tears fall onto his cheek, black and shining.

“Well, right now I smell of dungeons, blood, and more kinds of fungus than I can actually name,” I warble.

“Yes,” he says again, smiling as if he loves that, too.

I bend over him, pressing my forehead to his. His skin is too cool. His breath feathers over my lips in shallow, broken pieces.

“Of all my regrets,” he murmurs, “and I have so many I could bore the dead with them, the one I feel most now is that I won’t see your cottage by the sea.”

I cannot hold the sobs in—they break free as I bury my face in his chest. One of his hands reaches up, tangling in my hair.

A small cottage between the sea and the forest, with land enough for a garden and wilds enough for Nibblebones to hunt. No one to bother us, or scurry away in fear. Poor little Vireth, dreaming her little dream.

“I would have followed you,” Renard says.

“Renard—”

“I would have given everything to follow you.”

“You will,” I say, gutted and cleaved in half. “We will be there together.”

His fingers tighten around mine once, and only once.

“I’m sorry. I shall miss your mushroom stews, and braiding your hair. I will miss Nibblebones and all her unearthly gifts.”

“No.”