That solved that problem, I guessed.
She was dead. We were bleeding and broken and close to death. But she was dead, and it was done.
29
"Ugh," I groaned inarticulately, rolling onto my side, hissing when pain shot up my arm.
"Careful, careful," Void's low rasp chastised me, gentle hands rolling me back onto my back. "You're still not fully healed, brave girl."
I groaned again, this time wordlessly. I felt like I'd burned in the fires of hell, but hell didn't exist and … wait, I wasalive?
"Not dead?" I croaked.
"No," Void confirmed, lips brushing over my forehead, then my cheek, then my lips. "None of us are, though Sang is still … healing."
I forced my scratchy eyes open, carefully lifting a hand to rub the sleep out of them. "How bad is he?"
Void never hesitated, but his careful choice of words already had my heart beating faster.
"He'll be fine."
"I want to see him," I said decisively, throwing back the covers and realising I was in Void's bed. The god himself watched over me like a nurse, and rushed forward to support my back when my legs threatened to buckle.
"That's not a good idea," he muttered, but he relented when I batted at his massive chest.
His white shirt wasn't completely crisp, I noticed with surprise. In fact, it was rumpled, like he'd been wearing it for a while.
"How long have I been … asleep?"1
"Nearly a week," Void answered, helping me out of his room and into the hallway.
My heart sped the closer we got to Sang's room, and my blood pressure shot through the roof at his reply.
"A week!" I missed a wholeweek. "What happened while I was unconscious? Where's Mav?"
"With Sang, and not an awful lot. There's a team of shadowkind in the basement repairing the damage done by those you call keepers, but the three of us have been … subdued. Waiting to see if you and Sang would rouse."
I slipped my hand into his, squeezing and leaning further on him, his heat seeping into my side.
"I'm okay," I assured him, peering up at his sharply-carved face. There was nothing soft and warm about Void, but he was beautiful to me. "I feel fine now."
Except my arms stung the more I moved, and a throb kept going through my ribs. I didn't remember getting hit there, but a lot of the fighting had been a blur, and Ihadbeen thrown across a room after all. My arms … I almost didn't want to look at them, but I forced my eyes down, my gaze first landing on our linked hands and then the mottled red scars on the back of my hands, crawling up my forearms.
"You seem to have taken on some of our characteristics," Void said, noticing where my attention had gone. "Advanced healing being the main one. Based on your recovery over the past week, I'd estimate you'll be fully healed within another week."
"Fully?" I asked, dragging my stare from the stinging burns.
He nodded. "That's why we haven't covered your wounds—you're taking strength from the void around you. And from the voidwithinyou."
My heart skipped, and then crumpled with emotion when Void bent to place a kiss on my temple.
"You're perfect, Hala, fully healed or otherwise. We'll take care of you, and love you exactly as you are."
"Why?" I asked, the question slipping out. I couldn't help it. There was nothing special about me.
"Brave girl," Void sighed, a strange sympathy in his black eyes. "You took on a mini army of enemies, slaughtered most of them, and then when you were almost beaten, you got back up, saved Mav, and killed the cruellest, most powerful keeper. And you wonder why we want you?"
He brushed my jaw with the back of a knuckle, leaving a path of tingles on my skin, and then pushed open the door to Sang's room, stealing whatever choked response I'd been about to make.