34. Midas

CHAPTER 34

MIDAS

A t first, when we're dragged through another merge, I'm relieved. The Hundred Acre Wood is terrifying, even to me. I'd do anything to never have to go back to that world again. The giant, now golden bear can rot with the rest of his friends as far as I'm concerned.

But I know immediately that things are about to get worse when we're spinning and hit the ground in a new world. I don't have time to look around to see if I know where we are. I don't have time to check over my body or put my glove back on. Before I can even look over at Tempest, her panicked voice reaches my ears.

"Midas!"

I whip my head toward her to see her brushing at her shoulder with desperate hands.

My stomach drops as horror trickles into my bloodstream. My veins turn to ice.

No. No!

"Midas," she says, her face stricken with horror. "What have you done?"

I shake my head. "No. I didn't touch you! I, I, I couldn't have touched you!"

I scramble to my feet and rush over to her side, careful not to touch her again with my exposed hand. There, in my face, my golden curse spreads along her skin, consuming her, turning her arm solid and freezing it.

"Midas!" she cries, and tears start dripping over her lashes. "Midas, it's starting to hurt."

"No, no, no," I croak, trying to think of something to stop the spread. "I don't know how to stop it! I don't know how!"

My own eyes water as I watch the gold begin to crawl along her chest. She grits her teeth against the onslaught for a moment and then her head wrenches back. A guttural scream rips from her lips, echoing around us, her pain so loud and brutal, it makes everything inside me seize.

"Not again," I cry, tearing at my hair as she screams and screams and screams. This is my punishment. This is my pain to carry because of the terrible monster I am. I'm not meant to be happy. And now Tempest will suffer for my love.

I grasp Tempest's face between my hands, one gloved and one not. Where my ungloved hand touches, gold flickers along her cheek. She grits her teeth against the pain, forcibly silencing her scream to look at me with her bright eyes.

"I'm so sorry," I cry. "Tempest, forgive me. Forgive me."

"Midas," she gasps, her body locking into permanent place. "Midas, I?—"

Tears spill down my cheeks as I watch the woman I've fallen in love with turn to gold. Once upon a time, I was surrounded by statues just like she'll be, people who displeased me, enemies who threatened me, others who just got in the way. Now, I'll be surrounded by only two.

The two women I've cared about in this lifetime.

One my daughter. One the woman I couldn't not love.

"I'm so sorry," I tell her again in desperation. "I love you. I love you. Forgive me ."

Her eyes flicker with pain as the gold crawls up her throat. She can't speak now. She can't even scream any longer. She's trapped forever in gold. She'll be forever sealed away.

I drop to my knees before her and scream. I scream for her loss. I scream my anguish. I scream at the curse that has taken everything from me, the curse of my own making. I scream until the sound is nothing but guttural, animalistic pain. Everything inside of me says to just lay down right here, to never move again. Never have I wished my curse worked on me instead.

Beneath me, where my hands touch the ground, gold spreads in a circle, touching everything with glitter. The golden hue has lost its appeal to me. Nothing that's golden glitters to me anymore. It's useless. Wars are fought over it. Kings become gods for it. And the Tempest crashing against the shore is frozen.

"Midas," Tempi whispers so softly above, I nearly miss it. I look up from where I'm hugging her legs to see the last bits of gold freeze her in place forever more.

I collapse against her, sobbing. "No," I cry. "Not my Tempest. No, no, no. You can't have her. Come back to me. Please. I'm begging you. Come back to me." I jerk my crown off my head and toss it to the side before starting to pull off my rings. "I give it all back. I don't want it! Take it back! Take the curse back!" I scream at the sky, as if someone is listening, as if the very gods could save me from this self-destruction. "I don't want it if I don't have her," I wheeze, collapsing at her feet again. She burned so brightly, and I stole that from her.

I'm the curse. It was never my hands or the gold. It's me.

I'm so lost in my wallowing, it takes me a few seconds before I understand the sound I'm hearing. A high-pitched whine, like someone tapped a spoon to a champagne glass. It starts ringing softly at first, so high I can barely hear it, until it begins to grow in magnitude.

Sitting up, I look around for the source, not understanding what's happening. I'm a mess, my face red from crying, tears still trailing down my face, but something tells me to look, to witness. When I find no source, I realize it's not coming from around me.

It's coming from her.

I stare up at the statue before me, at Tempest's now golden appearance, at the look of pain and longing in her eyes. The ringing grows louder, unbearably so, until I'm wincing from it. And something I've never seen before happens.

A crack. A single lone crack along Tempest's outstretched hand.

I stand, desperately watching as the crack grows, thinking that I'm about to lose her statue, too, but helpless to stop it. Another crack forms along her cheekbone, small at first before spreading down to her lips. My face twists with grief as more cracks appear and spread, tracing over her entire body, splitting her into a million tiny pieces.

The ringing gets so loud, I have to cover my ears.

Midas.

I blink, surprised by the sound of Tempest's voice in my head. That can't be real, can it?

Midas. Midas.

I stare at the cracked statue, my eyes riveted to her lips, searching, hoping. Pieces fall away and reveal more gold beneath. The hope disappears. More gold. All gold.

And then the lips move.

"Midas," she whispers.

I straighten, surprised. "Tempest?"

Before I can reach for her, before I can investigate further, power so profound, stronger than I've ever felt before, bursts from inside her. Chunks of gold slam into me, stinging my skin, burning my eyes until I'm forced to close them. Light shines through my eyelids, so bright it still burns my retinas even with my eyes closed. I stumble back under the onslaught, trying to force myself to look. My body demands I look, that I see what I've done. But until the brightness fades, I'm forced to witness in blindness. When it fades enough, I force my eyes open into a squint, and stare at the scene I've created.

Tempest stands before me, her eyes open and staring directly at me. As I watch her, her arms begin to move, barely her fingers at first, and then she raises her whole arm and stares at her skin in surprise.

She's still golden.

Though her eyes are the eyes I've fallen in love with, though her teeth seem to be the proper color, her skin and her hair all remain as golden as they were as a statue. The gold begins to fade, just barely, and while some of her natural color begins to shine through, the gold takes dominance, coating her entire body with the golden color.

A living statue.

"I don't understand," I whisper, taking a hesitant step forward. "I don't. . . what's happening?"

She looks up at me with bright eyes. "I'm not. . . dead."

My heart throbs painfully in my chest. I know I must look a mess. I know my face is a mess of tears right now, but hope blooms so brightly inside of me, I don't even think about that.

"You're alive," I rasp. "Under, you're alive."

I take a step forward, prepared to wrap her in my arms, ready to thank whatever god saw fit to give me my wish. I don't care how it happened, whether because of my desperate prayers or because of the power in Tempest's veins. I'm just glad she's here, that she's alive, that she exists.

That I didn't smother her flame.

The sound of a gun clicking stops me in my place. Slowly, I turn, and face down the barrel of a rather large gun, one I've never seen before.

"Don't move," the woman holding it says. "Explain who you are. And I suggest you do it fast."