27. Annette

My stomach churns violently, my innards feeling stretched beyond their capacity. I can barely feel my fingers, and my legs have given way to constant muscle spasms.

In short, I am in pain. Parts of it, I try to hide from Rukh, who worries himself over every cough and sneeze. He tells me that over the past 24 hours, my skin has gone from a pale gray to an almost bile yellow color.

“I found some fylvek grass and some gankoya,” Rukh says as soon as he barges in the door. “The local alchemist said they might work together, but we’re going to have to try and see.”

“Local?”

I stifle a cough, my body sweaty under the covers. When I lift the blankets off, I’m frigid, and I feel like my heart might stop from how slow it becomes.

“Yeah,” he says. “I’ve been stopping in Mellara. In disguise, of course.”

On the table in front of me are several open books. Occasionally, when Rukh steps away, I reach out with my foot, bringing the book toward me. Unfortunately, I soon reach the same conclusion Rukh does.

Nothing in this cabin is any help for my particular condition.

Maybe when the witch imparted the curse, she knew there wasn’t a cure. Maybe I just need to make peace with my death.

“Rukh,” I call out to him.

He frantically mixes the two ingredients together in a mortar and pestle.

I know that it’s no use and that what he’s brought me is a simple potion for ordinary diseases. And judging by the fact that I can feel my organs slowly failing, I don’t think his concoction will do too much, anyway.

He doesn’t hear me.

“Rukh!” I call out again, this time much louder.

He startles. I didn’t think Rukh was capable of startling. I can add that to my list of achievements, as I start to expire.

“Yes?” he asks.

“Come here,” I instruct him.

Early on, I was afraid of giving him my sickness, in fear that the magical illness might somehow become contagious.

I imagine a horrifying magical plague unleashed on the population of Mellara, and I start to shudder. If I were evil, and I wanted to wipe out an entire population of dark elves, it would seem almost too perfect.

He approaches me, and I take his large hand in mine, meeting his gaze.

I feel myself tingle at his touch. I want to bring him to me and wrap myself around him. I want to kiss him and never let go.

“I love you,” I tell him.

He smiles. “I know that,” he says.

“I know. I just want to make sure you know that before –”

He shakes his head, steps away from me, and returns to mixing the potion. “I’m sorry, Annette,” he says. “I love you, too, but we need to figure this out.”

It’s a common potion he could have purchased himself, if he had any sense of how local shops work. The idea that he thinks it’s going to have any long-lasting effect on me is a little irritating, but I know how hard he’s trying, and I honor him for it.

Eventually, when he’s exhausted his options, he starts asking me for help, searching through the books.

There are tomes on magical curses, cursed items, advanced spells and conjuration rituals, blood magics, and books I can’t begin to piece together, whose magic is so far beyond my own I can barely read the language it’s written in.

“Here’s something about fevers,” Rukh suggests. He holds up a book, and I realize it’s a common alchemical text on household remedies.

I shake my head. “I’ve got a bit more than a fever going on, Rukh,” I tell him.

He rubs his chin before bringing his fist down hard on the table, leaving a small crack in its surface. The impact shakes the room momentarily.

I don’t look up from the text he’s given me. Though I know he won’t apologize, I can tell that he’s sorry.

I’ve resolved to cherish every moment I have left with Rukh, faults and all. What’s more, I can feel my mind weakening, and I know that soon, I won’t even have the faculties to appreciate our time together anymore.

In a cruel twist of irony, the greatest reminder of how valuable Rukh is to me is how little time I have left with him.

“You’re going to be okay,” Rukh says, picking up another text. “You know that right?”

I nod, hoping that I convince him, because I’m certainly not convincing myself.

“I know you’re scared,” Rukh says. “But you don’t need to worry.”

I don’t know, at this point, whether he’s reassuring himself.

He flips open the book, and I think I hear him mutter something along the lines of ‘I’ll pull you up myself, if I have to.’

It seems like nonsense to me, but I smile at him as I flip through a book that at first seemed promising, but I now realize is a romantic novel about two star-crossed lovers.

I don’t want to tell him that I’ve given up.

I don’t want to tell him that I’d rather spend my time with him doing something stupid and trivial than continuing a pointless quest to prolong my life.

I cough and cover my mouth with my hand, wiping away the blood before he can see it.

As a demon, Rukh has some powers which somewhat approximate magic that he’s tried to use on me. Most of it just involves interacting with my soul, trying to rearrange and stabilize parts of it. And it helps.

Sometimes, it returns my skin to a healthier tone for a moment. Sometimes, it reduces my fever, or lowers my urge to cough.

But ultimately and inevitably, the conditions return, seemingly stronger and angrier than before. It hurts me to see Rukh struggle so much, even if it makes me proud how tenacious he is, even in the face of inevitable and overwhelming odds.

For my part, I’ve offered every suggestion I can think of, guiding him away from the common remedies and toward rarer and less conventional treatments. Now that I know he’s comfortable going into Mellara, it briefly emboldens me.

At times, he makes longer treks into even more distant elven cities… into Vhoig, or Pyrthos, or Orthani. There, we seek out less common remedies, in the hopes of finding anything to help me.

He comes home one day, after a long trek, and makes me a potion he swears will work, based on a text that lists all of my symptoms. I scarf it down, and immediately feel sick.

“There,” Rukh says, getting up from administering the remedy. “That should feel better.”

It doesn’t help me in the slightest.

I smile. The very act of smiling hurts my face. Most of my muscles are strained or paralyzed by this point.

“What do you think?” Rukh asks, mostly seeing if the remedy has helped me at all.

He traveled across the continent to get it. I know that for a being like him, travel is not so difficult, but it’s no small feat nonetheless.

“I think,” I start to say, trying to be honest but also supportive and grateful.

But I can’t find the words.

“I think maybe we just need to accept this,” I say. “I see how much this hurts you, and I don’t want that. But we’ve run out of options.”

His hopeful smile becomes a scowl. “After everything we’ve been through, how can you give up?”

“If these are my final days, I want to spend them with you, Rukh! I don’t want to spend them fighting something we both know is coming.”

“Don’t you know who I am?”

Rukh is yelling at this point, but I know that it’s not directed at me. He shakes the cabinets and the doors with his booming voice.

“I used to talk to the gods! I devour souls! Why do you think curing you is beyond my power?”

“Rukh,” I start to say. I feel my vision start to cloud over. My head collides with my pillow.

I can still see his outline working over me, through my barely closed eyelids. He tries to shake me awake, desperate to resuscitate me. I wish he’d see that I’m not dead. I’m only dreaming.

I’m suddenly inside a display case, watching the cabin from inside its confines. At first, the cabin is empty and quiet. I can hear the calm rush of the wind outside the window.

Then the door opens, and I see Rukh accompanied by a woman. She looks like me, and she acts like me, but she’s not me.

Thinking for a second, I realize that it must be the witch! She’s taken over my body and is now assuming my life, as if I never existed.

Meanwhile, she trapped me inside of this cabinet of curiosities. I watch as Rukh kisses her, and I begin to pound on the glass. But rather than shattering, or even reverberating against the impact, the glass reflects the energy back, and I feel my own force filtering back into me.

In the cabinet’s reflection, I see my face distorted more from every impact. My cheeks and lips peel back, and I suddenly realize that with every pound, my face is changing, becoming another face entirely.

Trapped in this cabinet of curiosities, I’m becoming the witch.

Rukh starts to undress the me beyond the cabinet – the me possessed by the witch – and my eyes flick open.

Rukh is sitting above me, looking down remorsefully.

“Earlier, I got a bit carried away,” he says. “I just can’t imagine losing you. You’ve done so much for me.”

I take his hand in mine, looking at him with calm reassurance. “I love you,” I tell him again. “And I’m so grateful to you for everything that you’re doing. I’m not trying to tell you not to give up. It’s just that when you’re gone…”

I grip his hand tightly in mine, squeezing it. “I really miss you.”

I smile weakly before a strange convulsion courses through my abdomen. My vision goes gray.

And there are no more thoughts.