A Court of Flame & Shadow - Eris x OC

The Cauldron II

Vel couldn't even winnow to him. She had to run. Too slow. Her feet felt like lead in her boots. Her knees slammed into the cracked earth hard enough to make her bones shudder.

She turned Eris's face towards the sky, towards her.

He wasn't dead. He couldn't be. Any minute now he would open his eyes and smirk at her. Maybe say something irritating that would make her push him right back into the grass. Something like - Did you think you would be rid of me so easily? Or perhaps - I did this all on purpose. I knew you would come running.

Any moment now. She could almost see his amber eyes again. He wasn't dead.

Vel brushed his sweat-damp hair back from his brow. His skin was too pale. Too cold. He'd never felt cold against her fingers.

There was so much of his blood spilled over the dry earth. The scent of it was making her see red.

Fuck the Faebane caches. He should have run from the fight if he was getting overwhelmed. Proud, unyielding idiot.

No, she was the idiot, she should have been at his side. Nothing else mattered. What good was it that Hybern was dead if her mate was gone? The Suriel had warned her of this and still, Vel had made the wrong choices.

She tried to stop her trembling fingers from trailing to his neck. Where there should have been a pulse there was nothing. The emptiness in her chest felt endless. That golden string that had been wrapped around her heart was loose, and all the pieces it had been holding together were slowly breaking off.

A drop of water hit his face. And then another. And another. It could have been raining, although there were no clouds in the sky.

The silence was too painful. The world seemed to hold its breath waiting for Eris to somehow speak again. The words wouldn't come.

"Please," Vel whispered. "If you are there. If you ever watched over me— Please." There was nobody listening here. The realization shattered her. The tears were flowing freely now. Eris's face was a blur of color, his auburn hair a stark contrast to the paleness of his skin.

"Please," she repeated through the tightness in her throat. "Don't do it for me, but for him. I might be an aberration, a monster made by monsters ... but he is a child of yours. Help me save him."

She stroked his cheek, smearing the tears and the blood splattered on his face. Her other hand wrapped around his, willing warmth back into his skin.

"Please, please, please." She didn't know where the words ended and the sobs began. But they tore out of her with unrelenting viciousness. "I'm begging you. I'll do anything. Bring him back. Please."

For a breath, she felt a little less alone, as if a warm blanket enveloped her. Then the ghost of a hand upon her shoulder. Vel couldn't bring herself to look away from Eris's face. If she dared lift her eyes she might not etch every detail of his face into her memory. The curling ends of his hair, the long eyelashes, the angle of his chin, the bow of his lips, the elegant nose, the sharpness of his cheekbones, the line of his jaw, the shy spattering of freckles on his cheeks.

Her attention snagged on a leather strap around his neck, tucked into the collar of his armor. He still wore the childish gift she'd given him for Solstice. A clumsy-looking trinket that now seemed to laugh in her face. The wish attached to it didn't matter anymore.

But Eris had cherished it nevertheless. Anything she'd ever given him, anything that linked them, he had kept close to his heart, even in the Forest House where any evidence of their connection might damn him. The mark of their bargain, the diamond, the vial—