Fragile Eternity

Just a little farther.

She made it a block before the tears started to slide down her face. Without even looking at the phone, she pressed and held a button. When he answered, she didn’t let him speak. “I need you. Come get me.”

Then she hung up and slid to the sidewalk. Her eyes weren’t closed, but they were near enough to it that she was worried. It’s not a serious injury. She said so, and faeries don’t lie.

She stared at the ravens that had settled on a ledge on the building across from her, and she pressed another button and held the phone to her ear. She smiled at hearing Seth’s voice, even though it was just a recording. At the tone, she said in as clear a voice as possible, “I’m not going to make it for di

She wanted him to come to her, but she was bleeding on the street—a target unable to defend herself against capture or further assault—and he was a mortal. Her world wasn’t safe for him. It wasn’t safe at all.

Mortals walked past her. They were murmurs of sound and movement against the quiet she found inside her and held on to. Down the street she heard a bus stop. The din of people coming and going grew louder for a few moments. The ravens cried out, their hoarse calls blending into the sounds of the mortal world around her. She leaned her head back against a building, not concerned with the soot and dirt, but with the fact that the cement and brick were warm against her skin. Warmth was what she needed. Warmth will fix it, she thought about that in a tumble of words that sounded like a cadence in her mind. Warmth, heat, summer, sunlight, hot, warmth, heat, summer, sunlight, hot. He would bring those things.

She shivered. In her mind, she could see the fragments of ice that Donia’d left inside her skin. Slivers of Winter were buried inside her body. A lesson, that’s all it was: a lesson and a warning. Not fatal. But she wasn’t sure. As she sat there in the street, she wondered if she was hurt worse than Donia’d intended. Warmth, heat, summer, sunlight, hot, warmth, heat, summer, sunlight, hot. She thought them like a prayer. He would come. He would bring heat and sunlight.

Warmth, heat, summer, sunlight, hot. I am not that injured. I am not. She was. She felt like she was dying. Being a faery was to mean living forever. It wouldn’t if he didn’t come for her. Warmth, heat, summer, sunlight, hot. I’m going to die.

“Aisli

“Too cold.” She was shaking so hard that she thought she might fall, but he held her to him and then the world blurred.

When she woke, Aisli

“What are they?” She knew he was in the room; it wasn’t necessary to look for him. He wouldn’t be anywhere else, not now.

“Ash—” he started.

“The vines, I mean. They’re not anywhere else in the loft. Just…here.”

He came to sit on the edge of the ridiculous red-and-gold-brocade thing that covered his far-too-large bed. “They’re called ‘Cup of Gold.’ I like them. I’m sorry we had discord.”

She couldn’t look at him; it was stupid to feel embarrassed, but she did. The conversation with Donia replayed in Aisli

“For what? You weren’t asking for anything I didn’t expect.” Keenan’s voice was as warm as his tears had been when he lifted her from the ground. “We’re going to work everything out. For now, what matters is that you are home, safe, and once I know who—”

“Donia. Who else?” Aisli

“Don?” He paled. “On purpose?”

Aisli

“It’s because it was Donia.” Keenan’s tone was even, but the rumble of thunder outside belied his attempts at calm. “She is our opposite, and she is a queen.”

“So…now what?”

Keenan blanched again. “I don’t want war. It’s never the first choice.”

Aisli

“If it were anyone but Donia, I’d gladly kill over this.” He brushed back Aisli

Aisli

“I could help.” He looked embarrassed as he gestured at her stomach. “I would’ve before, but I know how you are about your…space…especially since…”

She plucked at her shirt. It wasn’t her bloodied one. “How did I get this on then?”

“Siobhan. She changed your blouse after I checked your wound. She was here, though—when I checked it. She stayed here.”

Aisli

And it was true. She might feel uncomfortable with their closeness and be discomforted with his attentiveness, but she didn’t think he’d maneuver her into anything she didn’t want or violate her. She’d thought that of him when she didn’t know him, but in her heart of hearts she believed differently now. Donia was wrong.

“So how?” she prompted.

“Just sunlight. Like what you’ve done for me, but more. It’ll heal almost as slowly as if you were…” His voice faded at the word.

“Mortal. It’s okay to say it. I know what I am, Keenan.” She realized they were still holding hands and squeezed his again. “If I were mortal, I’d be dead right now.”

“If you were mortal, she wouldn’t have struck you.”

“I’m not so sure. If you cared about the Summer Girls like…this, would she have hurt them?” Aisli

At first, Keenan didn’t answer. Instead he stared beyond her at the Cup of Gold vine that was twined around the posts of the bed. Blossoms opened up, revealing deep purple star-lines, and tendrils stretched toward him.

“Keenan?” she prompted.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, though. Not right now.”

“What does matter?”

“That she struck my queen.” Something new shimmered in the depths of his eyes: swords wavered and flashed.

Perhaps it should frighten her, that glimpse of rage in her king’s eyes, but it comforted her. The other emotions she thought she also saw there, the possessiveness and fear and longing, those were the frightening ones. “But you came for me. I’ll heal.”