by Sarah Fine
As soon as my fingers touched his chest, he lurched up with a cry. His swinging arm caught me hard in the face, and I flew backward, hitting the floor headfirst. Fireworks boomed in my skull. I gasped for air and rolled to my side, blinking.
Malachi was crouched in the corner next to the platform bed, his knees drawn to his chest and his arms over his head. Even from where I lay, I could hear the desperate whispers bursting from his throat, though I couldn’t understand the words. Slowly, squinting to clear my vision, I got to my hands and knees. “Malachi?”
He went on mumbling, his shoulders trembling. Smears of his blood marked the space around him, coming from the gashes along his legs and hips and sides. I crept closer, my heart crumbling at the sight of him all balled up and terrified. I’d never seen him look scared, not really. He’d always seemed like he could handle anything, but no one could withstand the kind of torture he’d experienced.
“I came here for you.” I inched closer. “Nothing could stop me.”
He made a quiet, desperate sound but didn’t raise his head. I reached out and touched his foot, a mere brush of my fingers, but drew back quickly when he shrank away. I looked around us. My mouth nearly dropped open when I saw the steel bucket filled with water at the foot of the bed, with a small rag hanging from it. Next to it was a set of clothing—goatskin pants and a tunic, very similar to mine, only bigger. Someone had given me the means to take care of him. And inside my heart I carried the means to heal him. Now I just had to get him back on the bed and hope he’d let me touch him.
“You know my voice,” I said. “You know I’d never hurt you.”
“Lela,” he whispered.
“I’m here.” This time, I touched his elbow, which was perched atop one of his knees, a shield for his head. He pulled more tightly into himself. He was shaking, whether from fear or pain, I didn’t know.
“Where are we?” he asked, his voice breaking.
“I’m not sure. But at this exact moment, it’s just you and me, and we’re safe.”
“Can you . . . Can you summon Raphael? I . . . I’ve been injured.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. He sounded so young, like a little boy. “I know you’re hurt,” I said. “I can help with that.”
“I need Raphael. Can you get me to the Station?”
He thought he was in the dark city. “I can get you what you need.” I rose on my knees and gently stroked his hair, alert to any signals that he needed me to stop. But though he didn’t lean toward me, he didn’t move away, either.
“What’s wrong with me?” he asked in that same choked voice. “I had the worst dream.”
“I know.” I sat down next to his legs. I didn’t know how much time we had, or what was going to happen to us when it was up. So I threaded my fingers into his hair while his whole body trembled. I didn’t want to tell him where we really were. I didn’t want him to realize that none of it had been a dream. But I needed him to come back to himself sooner rather than later. My thoughts spun with worry and love and all the possible things I might say.
“Remember that night we were up at the top of the Station?” I finally asked. “You and I, we were up there, and I let you put your arms around me. I hadn’t let anyone do that . . . ever.” I laughed softly. “And it felt like I was starting to wake up from a bad dream.”
“Me too,” he whispered.
“Your arms felt like armor around me, and even though I was in that scary place, I felt safe.”
“I’m glad.”
“I know I’ve never really done that for you . . .”
“You’re wrong.” He was quiet for a few moments, as my thumb stroked along his scalp. “You’re doing it right now.”
I was so relieved by his response that it took me a minute to be able to speak. “I’m really here with you. We’re really together.”
One of his hands slid unsteadily down his shoulder to his arm, and I reached for it, tangling my fingers with his. “You feel real,” he murmured.
“Come closer, then.”
He let out a shaky breath. “Am I as broken as I feel?”
Tears burned my eyes. “You’re a little banged up.” I tugged on his fingers. “But I promise I can make it better. Come here.”
Slowly, he raised his head, his dark eyes clouded with fear and hurt. I opened my arms as his face crumpled with pain, as his movements stretched and pulled at a hundred badly healed wounds and a dozen fresh ones that were still raw and bleeding. With my help, he crawled back to the bed and curled on his side, once again drawing his knees to his chest, protecting his vulnerable body in the only way he could after being chained wide open in that square for days. His back was the least damaged part of him, so I edged onto the bed behind him, propping up on my elbow so I could look down at his face, the gashes deep and horrible along his cheek and temple. “Tell me to stop if you need me to,” I whispered in his ear.
Then I laid my arm over him, my fingers gently caressing his face, my chest against his back. I’d never willingly been this close to a naked man, but it was Malachi, and any fog of anxiety was blown away by my determination. I held him, touching his face, his hair, his shoulders, his back, all the while thinking of who he was to me. He thought I was strong, but he was willing to lay down his life to protect me. He thought I was beautiful, but he treated me as a precious gift instead of something to take for his own pleasure. He thought I was worth something, and he was worth everything to me. This man had endured lifetimes of suffering, but he could still love, and give, and dream of his future. He was a leader who would sacrifice himself for the weak, who used all his gifts—his intelligence, his cunning, his strength—to protect others. It was a privilege to love him, even to have a shot at giving him the things he needed.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against his shoulder blade, imagining my love as a living thing that wrapped itself around us, that warmed his skin and closed his wounds, that healed his heart and moved the blood through his veins, that soothed the nightmares and cleared his mind. Little by little, he uncurled his legs and stretched them out, groaning with the effort. I raised my head and looked him over, but it was hard to tell if he was healing, because he was such a mess. “Malachi?”
“I’m awake,” he whispered, his lips barely moving as he rolled slowly onto his back. “Just . . . resting.”
I touched my forehead to his. “How are you?”
“Ruined,” he breathed.
It burned from my brain to my throat to my heart. “No, you’re not.”
“But this wasn’t a nightmare. I’m in the Mazikin city.” His black-brown eyes searched my face, begging me to disagree.
“We are in the Mazikin city,” I told him. “You’re not alone.”
“How?” he asked, swallowing. “How did you get here? Did Juri—?”
“The Mazikin didn’t take me,” I reassured him. “I came after you. The Judge let me come. And Ana—she came, too. We found Takeshi. And rescuing you was the first step . . .”
“What do you mean ‘first step’?”
I bit my lip. “To get out of here, to even have a chance, we have to destroy the portal the Mazikin use to possess people. And we have to kill the Queen.”
His eyes widened, and I felt his pulse quicken.
“I’m sorry. It gets worse, too, because I’m not sure if Takeshi and Ana made it out of the fight alive.”
“This is my fault.”
“Are you serious?” I kissed the tip of his nose, because it seemed like the least bloody part of him. “Don’t you dare. The Judge is sliding her chess pieces across the board, and if we want to get out of here, we’ll play the game and keep moving.”
He tried to lift his head but gave up quickly. “I don’t think I can move at all.”
“It’s okay,” I said, glad when he relaxed into the blankets. “Rest.” I sat up and peered at th
e clear water inside the bucket. I grasped the soft rag next to it. “I’m going to clean you up.”
He let out a weak bark of laughter. “I don’t think that’s going to help much.”
I dipped the rag in the water and wrung it out. “You never know,” I said, anxiety building inside me. Was my love strong enough? How quickly was this supposed to work? “Hold still.”
I started at his feet, wiping gently at the raw spots, cleaning away the dirt. The water raised goose bumps and plastered the hair on his legs to his olive skin, but he didn’t flinch away; he simply closed his eyes and let me work on him. “This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, you know,” I said, watching the drops trickle over his knees and remembering our time in the dark city, when I’d taken care of him after he’d been bitten by Juri, who now controlled the body Malachi had left behind.
“I know.” He rewarded me with the faintest smile but kept his eyes shut tight. “I wasn’t awake that time, though.”
He hadn’t been completely naked and exposed, either, like he was now. Aware of how he must feel—how vulnerable—I stayed very focused on the hurt places, on the blood and dirt. I didn’t slow down or stop as I worked my way up his hips, pressing the cloth to the evil-looking bite marks that had turned his thighs and sides into nothing but raw meat. I kept rinsing out the rag, wringing the red-tinged water into the bucket, until the blood was washed from his skin, until every wound was as clean as I could get it. He didn’t move, but I could tell by the tension on his face that the venom in those wounds was working its way through his system and forcing his body to work harder to heal. Although it wouldn’t kill him here like it might have anywhere else, it had to hurt.
I relaxed a little when I reached his waist and could concentrate on his stomach and chest, parts of him I had seen before, touched before. I avoided the area below his ribs, wiping the cloth gently around the edges of the worst of it. When I was finished, I leaned to kiss his temple, and my braid fell over my shoulder and tickled the skin of his. “You look a lot better.”
He slowly opened his eyes and directed his gaze to the pocked gray wall on the other side of the bed. “Don’t lie to me, Lela.”
“I would never lie to you,” I said, carefully spreading a soft goatskin blanket over his legs and waist and sitting next to him on the pallet. I let my fingers skim over the smooth skin of his forehead. “Do you remember our plans that night, the night you got taken? I know you’ve been through a lot . . .”
“Do you think I’d forget something like that?” He sighed. “I was living for that moment, being back in your arms. I think I had been, for the longest time.”
I wiped a tear from the corner of my eye. “Me too. It’s the real reason I came here. I figured I’d drop in and we could have that talk.”
His laugh was a little stronger this time, but when it shook his chest, pain flashed on his face and he arched like he was trying to get away from it. I touched his shoulders and forced myself to examine the wound on his chest, where the Queen had speared him with her steel-tipped claws, where she’d forced her hand into his body and ripped him apart. It was a livid red, ugly and tender-looking, like raw steak. I met Malachi’s eyes, reading the story of agony written in their depths. “How many times did she do that to you?”
“I lost count,” he said wearily. “I lost track of time. Maybe three times, maybe twenty.”
My hand hovered over the wound, which was slightly depressed, like a shallow sea in the terrain of his body. My gaze slid along his stomach, over the flat plains and sculpted muscles, over the bite marks and claw marks that somehow couldn’t destroy the simple beauty of him. “You are so wrong,” I breathed. “They didn’t ruin you at all.”
I don’t know why I did it. Maybe I wanted to help, to show him how much I loved him. Maybe I hoped I could fix him. Maybe I needed the warmth of his skin. Maybe I wanted to make sure he was real, that I’d found him at last and wouldn’t lose him again. My hand descended and brushed over his heart.
He jerked halfway off the bed, all his muscles taut, clenching his teeth around a terrified cry. I yanked my hand back, the apologies already falling from my mouth, the tears already clouding my vision. My own hand suddenly felt like the enemy, like my fingers had somehow morphed into steel-tipped claws and dredged up all the dripping, blood-soaked memories, pulling them to the surface and forcing them on him in a moment when he’d been open and vulnerable. I wrapped my arms around myself, wanting to disappear.
He fell back, sucking in deep, panicked breaths, his eyes glittering in the light of the guttering tallow candle. His whole body was shaking. He looked like he’d been spat from the mouth of a monster. And I knew that I’d brought it all back, the last thing I wanted to do. Finally, I understood how it felt to be the demon, how it felt to awaken a terrible memory in someone you loved. I knew why he’d recoiled that day on the mat in our Guard house, when he’d felt me tense beneath him, why he’d pulled away. I’d understood it before, but not like this, not from my gut. Not the shearing, twisting pain that came from being the hands of the enemy.
“I’m so sorry,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “I shouldn’t have done that.” Frustration and horror burned me. I’d wanted to heal him, and I’d done the opposite.
Malachi stared at the ceiling as his body slowly relaxed, and I waited, not wanting to make it harder for him. His eyes blinked open, and he held his hand out to me, still breathing hard. “Lela, give me your hand.”
I did as he said, slipping my shaking hand into his. He turned my palm and brought it to his mouth, planting a tender kiss right in the center of it, making me ache. And then, before I realized what he was doing, he pressed my palm against the wound in his chest. It throbbed hot and raw against my skin as he flattened his hand over mine. Malachi tensed again, throwing his head back, the fear and pain etched deeply into his features.
“What are you doing?” I tried to pull my hand away, but he held it there, his grip surprisingly strong.
“Stop fighting me. I can’t fight both of you,” he said, his voice cracking. Through the wound, his heart skipped erratically, weak and frantic, like a butterfly held between the paws of a cat. He kept his gaze rooted on the spotted cement ceiling above us. The veins on the back of his hand stood out as his fingers clamped over mine, keeping my palm pressed firmly over the sunken spot on his chest.
I can’t fight both of you.
The words danced in my head, their meaning just out of my reach as they tumbled with my own crazy worry for him. But as we passed the minutes, locked in that position, me trying to pull away and him refusing to allow it, his strength seemed to grow. Not like it had been, but an echo of it, swelling with every shuddering gasp, until it hit me—
He was fighting her. The Queen. His memories.
He was reclaiming his body.
He was refusing to let her have power over him.
He was using my touch as his weapon.
I stopped trying to pull away.
Slowly, very slowly, I rose up on my knees, leaning over him again, letting him have what he needed. My hope, my strength, but mostly, my love. His pupils were big black circles in his deep-brown eyes, and when he blinked, a tear streaked down the side of his face. He was there but not there, and I knew that feeling so well, that struggle between now and then, between the safety of here and the danger of there. I let the warmth of my skin do my talking, and I bowed my head and kissed his shoulder, drawing in the earth-and-sun scent of him, the smell that meant home to me now. His free hand rose from his side and caressed my hair, pulling me near, and in the muted silence of our prison cell, I heard him speak again, but this time it was a single word. He said my name, whispering it like a prayer, like a ward against the darkness, against all the things that had tried to destroy him.
When his voice faded to nothing, when the shaking stopped, when his breath evened out and his heart settled into a beat
that only occasionally faltered, I looked up and found his gaze focused on me. And I said the only words that came to me. “I love you.”
He looked down at himself, at his clean skin, at the closing wounds, at his hand over mine, protecting his heart. His eyes met mine. “I know you do.”
FIFTEEN
I AWOKE TO FINGERS in my hair and discovered that Malachi had removed the tie from my braid and unraveled it. One of his hands was tangled in my curls, and the other was around my waist. Maybe minutes ago, maybe hours, I’d stretched out next to him, and he’d scooted over and let me sink onto him with a little sigh of pleasure. I’d settled into his arms and laid my head on his shoulder, and I’d let him guide my hands to the places that felt best. I’d sent my love through the connection of our bodies, hoping it would be what he needed.
Now he was asleep but holding me tightly as his eyes moved beneath his lids. I hoped his dreams were peaceful. The dwindling candle illuminated his profile, the harsh outline of his cheekbones, nose and brow, and his body . . . I raised my head. I had no idea how long I’d been asleep, but his wounds had, for the most part, healed completely. Scars, yes. Lots of scars, red-and-silver streaks and semicircles that would never allow him to forget what they’d done to him. But no open wounds, no more bleeding. I kissed his chest and laid my ear over his heart.
It didn’t sound the same.
It was beating, and that should have been enough. But I felt a shock of fear as I listened to it falter. Not on every beat, not by far. But every time I started to think it might have been my imagination, it skipped a beat or stopped completely. Whenever it did, Malachi shifted restlessly until it resumed its rhythm, the drumbeat that accompanied the faint wheezing sound of his breathing. What used to be a powerful, silent rush of air with every rise and fall of his chest was now labored and halting. It just needs time. It’s only been a day. He’ll be fine.
