12. Chapter 12

Ijumped up and barreled toward Cyn. Ignoring the pain from my tumble still pulsing in my bones, I hopped over the beds and broken furniture separating us. My bow clattered to the floor as I dropped to my knees beside him. I grabbed his shoulders, shaking him.

"Tell me how to help you!" I knew I should have kept calm, but I couldn't stop panic from surging in my chest, gripping my heart with steel claws.

Cyn opened one eye, a slow smirk tilting his lips. "You can't. I'm done for," he rasped.

"Don't say that!" I shook him again. "I won't allow you to just lie down and fucking die!"

Cynthian raised a sluggish hand, his fingers drooping as he pointed behind me. "You need to move … the blood …"

I twisted. Denial's corpse laid a few feet away in a puddle of black ooze, the oily liquid creeping toward us. A hand laid itself on my shoulder, and I already reached for the dagger in my boot, but it was Elias looking down at me.

"It cannot harm us, but demonic blood burns mortal flesh like acid, Myna. Even if it isn't pure," he said. "Come, we should tend to Cyn. I refuse to give up on him as well. And I know he doesn't want us to, either."

I swallowed a lump of emotion, making space for Elias, who bent to pick Cyn up. Eli might have been a little slighter and shorter, but their difference in strength seemed insignificant.

"I can walk," Cyn mumbled, but his head lolled against Elias' chest.

"It's your turn to shut up, brother," Eli said, marching toward the exit. "If you think I would let the love of my life rot while I walk away unbothered, you're a bigger fool than I believed."

Careful not to touch the demonic blood, I took up my bow, slinging it over my back, and hurried after them.

"But I'll slow you down," Cyn protested, writhing weakly. "We don't have … time to—"

"Either we all make it or none of us do," I said. "We're not leaving without you. So, if you want to give up and die, we will die with you. Stop playing the hero."

"Shit …" Cyn mumbled.

"Because we're not the heroes. We're the villains," I said. "We might be cruel and brutal and not give a damn about the greater good, but we don't abandon those few we do care about. That's why a hero's love can never compare. Why it's hollow. A hero cares too much about the world to care about you in equal measure. But to a villain in love, you are their world, and they would stop at nothing to save it." Cyn's heavy-lidded, glassy gaze found mine as I paused, stroking along his chest. "Let us save our world, brother."

"And tell me, Cyn," Eli said, all thirteen eyes locked on him as we walked out of the clinic toward the oasis. "Have you forgotten who protects us? Who leads us?"

"T-the … Creators …" Cyn choked out.

"Do you think the Creators would have brought us together just to tear us apart once more?" Eli asked.

Cyn's scoffed a wheeze. "How the fuck … would I know …"

"It's a test, brother," Eli said, a soft smile crossing his face. "A test of faith. A test of courage. A test of our loyalty to each other. And we will not fail."

He laid Cyn down in the shade beneath the trees and began unbuttoning his tunic, taking it off. He gestured toward a wooden bucket with a water ladle inside it, standing by the lakeshore. "Please fetch some water, Myna. I will look over his wounds."

I sprinted to grab the bucket. Goosebumps formed on my skin as I submerged it in the cool pond, the dipper tucked under my arm. My body sighed at the sliver of temporary relief from the heat, but my mind found none, fear consuming it like a wildfire.

If I were more than a mortal, quicker and stronger … If I had been able to shoot Denial, could I have prevented this tragedy?

My pulse was hard in my throat as I carried the filled bucket to my brothers, setting it down by Eli's side. He sat with his legs folded under his thighs, Cyn's head resting on his lap, eyes closed.

"I-is he—"

"No. He's lost consciousness," Eli said, taking up his dagger. "A mortal would have already succumbed to this foul energy. But his Demon wants to live, and he needs your help."

His gaze bore into me, and my eyes widened with understanding.

There was one thing only I could give him.

"Mortal blood," I breathed. "He needs my blood."

"Yes. Feeding our Demons allows us to heal faster and better. We could have used Denial's other victims, but her magic drained them dry. They are as parched as the desert. And my tainted blood will not work."

Lips a hard line, he held the dagger out to me, handle first.

"You are the only one who can save him, sweet sister."

My fingers were steady as I took hold of the weapon, no doubt in my mind, no hesitation clouding my decision.

I discarded my bow and quiver on the sand. Carefully, I crawled on top of Cyn, straddling his hips. A hiss escaped me as I dragged the blade along my left palm, and Elias opened our brother's mouth, giving an encouraging nod. Flexing my hand to quicken the blood flow, I held it above Cyn's face. The first drops trickled over his lips, landing on his tongue.

"Good, keep going," Eli said, prying the dagger from my white-knuckled grasp. "While you feed him, I will open the contagion and wash it out. There are bubbles of fluid beneath the skin where Denial's spell touched him. I'm unsure how much it will help, but it wouldn't be wise to let the toxin fester."

I nodded, gritting my teeth as I squeezed my cut again. With my heart racing, I pressed my hand directly against Cyn's lips.

"Creators, hear us … In your name, we have slain our foe. We have vanquished them in your honor, and emerged victorious through your grace," Elias mumbled as he brought the dagger to Cyn's forearm. "And by your grace, we beseech you, preserve your most wretched of warriors, your most wicked of sons."

He made a small incision, and alongside a trickle of black blood, wispy shadows rose from the wound. Eli took the dipper and poured water over Cyn's limb, wetting the sand with thin ooze. He repeated the process at our brother's neck right below the collar, first cutting, then cleansing, his prayers drifting on the warm breeze.

My stomach constricted. Though I hadn't admitted it—neither to my brothers nor truly to myself—my faith had wavered over the past years. It wasn't that I had stopped believing altogether. But I couldn't make sense of my grief, of my loss.

Cyn, Eli, and I had worshipped the Creators, been obedient servants, and yet they had abandoned us. They allowed us to suffer, allowed us to lose the only thing we cared about: Each other.

Every night I laid awake in solitude, grasping for the echoes of my brothers' warmth, I'd asked myself why. I'd sent my forlorn appeal to the Creators, implored them to give me a sign. But they had stayed silent.

No signs.

No miracles.

And as I looked down at Cyn, I was afraid to put my trust in the Creators again.

Why would they help us now if they hadn't heard me before?

With the hand not against Cyn's mouth, I tucked the gray braid behind his left ear. I cupped his cheek, watching the soft rise and fall of his chest.

"Little one," Eli said, his hand joining mine, caressing Cyn with me. "Why won't you pray with me?"

I sighed, at a loss for words. How could I ever explain my reluctance to Elias, a man whose faith was as unshakable and deep as the Dreamless Sea? I lifted my eyes to his face, expecting to find a scowl creasing his forehead, but he was smiling.

"Silly of me to ask when I already know why." His head tilted, fingers squeezing mine. "Perhaps I merely wish to hear your confession."

My heart stumbled. "I-I'm not an unbeliever. I—"

"You have not spoken of the Creators. You've not prayed. Their name has not left your lips since that first time you entered my church, quoting the Sanguine Sermon. Your faith is shaken." Elias laughed, but not scornfully as I feared. Tenderly, full of affection. "Did you think I would hate you for it? Banish you for it?"

My head dipped in shaky affirmation. "Yes."

"It saddens me to see you lose your trust in the Creators. But what fractures my heart and breaks my spirit is that you thought you had to conceal the truth from me."

He leaned toward me, hand sliding into my hair, tugging my face closer to his. Our noses brushed, his breath on my lips like the prayer I couldn't give him, hot and rapturous and slow.

"I love you, Myna. Just as much as I love Cyn. When I spoke of the love of my life, I meant both of you. You are the blood in my veins and the air in my lungs. Without you, I am forsaken. Without you, I am a husk of a man. A warm cadaver, moving, living, but not alive."

He kissed me, and tears pricked my eyes.

"Nothing could ever come between us. Nothing on this plane or another could make me love you less. Not even if you lost your faith, little one. I'd rather pluck out my eyes again, over and over, for the rest of eternity than lose you. If I had to, I would defy even the Creators to stand with you. I would never cast you aside."

My quiet sob rippled against his mouth.

"I'm so sorry," I whimpered. "I should have told you."

Elias chuckled. "You do not have to apologize. I understand. It has been a long time since we parted, and you were afraid. Confused. But there is one thing I need you to promise me."

"Whatever you want, Elias. I will promise whatever you need."

"Should your faith quiver, should you not find solace in the Creators … Then you shall still find solace in your brothers. Still trust in us." He kissed me once more, almost bashfully, his cheeks darkened as he pulled back. "And Myna, trust in yourself, too. Your strength isn't grounded in demonic magic like ours, but it doesn't have to be. It is entirely your own, and it is enough. You are enough. There was nothing you could do to stop Denial from hurting Cyn."

My shoulders fell. "How did you know?"

"You seem to forget that Cyn and I shared your every sorrow and every joy for your entire life before our separation. We know the winding, secret corridors of your heart, those hidden corners of your soul, shrouded in darkest shadow. That expression on your face, the slitted eyes and the tense jaw, the wrinkling nose … You're blaming yourself for what happened to Cyn, and I'm telling you to stop."

"But if I were more like you, I could have helped!" I pressed my lips together to stop them from trembling. "Hells, if I wasn't here, you wouldn't have started this fight!"

"There goes that temperament of yours, little one. Only seeing the perspective you deem correct."

He smiled, and the softness in the curve of his mouth made me blush, the air leaving my lungs as my frustration deflated.

"Without you, Myna, we would have continued to suffer. We would have stayed Malachar's puppets, our strings pulled to entertain his patrons. We formed hundreds of escape plans just to discard them, because we knew if we tried, we would die from the poison before we got to see you again. But now you are here, and you gifted us the freedom to act. You're our reason to stay alive. Our reason to fight."

My mouth opened and closed, no words coming out. Just when I thought I could speak—

"Ah!" I cried out as pain speared through the heel of my palm, Cyn's jaw tensing and closing around it. He suckled on my hand, my blood no longer a passive stream flowing into his throat.

My heart seemed to freeze before it thundered.

Cyn's eyes fluttered open, and he grabbed my wrist, his lips curling into a grin while he drank from me.

"And Myna," Elias said with a sigh of relief. "If you weren't exactly as you are, mortal and bleeding red, Cynthian would have died. You saved his life."