I should have given my life. Begged Hazlitt to release Ava and my family and just kill me instead; it would keep me from causing him any more trouble. And what did he need Ava for? She’d already killed King Akhran. She’d already given him his window to conquer Ronan. I should have begged him to free her. Then I wouldn’t have to live with this. This guilt and this loss, and this feeling like my heart was gone and instead I’d been filled with burning lead. Because it hurt.
At points during my wandering, it hurt my chest so badly that I couldn’t breathe. It was too heavy and too agonizing, and I collapsed into the snow just to sob. Just to choke on screams of misery, because screaming distracted from the burning in my chest by searing my throat instead. I choked because I couldn’t breathe. I sobbed so hard I couldn’t get air. So hard I got lightheaded and so hard that as I gulped air in rapid succession it made me sick. It turned my stomach and the raw burning in my throat was worsened, because I sobbed so hard I vomited.
I’d never kiss Ava again. Never touch her, hold her, or hear her laugh. And even worse, she’d hate me. I didn’t just lose her. I lost her trust and her affection, because I’d told her I loved her. I’d made love to her and then I’d left her without even looking at her. She probably thought she was nothing to me. Probably thought my love had been a cruel lie, when truly she was everything to me. I deserved death for what I’d done to her. For how badly I’d hurt and betrayed her.
I deserved death for how badly I’d failed Brande, and Albus, and Mother, and Nilson. They were all dead because I was weak. No more motherly kisses on the forehead before I left for a hunt. No more hugs when I returned. No more childishly mirthful laughs from my brother when I tickled him. He’d never wrestle with Albus. Never fall asleep with his face buried in Albus’s neck when we returned from a hunt, because he always missed Albus just as much as he’d missed me. I’d never get to tuck him in, press a kiss to his sandy hair and then sit at the table in our cottage, listening to my mother tell me about all the trouble he’d found while I was gone. I’d never feel their love, or Ava’s love, or any love ever again. I’d never again feel anything but this crippling anguish.
I hardly noticed when the sun rose because I was dead inside, and cold, and I hadn’t slept in days. But I couldn’t go any farther. After how many times I’d fallen in a fit of despair and rose again, there was no strength in my head or my heart or my limbs. I fell in the snow beneath the nearest tree and leaned back against the trunk, and was so exhausted that I couldn’t even keep my eyes open.
Some unknown hours later, with the setting sun beaming through the breaks in the branches, my eyes cracked open again. It was instinct that woke me, because I could feel a solitary heartbeat out there in the woods, and all I could think was that death had finally come for me. And I was grateful. I waited for whoever or whatever it was to attack. I waited and waited while the heartbeat circled, keeping a distance and always hidden amongst the trees. Sometimes, when behind me, it got closer, others it stopped circling for minutes at a time just to watch. It was infuriating, and I was losing my patience.
“Come out and face me!” I shouted hoarsely, my voice broken with fatigue and emotion.
The heartbeat picked up, and from some distance ahead there was the softest crunch of a stride in the snow—four legged, I could hear that much. I watched, squinting into the foliage. Then it appeared. A massive she-wolf, with paws larger than my hands and thick fur as gray as dawn. It was snarling at me, and I noticed a scar down its left eye as it neared. It was blind on that side, and I’m sure it could hear just fine, but its right ear was missing too. It was a survivor. A fighter. A creature worthy of ending my life.
“Come on, then,” I pleaded. “Do it.”
It stalked closer, its upper lip curled to bare its teeth, but it stopped ten feet away. And it watched me. No sound but its heartbeat, no movement but its hot breath fogging the frigid air.
“Do it,” I murmured through my growing impatience. At the sound of my voice, it growled. “Come on!” I hollered. It snapped its jaws, teeth clashing loudly as it took a step forward. “Do it!” The wolf snarled, leaping through the air. For some reason, my heart skipped, and I shut my eyes out of instinct and threw my arms up defensively. “Don’t!”
There was an unfamiliar tingle at the forefront of my mind, and the wolf never bit down, but I could feel its humid breaths on my skin. I opened my eyes, lowering my arms to find the wolf’s long fangs just an inch from my flesh. It was still baring its teeth, still looked angry and hungry and ferocious. But I knew. I felt it in my gut that I’d done this. I’d made it stop.
“Back up,” I commanded. Again, that ache tickled my brain, and the wolf took a few paces back. “Sit.” Its haunches met the earth. “Am I controlling you?” I asked. “Are you letting me?”
During that moment of my curiosity, a breeze picked up, one I noticed only because it was cold enough that I felt it in my bones. And because branches high in the trees quivered, and the wolf’s head cocked to the side of its good ear. It simply sat there for a long span of seconds, eye locked on me but ear turned up as though it were listening. Then all at once, the breeze was gone, and the wolf stood and began to stride toward me again.
“Stop,” I ordered, but this time it didn’t listen, and that tickle felt more like a painful pinch. It was like the beast was fighting my control, and I wasn’t physically or mentally or emotionally strong enough to regain it. “Don’t eat me,” I whispered.
It paced all the way back to me, baring its teeth when it got close enough. The wolf snarled, snapping its fangs so near my face that I plastered my head back against the tree, trying to get out of reach. It didn’t bite me, though. Those long canines skimmed the upper part of my chest, until its jaws had closed around the Vigilant necklace I was wearing. Then it pulled, breaking the chain from around my neck and prancing back out of reach, stealing the piece of jewelry.
“Hey!” That was one of the only things I had left in the world. I’d be damned if I was going to part with it. “Give that back!” The wolf growled, and I was so tired and so emotionally broken that I didn’t have the will to fight. I simply dropped my head back and sniffled, feeling renewed tears sting my eyes. “You shouldn’t have listened to me,” I cried. “You should’ve just killed me.” The wolf growled deeper. “Go away then,” I spat, pulling my knees up to my chest to wrap my arms around them and bury my face. There was no response from the animal, but I could still sense its heartbeat, and that aggravated me. I picked up my head, only to grab a nearby rock poking out of the snow. I hurled the stone in the wolf’s direction. “Go away!”
It came closer, and I watched it drop the necklace at my feet and then retreat into the woods. I don’t know why, but it broke my heart all over again that the wolf left, and I was reduced to uncontrollable sobs. Everything left me. Everyone left me, and I couldn’t keep anything around or alive and I was alone. So alone. I soaked my trousers with tears until the sun set, and I probably would’ve soaked myself until I froze if I weren’t so tired. I fell asleep again.
When I woke the next morning, my eyes opened, immediately meeting the one good eye of that wolf. It was lying in the snow in front of me, staring. It was as much of a relief to see the animal as it was heartbreaking to have watched it walk away. My eyes flooded again, and I wiped the back of my hand over my cheeks when the warm drops spilled.