“Close the gates of heaven and hell,
Turn him back and make him well.
Do not fly away, my king.
Jeru weeps beside your queen.”
“Bird . . .” Boojohni said, his face contorting in helplessness. “Maybe it’s too late.”
“Do not fly away, my king. Do not fly away from me,” I chanted, refusing to listen, pushing life through my hands and into the heart that no longer beat inside Tiras’s chest. Then Boojohni left me, running for help or running for cover, I didn’t know. My eyes were closed, my hands numb, and I continued to plead.
Seconds later I was swept up, embraced like a long-lost child, rescued temporarily from despair, but when I raised my eyes to the man who held me, I saw Kjell, his weary face lined with grief, his blue eyes nothing like the once-black gaze of the man I longed for. I turned my face and saw that Tiras still lay on the ground. The king had not been released from the sky.
“Let me go,” I said, the words almost unintelligible. “I took the word away, but I can’t call Tiras back.”
“She’s lost so much blood, Captain. She won’t leave him. I’m afraid we’re going to lose her too.” Boojohni was crying.
Kjell crouched beside the king, releasing me as he touched his brother’s face.
“He’s gone, Lark.” Kjell’s voice was grief-stricken, and truth rose around him.
“No,” I whispered. “He’s not. I can still feel him.”
Kjell shook his head, his throat working, his eyes bleak.
“Help me, Kjell. I am not a Healer. But you are. You are.”
“No,” Kjell whispered. “I’m not . . . I can’t.”
“Help him, and I will help you,” I said, repeating the words Kjell had said to me a lifetime ago when he believed I could save his brother. My vision was starting to swim, and I didn’t have the strength to move my lips, but he knelt beside me and put his hands where mine had been.
Listen to him.
“I can’t . . .” Kjell protested, even as he grimaced, listening. Prayer and pleading oozed from his pores.
I put a hand over his and strained to hear the song of Tiras’s soul, the frequency that would call him back and heal his broken body.
Listen, I begged.
I knew the moment he heard the tone—a tone so faint it was almost a vibration—because it began to pulse like a heartbeat, low and thready, swelling then fading as Kjell locked onto it and began to hum. His voice was gravely, untrained, and hesitant, but it was perfectly pitched.
I wrapped my mind and what was left of my strength around the timber of Kjell’s voice. I pulled the note into my head and my throat, into my chest and my limbs, swimming in the sound. I pled for health and hope and second chances, my hands pressed over Kjell’s.
When Tiras opened his eyes, eyes as deep and black as the night sky above us, I closed mine.
I awoke alone to light, warm and bright, streaming in from the open balcony doors to my chamber. The room was neat and quiet, the day beyond the palace walls serene. I listened for chaos, for the daily cacophony of life in the castle, and though I heard movement and industry, it was subdued, the thoughts and words wafting in with the sunlight reflective and soft.
My gown was gone. I stretched naked limbs and touched my side, feeling smooth skin and little else. I trailed my hands to my abdomen, to the small swell between my hip bones, and rested them there. I felt a quivering sensation—life and movement—and held my breath, wanting to hear as badly as I wanted to feel. The sensation came again—a brush, a caress, the whisper of water against the shore.
Safe.
The word fluttered in my chest. I was safe. My child was safe, and I was healed.
Safe.
But not whole.
I sat up gingerly and rose from the bed, pulling a dressing gown around my body. My hair fell in rumpled waves down my back and over my eyes, and I focused on the distraction of taming it. I swept it back carefully, tucking it behind my ears, my movements slow and precise, my eyes focused inward, my mind blank, and my heart . . . racing.
If I didn’t look too closely, I wouldn’t see that Tiras wasn’t there. If I didn’t breathe too deeply, I wouldn’t feel the hollow echo in my empty chest. If I didn’t move too quickly, I wouldn’t reach any painful conclusions. And if I didn’t listen, I wouldn’t hear the silence he always left behind.
The light flickered at the corner of my eye, drawing my reluctant gaze back to the balcony, and my racing heart tripped and fell. He was there beyond the fluttering drapes, perched on the low wall, his wings extended like he’d just come to rest, the red tips and shimmering undertones catching the light.
My throat burned and my gaze blurred.
“Tiras?” I whispered, his name finding my lips like he’d never been lost. I said his name again, and it trembled there before slipping silently past my chin with the tears streaming from my eyes and scurrying down my cheeks.
The eagle stretched, spreading his wings like he meant to fly, and hovered momentarily above his perch. Then he shifted, slipping between the layers of the sky in stained glass shards of light before streaming out again, transformed. Whole. Safe and whole.
He saw me and stilled—dark hair and warm skin, gleaming eyes and a softly smiling mouth—and I gloried in him, even as I grieved. He crossed the space between us and touched my face with perfect fingers.
“You’re crying,” he whispered.
“You’re . . . s-still a . . . bird,” I stuttered.
His smile grew, creasing his cheeks. His joy confused me.
“You’re speaking,” he marveled.