Kanthe had offered an unpleasant reason for their safe passage: Maybe the beasts know to stay clear of this corner of the Reach because of what lurks behind us. He had glanced significantly at Bashaliia in her arms.
She swallowed down her grief, leaving only despair.
Frell approached. She closed her eyes, knowing what he had come to say. She drew Bashaliia closer to her bosom.
“Nyx…” He settled to a knee next to her. “It’s been nearly two days since he was attacked. By now, the eggs inside his body are likely already hatching. We know his venomous slumber will not spare him the agony to come.”
She also knew this. This morning Frell had pinched the tender webbing between Bashaliia’s wing and body. While her brother had not moved, his breath had puffed harder, plainly feeling that pinch.
“What comes next will be unimaginably painful,” Frell warned. “It is no mercy to keep him alive when we cannot help him.”
“I understand,” she said.
No matter how much she wanted to deny his words, she suspected she had waited too long already. She hadn’t told anyone, but Bashaliia’s breath had been growing more strained, as if the worst was already starting.
She stared down at his head, no larger than her fist. She could still picture those same eyes, glassy now, staring across at her from the warmth of loving wings. She had already lost so much. Her dah, her older brothers gone missing. Even abandoning Gramblebuck had torn a hole in her heart that had not mended.
Now this …
She feared she could not survive it.
Kanthe came over. He slipped his dagger from its sheath at his waist. “Let me take this burden from you.”
Anger flashed through her despair. “He’s not a burden,” she snapped at him. “Never a burden.”
A sob shook through her. She regretted her words, knowing the prince had only been trying to be kind. But she hadn’t the strength to apologize. It took all that was left inside her to lift an arm toward him.
“I will do it.”
Kanthe hesitated. Her hand began to shake. She looked up at him. Tears blurred her sight. He nodded and placed the dagger’s hilt into her palm. She firmed her fingers around it, anchoring her will to the heft of its steel.
“I … I’d like to be alone,” she whispered.
The others didn’t argue and retreated. Jace touched her shoulder in sympathy, then slipped away.
She took a deep breath and gently lowered the blanket to the bed of leaves. She peeled back its edges, revealing the fold of wings, cocooned around a frail body. Bashaliia’s head lolled back, exposing his throat, as if asking for her help.
Tears dripped to the wool, to the fur of his chest.
She clutched the dagger, unsure if she truly could do this. Still, the image of the dwarf deer, the violation of its body, welled through her. She recalled her earlier admonition when she heard the thylassaurs being attacked: No creature deserved such a cruel end.
She reached a finger and brushed the velvet under Bashaliia’s chin.
Especially you.
She continued to rub the spot that often made him purr in contentment when they had nestled together in the sledge. She lowered the knife’s blade to his throat—and still hesitated. She remembered Frell pinching her brother’s wing.
You still feel pain, so you will feel what I must do.
Her hand tremored. She knew a quick sting was better than a labored agony. But she hated to inflict even that. Bashaliia had saved her many times, maybe more than even she knew.
She lowered her chin, her shoulders shaking. She felt another wracking sob building. It rose from her throat as a low moan. When it reached her lips, it came out as a keening, a quiet song of grief. She did not fight it or question it. She sang to her brother, vaguely remembering doing this in a dream as they nestled in slumber together.
She closed her eyes, letting her song become her vision. She whispered into Bashaliia. Each note carried her down a dark well inside him. Somewhere deeper, he answered, a faint pining, like loonsong over still waters.
I hear you …
She keened back to him, not to draw him closer, but to gently push him farther away from his wracked body. She did not want him to feel even the sting of this blade. As she sang, he tried to stay, refusing to leave her, but she wrapped him in her song, letting her love and ache, her sorrow and joy, be his blanket now. She lifted him and carried him away.
As she did, ancient eyes opened at the well’s dark bottom and stared back.
She ignored them, focusing all her love on the spark she cradled.
Find peace, my little brother.
Knowing he was free of this body, she slit his throat.
* * *
KANTHE HEARD HER footsteps stumbling toward them. He and the others had retreated to a nearby patch of briarberry, both to give Nyx privacy yet still be close at hand in case she needed them. He had intended to collect berries while they waited. But he didn’t bother. No one did. They stood with their heads bowed, each in his own thoughts.
He had listened to Nyx keening, nearly singing, at her tiny brother. He recalled hearing something similar as the girl had drowsed with the bat in the sledge. Only now, it was more refined. He heard the love and pain in each note.
Finally, she returned.
Jace crossed to her, but his steps stumbled.
Kanthe saw why. Nyx’s palms were covered in blood, as was her tunic and the edges of her cloak. He pictured her cradling her brother’s slaughtered form.
“I … I need your help,” she moaned.
As she stopped, she weaved on her legs, drunken with shock and grief. He hurried to her and caught her before she fell. She slumped in his arms but pointed back.
“I want to bury him, but … but…”
“We’ll do it,” he said, and glanced over her head to Jace and Frell. “We’ll all do it.”
He carried her over to the wrap of blanket resting in a bed of leaves. He lowered her to one side. He and the others parted through the leaves and mulch to reach soil. They dug a small grave. He reached to move the body to the hole, blanket and all, but Nyx shifted over, refusing to let anyone touch her brother.
She seemed to draw strength as she settled Bashaliia into the grave. She gave them a firmer nod and let them cover his body with soil and leaves. Once done, without anyone saying a word, they all gathered small stones and built a cairn atop it, marking the spot, honoring his sacrifice.
“Thank you,” Nyx said, seeming to encompass them all with her gratitude.
Kanthe nodded to the large tree crowning the small grave. The trunk was white, with a bark that curled in paper-thin slices. The leaves were green on one side, silver on the other. These trees were rare. It was why he had asked for the group to rest here. The surrounding forest was a mix of dark spruce, green pines, but mostly giant golden-leafed Reach alders, which vanished into the clouds.
He placed a palm on the curled white bark. “The tribesmen of these greenwoods call this tree Ellai Sha, or Spirit’s Breath.” He ripped a piece of bark off the trunk and held it out to Nyx. The curl looked somewhat like a skrycrow’s scroll. “You carry this with you. If you wish to speak to those who have passed, you whisper into the curl, then burn it at a camp’s fire, where the smoke will carry your message high.”
Nyx took the curl, tears welling, and clutched it to her heart. She turned to the cairn and mumbled her thanks.