She pressed her cheek against Bishop’s, and felt his blood pumping out his heart.
Old Sarno, leaning over the ramparts, looked down to see the old woman lying flat atop the old man, arms and legs stretched wide to cover him, and there was blood everywhere. It was odd, but in that moment, they didn’t look old. They looked very young and somehow different. He shook his head. The sunlight was bright, making him see things. He would later swear that he saw more than just Sir Bishop and Lady Merryn atop him. There were shadows there, hovering over them, sinking into them, becoming one with them. But surely that couldn’t be possible, could it?
Bishop opened his eyes, saw her above him. “No,” he said, so dizzy his vision blurred. He could feel the pull of death, hated it, but he wasn’t about to let her continue what she was doing. “Get off me, you stupid brave witch. You will not die for me. Get off me, damn you!”
But she didn’t, of course. She pressed harder against him. With all his remaining strength, Bishop managed to lurch up and shove her off him. She rolled onto her back on the ground, stared up at the clear sky, the clouds so white above her.
He fell onto his back again. Merryn saw people coming close now, and when a hand touched her arm, she yelled, “Get away from me, you damned fool! Get away!”
She threw herself on top of him again, her heart against his heart, her fingers tightening their grip on his wrists, her belly flat against his, and in the next instant, she felt his pain flow into her; she welcomed it, knew in some shuttered part of her exactly what was happening. She wondered if she would die. His heartbeat—oh, God, it was fainter, slower.
“Bishop,” she said against his throat, and bit him hard, “don’t you dare die, damn you.” And she said it over and over. “Do you hear me, you damned brave fool? You will not die.” He was quiet, so very quiet, too quiet.
Suddenly awful pain smashed through her. She didn’t think she could bear it, but there was no choice, she had to bear it or he would die. She gritted her teeth and didn’t move. Oh, God, he was so still, she couldn’t feel his heart, just his blood, so much blood she was drowning in it, and it was her blood too.
Then, suddenly, Bishop opened his eyes, looked up at her. “You will bear my babe alone. I’m sorry, Merryn, so very sorry. We should have wed. I’m sorry.” His eyes closed.
She closed her mouth over his mouth, breathed in his breath. “You will not die,” she said into his mouth. “Do you hear me, you stupid mortal? You will not die. You are part of me, can’t you feel it?”
She felt the brunt of the dreadful pain now pulsing into her, coming from the deepest part of his heart where the knife had entered and lodged. It had hurt before, but not like this. She closed her eyes, seamed her lips together so she wouldn’t scream with it. She began shaking as the pain grew and grew. Oh, God, she felt his blood, her blood, and they were one now, and it was too much, simply too much.
He was trying to push her off him again, but he was too weak to manage it. She knew, despite the grinding pain, that she wouldn’t let him push her off this time.
Then, amazingly, the pain began to lessen. No, she was dreaming that it was so. It didn’t matter, the pain was receding, slowly, it was leaving her. She sighed softly, kissed his mouth, laid her cheek against his.
They lay together as if dead.
“Make room,” Lord Vellan said. “Get away from them. Move back, all of you.”
Lady Madelyn stood over them, wringing her old hands. “What is she doing? What is happening?”
“I don’t know,” Vellan said. “But I do know that we must keep away from them.”
Crispin and Dolan were on the other side, staring down at the two young people who looked older than the ancient oak forest that the Witches of Byrne claimed to have stood thick and deep so very close to Penwyth.
No one moved.
It was the strangest feeling, Bishop thought. He felt so tired he wanted to sink into the earth and just lie quietly, the sun shining down on his face. No, he felt beyond tired, felt as if his body could float, there was just so little of him now. But the really strange thing was that there wasn’t any more pain. Merryn had taken his pain; she’d taken his wound.
No, that wasn’t possible. But it had happened before.
“Merryn?”
Slowly, so slowly he thought he would die of the fear of it, he felt her eyelashes flutter against his flesh.
“Merryn?”
She raised herself above him at that whisper of her name, shook her head, blinked. “What happened?”
He said slowly, eyes still closed, his lips barely moving, “I was stabbed. You came over me. Why did you do that?”
She managed a smile. She was exhausted, felt as though a hundred fists had struck her. “I don’t know,” she said, and kissed his chin. “I just knew it was the thing to do.” She stared down at him a moment, not seeing the ancient old man, but Bishop, the man she loved, the man who wasn’t going to die, ever. “I just knew that my heart had to be against your heart, my body against your body. The pain, it was awful, Bishop. But we survived, somehow we survived.”
Lord Vellan’s hands were on her, raising her, but she grabbed Bishop’s shoulders and wouldn’t let go.
She looked up over her shoulder at her grandfather. “We are all right. Give us some more time, just another moment. I swear to you that we are all right.”
“But that isn’t possible, my sweet girl, it just isn’t. I’m very sorry, but Bishop was stabbed in the chest. He’s dead now. He has to be.”