“Have you considered that if you die, Lachlan and I don’t want to go on living?” Bran asked softly. “We love you, Emma—both of us do.” Raising his sword, he found a clean spot on the blade, near the hilt, and sliced the pad of his pointer finger. He held it out to me. “Here—drink.”
“But…” I started to protest. But before I could, Lachlan had sliced his own finger on the needle-sharp point of the crystal at the end of his staff. He, too, held out his bleeding finger to me.
“Drink, little one,” he said. “Drink from both of us and then let us drink from you.”
All this time the clock was still chiming but it seemed as though time had slowed down somehow. It was like Bran and Lachlan and I were locked in a reality of our own.
I looked at both of them and felt my heart overflowing with love. My Dark Mage and my White Knight—both of them wanted to save me and neither wanted to live if I died. I knew I shouldn’t do this—shouldn’t let them risk themselves for me. But I knew in my heart I would do the same for either of them.
The three of us belonged together, whether we lived or died, that was just the way it was.
Carefully, I licked the drop of blood from Bran’s finger and then from Lachlan’s. Then I reached back and pulled the hat pin with the red pearl at one end, from the collar of my dress, where I had put it for safe keeping.
I pricked my right index finger first and then my left. Then I held them out to my guys.
Bran and Lachlan took my blood at the same time and then the three of us held hands in a circle.
“Do we all know what to say?” Lachlan asked, looking at Bran and me.
We nodded.
“All together then,” I said. “On the count of three. One…two…three.”
We took a deep breath and at the same time we all spoke the same words.
“Blood of my blood and breath of my breath, nothing can part us now except death.”
As the Blood-Bond took effect, I felt a surge of energy coming from both my guys at once. But even as the bond pulled the three of us together, a terrible pain filled me—even worse than the pain of the geas being lifted or breaking my mom’s addiction.
“Hold on—don’t let go.” Lachlan’s voice was tight and I knew he was feeling it too. “It’s the poison—it doesn’t want to let go of Emma.”
“It will have to let go.” Bran’s voice was a low growl. “It can’t have her!”
“We have to bind it,” Lachlan said. “The three of us together—concentrate—use your Magic Eyes!”
I closed my physical eyes and opened my Magical one, as he and Bran did the same. When I looked at it the right way, I could see the poison in my body. It was a small grey spot of rottenness and corruption, sitting like a stone in my stomach. It was only the size of a pebble, but it was already sending out roots.
It was like a terrible secret growing inside me—this evil, magical stone—it wanted to take me over—wanted to eat me up from the inside out and consume my life force the same way Mab had wanted to consume my youth and beauty.
“You…cannot…have her!” Bran told it.
“We bind you away from Emma!” Lachlan said. “She is ours—not yours. We bind you and we drive you out!”
I could feel the poison pebble’s stubborn evil—it had already put down roots—it wanted to stay.
Well, it can’t! I thought, angrily. I’m not going to let it kill me just because it wants to!
Reaching for the silver river of sparks, I grabbed some power and shoved it at the poison. The pain inside intensified and I understood that it was because we were pulling it out—pulling out the roots it had already put down inside me.
It got worse and worse, a gnawing, stabbing agony like someone was using a rusty saw on my insides. I couldn’t have stood it without Bran and Lachlan. But instead of pulling away, both of them leaned into the pain, gripping my hands harder as they helped me bear it.
“Don’t let up!” Lachlan ground out through gritted teeth. “It’s almost out—if we stop now, it will put down roots too deep to remove!”
“Not…stopping…until it’s….gone.” Bran’s voice was hoarse with agony but I felt his renewed determination as the three of us pushed through against the pain, binding the poison that was trying to kill me.
“One more push,” I heard Lachlan say as his grip on my hand tightened even more. “One more and we’ll have it.”
“One…two…three,” I counted again.
And then I felt it—we all felt it—the roots of the poison stone inside at last let go of me. I felt the hard little pebble shiver and then it crumbled to harmless dust. At the feeling, a vast relief washed over me.
I was free. I was going to live and I was free.
96
The bitter taste at the back of my throat began to dissipate and a feeling of wellbeing swept over my body.
Lachlan looked up, his eyes shining.
“We did it,” he said.
“We did it,” Bran echoed hoarsely and then the three of us were hugging and kissing each other and my heart was overflowing and I knew Bran’s and Lachlan’s were too because I could feel it through our new Blood-Bond. We were joined together now—nothing could part us. Nothing but death and we had just overcome that—we were going to be together forever, which was just how it should be.
And just at that moment, the clock struck its final stroke—BONGGGG… The sound seemed to reverberate through my entire body.
Both my guys looked at me and Lachlan said,
“It’s the moment of your choosing, little one.”
“Will it be the Winter Court or the Summer Court?” Bran asked.
I lifted my head and smiled at them.
“I choose…both,” I said.
“What?” Bran looked at me blankly and Lachlan shook his head.
“But you can’t have both Courts, little one.”
“Oh, yes I can,” I said, lifting my chin. “If I can have both of you, I can have both Courts and that’s what I choose to do.”
As I spoke, I reached for the river of power but now I saw it differently. It wasn’t just silver, as it was in the Winter Court or gold, as it was in the Summer Court. Instead, I saw the silver and gold running side by side and overlapping, just as the Courts did.
Closing my eyes, I pulled more power than I ever had before, filling myself to the brim. And then I realized even that wasn’t enough. Taking a deep breath, I stepped into the river of power that came from the Natural World.
“Emma!” I heard Lachlan gasp. “Don’t! No one has ever dared—”
“I dare,” I said. I held out my arms, making myself a conduit, and let the power gush through me, outward into both the Summer Court and the Winter Court at once.
The power did two things. First, it swept away the evil and madness of Mab’s long reign. Some of this was obvious—it crumbled the huge spider body and the rotten head, (which Bran had cut in two) into dust, and swept the dust away. It was almost like I had taken a high-powered water hose and was pressure washing the Winter Realm, ridding it of the filth and horror of years.