The Hand That Unmade Me

The woman I loved pressed two fingers beneath my breastbone and pulled my soul out of my body.

For a moment, I thought she meant to heal me.

Seraphine had touched me there a thousand times. She knew the old wound beneath my ribs, the place where a marsh beast had caught me while I carried her out of the flooded ruins. Whenever winter made it ache, she warmed her palm and held it over the scar until I fell asleep.

This time, her fingers were cold.

"Seraphine," I whispered. "Wait."

Silver light opened beneath my skin. My human shape broke apart, magic dragging me back into the small gray fox the court preferred to see. My claws scraped the marble. I tried to shift again, to reach her with hands she might recognize, but the familiar seal at my throat flared and refused me.

She could forbid my transformation. She had never done it before.

"You injured someone under my protection," she said.

Behind her, Lucien Ashford cradled his bandaged wrist.

There was almost no blood on the linen. I remembered the little smile he had given me before drawing his own knife across his skin. He had heard Seraphine approaching. He had known exactly how quickly I would reach for the blade.

"He cut himself. Ask the servants. Ask—"

The light tightened. Something inside me tore.

I screamed, and a pale figure rose out of the fox body, still wearing the shape of the man I had been. My hands closed around Seraphine's black sleeve. They went through the cloth, then caught as her magic made me solid enough to hold.

"It hurts," I said. "Sera, it hurts."

Her fingers stopped.

For a hundred years, that had been enough.

She had stopped a duel when I twisted my ankle bringing her water. She had abandoned a council session because she felt pain through our life oath and found me trying to stitch a cut alone. Once, furious with me for walking into a cursed orchard, she had carried me home anyway, lecturing me between kisses pressed against my hair.

I waited for that woman.

Seraphine looked down at my hands on her sleeve. Then her face closed.

The last thread snapped.

My fox body collapsed beside her boots.

I stared at it. The fur was patchy where lightning had burned my back. One hind leg lay at an awkward angle; it had never healed properly after I stole the moonroot that restored her magic. The creature on the floor looked small, tired, and much older than I felt.

That was the body in which I had first found her.

I had died in another world beneath the lights of an oncoming car. When I woke here, a voice called the Wayfarer explained that I had entered a story I once knew: a disgraced swordswoman would recover her power, become a feared tyrant, and burn her faithful familiar to please a chosen hero.

The voice told me to leave her.

Then I saw Seraphine in a village gutter, stripped of her magic, shielding a stray fox from a soldier's boot with her own broken arm.

I stayed.

I learned to become a man. I shared my life with hers. We slept in ruined chapels, hunted remedies, and argued over whether stolen bread counted as a meal worth thanking the gods for. She said the gods had done nothing for us. I said the baker certainly hadn't volunteered.

She laughed then. I had thought I could change the ending.

Lucien stepped around my body without looking at its scars.

"The old vessel must be destroyed," he said. "Foreign residue can follow a soul into its new housing. We must be thorough."

"New housing?" I looked at Seraphine. "What is he talking about?"

Lucien lifted his white sword. Frost moved along its edge.

"Dawnfell lacks a living spirit. Lady Seraphine has generously offered yours."

I pulled away from her hand. The circle of light around my wrists tightened.

"No."

Lucien's expression softened into the pleasant sympathy that made everyone trust him.

"You will serve a sacred purpose."

"I said no. Seraphine, look at me."

She was looking at the fox.

"You cannot give me to him. We made an oath. You promised—"

A blue flame bloomed between her fingers.

I remembered that flame warming a kettle in a roofless cottage. I had complained that she could summon fire but still burned every potato. She had told me to cook them myself, then stood behind me with her chin on my shoulder until I forgot what I was doing.

Now she let it fall.

My body caught instantly.

I struggled so hard that my wrists began to unravel. Seraphine closed her hand, drawing me closer, holding my soul together while the flesh that had carried it burned.

"Stop," I said. "Please. There's nothing wrong with it. It's mine."

The fire ate the damaged leg first.

"Please."

She turned the black stone on her thumb. Darkness opened within it, a chamber larger than the ring itself.

"Seven days," she told Lucien. "Then the binding."

The words were familiar. I had read them before I lived them.

I reached for her face as she sealed me inside the ring. My fingers brushed her cheek. For one foolish heartbeat, I imagined she leaned into them.

Then darkness closed.

There was no floor, no sky, no body to curl around the pain. Through the stone, I could still hear the hall. Lucien thanked her. Someone ordered the scorched floor cleaned.

I waited for Seraphine to dismiss him and speak to me privately.

I would have accepted so little. A confession that she was frightened. A promise that she had a plan. Even anger would have been something I recognized.

Instead, Lucien asked, "A century together. Are you certain you can bear to part with him?"

Silence followed.

I pressed both palms against the darkness.

"He is only my familiar," Seraphine said. "There is nothing to bear."

I let my hands fall.

The Wayfarer woke inside me, its voice faint after years of silence.

"Your vessel has been destroyed. Ascension through this realm is no longer possible. You may remain and undergo the sword binding, or permit extraction into another realm. Survival there cannot be guaranteed."

"Take me away."

"Evander, consider the risk."

"I have."

For the first time in a hundred years, I made a choice that did not include her.

The voice paused.

"A passage requires seven days to form. The sacrificial fire will weaken this realm's hold on you. Until then, your soul must remain intact."

Seven days.

I had to survive the woman I loved until she tried to burn me again.