stripped of much of their meat, but they’d been expertly bandaged and tended so he that would not die quickly of his wounds. The skin where his wrists and ankles were bound was raw and dried with blood. One of his feet was gone.
He looked nothing like Dillon. He was some dying old man.
Cross caught his gaze. It was a bead of glass. There was no recognition. Whatever part of Dillon had been holding on to hope and life for all of that time was now gone. The ranger was still alive, but only on the outside.
Cross took a cold, deep breath. He felt like a tear should have come, but nothing did, and that itself made his despair even more.
I'm sorry, Dillon.
Cross tried to remember his childhood, some piece of innocence he may have once felt. He wanted to remember a simpler time, when he wasn’t surrounded by all of this madness. He hoped there was some piece of him, something locked and buried away deep in his soul, that remembered those better days, because his conscious mind could no longer find them, and he doubted it ever would again.
Danica started the fight. Cross expected the attack. Her spirit roared towards him in a tidal wave of black fire, an ocean of pure necrotic force and raw male power. Cross split the attack with his own spirit, who shone with diamond light. Black’s defenses cracked wide open, and for a second Cross saw his chance: a hole in her spirit’s power through which he could strike.
He didn’t.
Cross charged forward and aimed his bone blade at Danica’s exposed stomach. Her katars swept in, crackling with her spirit’s power. Cross’ arm snapped back in pain as the twin blades converged and shattered his bone sword into pieces. He fell onto his back, his arm alight with dark fire. Cross made a backhanded motion that swept Danica up and off the ground. She landed with a hard crack on the stone.
The air fled from his lungs. Cross felt the bones in his broken arm shift and re-knit. The pain sent daggers of hurt through his body. He was on the edge of passing out. Cross clawed at the ground, desperate to rise.
Black soared at him, her face bloody. Her katars smoked with dark frost. Cross grit his teeth and pulled his spirit around him so that she could cover him with armor made from glittering black crystal. Ice cleaved to his skin.
Cross threw out a hand and took Danica Black by the throat.
Hatred chewed through his soul. His eyes narrowed as he looked into Danica Black’s panicked face, and he saw inside of her. Her spirit clawed at him in desperation and panic, but his shield was fused by his hatred. Memories of weeks spent at Dillon’s side wouldn’t leave his mind. His friend had never wanted much, had been as unassuming a man as any Cross had ever met. He just wanted to see his sister and nephew again.
Memories of Snow cracked through the sinews of Cross’ mind, unbidden. He felt his grip tighten. Every torment he’d felt those past two years were suddenly embodied in Danica’s pale and beautiful face. He saw Red in her eyes, and he saw Morganna, and the Sorn. He saw every evil that had ever been visited upon him, and it would have been so easy to breathe out, to release all of that anger, and with that breath his shadow-wreathed fist would crush her neck.
Tears ran down his face. Cross hesitated. He wanted to kill her so badly he knew it couldn’t be right. Some part of him, something locked and buried deep inside, told him that it was wrong.
He loosened his grip, just for a moment. It was enough.
Black's spirit pulled away from her body. It was a risky maneuver: in the split second it needed to reform itself he could have killed her.
Danica sent her spirit spiraling down as a midnight lance that punched through the meat of Cross’ shoulder like a massive and bloody nail. Pain eclipsed his consciousness, and his vision went white.
Even as the darkness took him, he felt Dillon's life slip away.
They sit at the edge of a wide river. He hears the echo of cold and dark water as it crashes against the low wall. Their feet dangle over the side.
Wires cross the air over the river to the south, a music sheet without notes. There are rocks just below them, littered with sticks and stony debris. A feather floats by, not far away. A bridge is to the north, squat and ugly steel made serene by its surroundings. Wind-tossed waves lap against the stone and send up splashes of water that tickle their legs.
He is there with and Snow, Graves and Dillon. They smile with him, and they sit beneath the warm sun with their feet dipped in the sun-dappled waves. Cross feels at peace.
Cross woke to the moon. It hung low and huge in the sky, an immense isle of platinum in a midnight sea. He was in a different cell than before.
He'd been hog-tied to iron loops bolted into the stone floor. His broken bones had mended, but pain still gripped him in a vise. There was no ceiling, just a hole overhead that was closed with thick metal beams. Clouds that were rust red and as thick as stones cut across the massive lunar face. The air was thick and meaty. The night bled like an open vein.
His spirit clung to him, weak and restrained. Cross felt darkness at the edge of his soul. It held her away and clawed at his mind like a boat that had run aground in narrow waters.
He’d been stripped down to his trousers. His chest was covered in scars despite his newfound regenerative properties. He couldn’t feel Ekko, but then he never had: the vampiric power was still there, and it coursed through his veins. But he knew that it would only do so much.
“ You’re awake,” Ramsey said. It wasn’t a question. “Dillon is dead.”
Even though Cross already knew that, the words still twisted inside of him like a knife. He was grateful that Ramsey decided not to give him more details.
“ So what now?” Cross asked. His voice was hoarse, and dark. It hadn’t always sounded like that.
“‘ What now’?” Ramsey laughed. He walked into Cross’ field of vision. His face wrap was off. Ramsey leaned closer. “You idiot. What the hell were you thinking? You threw that fight on purpose, and every vampire in attendance knew it.”
“ I had my reasons,” Cross said.
“ Well, I hope they're worth getting both you and your friend killed over.” Ramsey hesitated. “You're being executed tomorrow night.”
Cross might have been mistaken, but he swore he detected a hint of sadness in Ramsey's eyes.
“ Executed?”
“ Yes. It means ‘killed’.”
“ Thanks,” Cross said with a grim laugh. “I know what it means. I guess I'm just surprised they're not going to Turn me.”
“ They would if they could,” Ramsey said after a moment. He paused. “Cross…what are you doing here? I mean really?”
Cross looked up at the Gol, and smiled. It would have been so nice to have someone to trust, to share that burden with.
You had that someone. He's dead now. And you're about to follow him.
“ I could ask you the same question,” he replied. Ramsey smiled back.
“ Is there…anyone you’d like me to send a message to?” he asked. “Any family?”
“ You can do that?”
Ramsey quietly fixed Cross with a piercing look.
“ You’d be surprised what I can do,” he said, and he nodded, ever so slightly, as if afraid someone would see the gesture. His eyes moved down, almost unnoticeably. Cross followed the Gol’s glassy-eyed gaze quickly, so as not to look like he stared at whatever it was he was being shown.
For a second — maybe not even that long — Ramsey’s left hand curled and twisted. It formed a shape…a shape that Cross recognized.
Cross’s heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t sure what was happening.
“ Black,” Cross said. “Take a message to Danica Black.” Ramsey nodded. “Tell her…I hope Cole lives. Deal or no deal, I hope Cole lives, because now I just want the shadow to find me.”
Ramsey watched Cross intently. Their eyes were unblinking.
“ Is that it?” he asked. Cross nodded. “All right, then. Cross…it’s been a pleasure. Good luck tomorrow. But I
