Page 87 of Solivagant

But I was still losing him.

His soul hadn’t changed yet. But it had to. It had to change. All of this was for nothing if he didn’t change.

I couldn’t do as he’d told me.

I couldn’t let him go.

When I’d lost Jem, I didn’t know how to do anything but wait for him. I’d seen the other side of a world without him, and I never wanted to know it again.

Jo wasn’t Jem. I knew that. Even if Jem’s soul somehow lived beneath his skin.

Was that the problem? Had I caused this? I wanted to save him. But the ability my grandmother had given me was so long ago. And it wasn’t meant to be used on a body with two souls. Especially not two that were already so damaged. What if in trying to save him, I’d only sped up the process? I’d be the one to kill him.

I whined.

No. No, I couldn’t be.

I couldn’t.

It didn’t matter if he forgave me. I would never forgive myself.

Please. Please stay with me.

I cradled him closer. I ran my fingers through long, sweat-damp hair. He’d been fighting so hard.

Please fight just a little longer.

Jo had asked me not to bring him here. But I didn’t know what else to do.

I hoped the soul flowers might help him. That they might be able to keep him with me longer.

For centuries this place had kept Jem’s body safe. Preserved. It stopped me losing him any more than I already had. I refused to let him rot away into nothing. At least this way I still had some part of him left to treasure. Some part of him to love.

Sometimes I came here just to hold him. Here in our safe place. I’d pretend he was only sleeping. That at any moment he would open his beautiful eyes and ask me what I was thinking about. My answer was always him.

It hurt less when I pretended.

But I didn’t have to anymore. Because I had Jo now.

The light of his soul was still fading. I couldn’t lose him too. I couldn’t lose the person I treasured most again.

I pressed my forehead against his. He already felt so cold.

A rumble started in my chest. It rolled up my throat, increasing in power until it broke out of me in a scream. A howl.

I howled again, the way I’d howled for two hundred years. As if the gods would hear me and reset the world to give Jem back to me, to let me keep Jo. I howled until my throat bled.

I cried. New tears for Jo to join those already permanently etched into my face from losing Jem. New marks would form on my lips from new screams of loss as unanswered as they’d always been. More scars of pain I’d keep forever. Grief worn upon my skin.

None of it mattered. What mattered lay in front of me. Dead and dying.

What else was I supposed to do?

I sat in a field of golden flowers. A graveyard of souls I’d created in a war over before it had even started. They were of no use to me if Jo’s soul didn’t change. He couldn’t absorb them as he was now.

Please.

Gold fell from me to him.