Chapter 5
VANN
They are going to give me my heart back.
I can hardly believe it. Sixty years without, and finally, I will be whole again.
Blood loss has made my limbs weak. I am able to open my eyes, but I am unsure if they remain open as my consciousness drifts in and out.
It helps to review everything I know. Everything I can remember after they decided to give me my heart back.
I remember being pulled onto some sort of structure made from vines and branches. The feeling of being dragged across the uneven ground was painful. It caused more blood to bubble down my skin in fresh rivulets. Then suddenly I was laid prone upon a new stone slab, staring up at the twinkling lights of a million magically infused objects collected by these feral women, secluded in the middle of the ocean.
When my heart was taken out, it was my last memory of unadulterated physical pain and warmth. My being was torn apart, and the throbbing organ wrapped up in magic, severing its connection to my body so that it could slide out of the open cavity. It was grotesque, terrifying, though it left no scar.
This time, the magic is more overbearing. It doesn’t feel likecrystal magic—there is no resonance to it. Instead, there is a bitter sharpness that cuts me open with precision, though each one leaves space for something else to linger. Something next to pain.
I try to focus on identifying what that thing might be rather than the sensation itself to distract myself. Is it darkness? Rot? Or simply the feeling of what it means to be touched by another god’s magic?
There is rhythmic chanting as the same witch who took my heart before stands over the table, her face covered as she holds her hands over her head. Above me floats a shining purple heart.
Myheart.
The heart that made Arlet leave me here to appease the threats of the Elf King. The heart that had sung for her.
I look at it now like one might look at an estranged family member. Without it, my life has been cold, predictable, but lacking. Having it back…what will that even mean? What will that force me to do? To feel?
Deep in my gut, there is a fierce anticipation as I sense the heart near the icy cold hole in my chest. Half a century half dead. I decide it will be worth it to live. Even with all the uncertainty in my future, even without a promise that I will actually survive this.
The chance at life is better than the certainty I would die without this procedure.
The moment they put the heart back in my chest, I feel nothing. And then, like a spark against flint, jolts of heat surge across the veins connected to my heart, running down, spreading heat like a wildfire. I bow my back straight off the table, crying out to whatever god or creature will give me a modicum of mercy.
The moderate temperature of my skin is replaced with a scorching heat that makes me think my flesh will soon bubble and melt off my muscles and bones, but when I look down, I just see my open chest, the blood that pumps properly through my body once more, and that wretched, old heart.
I gasp at the sight just as the witch comes close again, hovering her hand in a straight, even line over the open incision. Bit by bit, the flesh begins to knit itself back together, and for the first time since I awoke last, my Fuegorra flaresto life.
I’m curious about what they must’ve done to suppress the magic from my own gods, but I cease questioning as new sensations began to bubble inside of me. Gratitude strong enough to move mountains shakes its way through me like quaking earth beneath my feet.
A shame as deep as the ocean itself crashes over me.
And a love…a love fierce enough to draw the tides and keep the planets and stars in their eternal rounds begins to take over, to buoy my broken body.
The sound of surprise radiates above me as the Fuegorra sings louder. It is a song that I have never heard, despite the fact that it is as familiar as the backs of my hands, as my own mind.
The song sings out for a woman no longer here, and it weeps at her loss. The song tells me what Arlet already knew.
That I am mated.
That she is my mate.
That she has gone to sacrifice herself, and I want to slap her name out of the mouth of any person who would dare speak it out of turn.
None of this makes sense. The untenable need to hold her close and never let her go prickles over my skin.
Regardless of the still-healing bits of my body, I bolt upright, fuming, and swing my legs over the table.
“Easy,” one of the witches hisses.