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He carried her in his arms as if he were afraid that one wrong movement and she would vanish entirely. Varka couldn’t remember the last time he had run this fast: his footsteps thundered in his ears, his breath came ragged, and the world narrowed to a single thing the weight of her against his chest.
Nicole was too light. Unbelievably light. Her head lay limply against his shoulder, her fingers weakly clutching the fabric of his cloak, as though it were the only thing keeping her here. He could feel the warmth leaving her slowly, inexorably leaving a sticky sensation on his hands. Blood soaked into his gloves, dripping onto the stone pavement.
“Don’t you dare close your eyes,” he rasped, hardly recognizing his own voice. She let out a quiet breath, far too faint.
“It… hurts…” The word barely formed, as if it cost her more strength than she had left. “So much…”
“I know. I’m here. Hold on. Please.” He pulled her closer, almost desperately, as if sheer will alone could keep her from slipping away.
The Cathedral of Favonius was already in sight: light glowing in the windows, familiar outlines—salvation that felt both near and impossibly distant. He prayed to every wind, every god he had ever believed in, begging them to let him carry her just a little farther. Just long enough for her to keep breathing. But she let out a soft moan, her body shuddered with pain, and he felt her grip weakening.
“No,” he gasped. “Look at me. Do you hear me? You have to survive. I-I won’t let you go.”
Her eyes fluttered open for a moment. There was a hazy, fogged awareness in them and something else, warm, almost apologetic.
“You’re… always so stubborn…” A faint shadow of a smile touched her lips, then vanished.
He burst into the Cathedral and, for the first time in many years, he didn’t feel like the Grand Master, not a warrior, not someone who always knew what to do. He was just a man holding someone he wasn’t ready to lose. He was just Varka.
Nicole suddenly stopped fighting the pain. That frightened him more than anything.
“Nicole…?” He bent closer, almost touching his forehead to hers. “Can you hear me?”
And then the impossible happened. She drew in a sharp, convulsive breath, as if for the first time in a long while. Her body tensed, her fingers clenched in his cloak, and he felt something change. The air grew denser, the light sharper. Not a whisper in his head. A real voice.
“You…” The word came with effort, as though it were breaking something inside her. “You have touched my soul… Mr. Varka.”
“What…?” he breathed, not understanding, not able to grasp it in time.
Her lips trembled. Fear flickered in her eyes not of pain, but of what she had just done. Light began to seep through her skin in thin fractures, like dawn through ice.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, almost soundlessly.
In the next instant, her body began to fall apart,not into ash, not into dust, but into light. Warm, living, unbearably beautiful. Varka instinctively pulled her to him, but all that remained in his arms was the sensation of holding the wind. Before him, where Nicole had been, hovered a small creature, light, pulsing like a heart.
“Nicole…” His voice broke. He reached out slowly, carefully. “It’s me. I’m here.”
The little fairy flinched. She recoiled, her tiny body trembling, and a distance opened between them that he could not cross.
“Wait,” Varka whispered. “Please. I won’t hurt you.”
But she could no longer understand words the way she once had. Or perhaps she understood them too well. With a soft, ringing burst of light, the fairy shot upward to the Cathedral’s vaults, to the windows, to the sky and vanished, leaving behind only a faint shimmer in the air.
Varka’s hand remained outstretched. He stared at the place where she had been for a long time. Far too long. Then slowly, he curled his fingers as if trying to hold on to something that had already become a legend.