Chapter 99: The Cure to Death
The pounding in her ears drowned out everything else. She could see him—his body. Every time she placed her palm on the ground, every time she commanded her knees to push her forward, agony roared through her. But she kept clawing and kicking and fighting until her fingertips brushed his.
Hands grabbed at her waist and she cried out, but they only lifted her closer to her mate. She held herself over his body, protecting it from a threat she didn't quite know of. Her throat burned too much to properly cry and her body was too weak. All she could do was lay on him, listening to his silent chest, and wait for her own end to come. Grief held a black hand in her chest, twisting her heart. She was content to wait, to let the life drain from her.
Amarantha was dead and her curse destroyed, freeing magic. Her body wasn't made to contain this much. It had released itself to destroy Amarantha and now it would destroy Galadriel too. It was that little thought, that realisation that had struck her and she hid behind a fortified wall in her mind that let her drive that dagger into him. Death would reunite him.
"I saw." It was Helion. He knelt on Rhysand's other side, not touching either of them. "I saw you kill him. You took his power. Rhys... He warned me what Amarantha would be looking for in my library. What books I needed to destroy before she found them. I read them. They were about you.."
Another, far more foreign hand brushed the back of her shoulder. "You are hurt." Thesan.
But Helion had already figured out what she had and explained as much to the High Lord of Dawn. "You could help him. And yourself."
Galadriel inched her head higher. "Tell me." The words didn't form properly, but he understood her enough.
"Magic," Helion said.
"You would need a lot," Thesan uttered. "Even then it might be impossible."
Helion glanced at him. "She has enough. And more than enough will to try."
"What?" she begged, struggling to her knees. "Tell me what I need to do."
Helion held out a dark hand and in it, a golden droplet of magic glowed softly. "It was an ancient ritual we used when mortals had sacrificed themselves for Prythain. A gift." A gift from immortal to mortal. A drop of power. She didn't understand. Rhysand was already immortal. Helion and Thesan were powerful, but not enough to bring someone back from the dead. "It's killing you," Helion went on. "Give it somewhere to go."
The magic in her, part of which already belonged to Rhysand. It was burning through her, rearing to be released. "Show me how."
People began to trickle back into the throne room. She ignored them. Everything but Helion. They had to be quick, he told her. Before Rhysand's spirit moved on and before the magic ruined her too far for Thesan to bring her back from. He cupped her palms and instructed her to call the magic.
A little seed of light erupted in her folded palms. It was gold and brown and green and black. It tugged on the magic inside of her like it was the end of a yarn ball and grew to the size of a pebble before evaporating. "Again," Helion told her. It barely lasted a second this time. "Again."
Gritting her teeth, not acknowledging the metallic tang in her mouth, she poured her entire self into conjuring that light again. It swelled to the size of a head but she wavered, vision blurring over, and it vanished again. Cinching her eyes shut, she fell onto Rhysand's chest, depleted. She couldn't feel her legs or sit back up. The magic wanted nothing to do with her, let alone be under her command.
"He can't hold on much longer," Helion warned her, but she was already moving her hands together, pushing to her elbows. Neither could she. The light expanded, faltering but never disappearing completely. It built on itself, becoming so large that it was like she'd plucked the sun right from the sky and Helion whispered a blessing to the Mother. It was a relief, if anything, to pull it from her body. But nearly impossible to control.
It took everything in her to manage, to hold in place. It wanted to break from the constraints she held it in, like a wild dog yanking on its chain, gnawing at its cage. A tanned hand stretched out from behind her, a droplet so small it might've been a tear joining with hers. "He'll need the healing," Thesan said. She wanted to thank him, but couldn't find the words.
Helion gestured for her to lower it into Rhysand's chest. It felt like trying to push an inflated ball of leather that children used for their games through his body, but she did, her breaths coming out short and fast. It sunk in, the light spearing through his veins and dissipating.
"I need to heal her."
Galadriel collapsed again on Rhysand's front, staring at his face, ear to chest and shrugging off Thesan's reaching hands. He wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing.
"Galadriel," Helion warned softly.
She didn't blink, letting her breathing slow so she didn't miss if he took one. But the world was beginning to go black anyway and her ears deaf. She would wait for him to live or die with him.
So when he didn't open his eyes, she closed hers.