Chapter 26 My Selfish Remnant
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A light steadily brightens the inky void, bringing me out of my dreamless sleep. I blink my eyes a few times. Eric...Eric! I yank his coat off my face and sit up quickly. I twist about until my eyes still on him. There he lies beneath me. The white smoke flows out of his nostrils with his exhale and his chest swells with his own intake of breath. My bated breath finally leaves me, though the relief is short-lived. His skin is so pale and grey...like one who has died or is near death. That familiar look of distress still twists his face almost beyond recognition. My heart knots about itself, the whole damn thing hurting. He is indeed suffering. Suffering that would have ended three nights ago had I not prolonged his life.
The pressing urge manifests in my bladder. Oh God, what the hell!? I have barely drank anything since that dreadful night Eric gave the last of himself to shelter me in the valley. I scramble off his body and stand up on the frozen white sea. I lift a heavy, numb foot and bring it forward, my boot barely crunching through the frozen snow. I lift my other foot and let it fall where it may, the snow crunching as my foot breaks through the frozen surface. A sudden pain shoots up my leg. I grit my teeth to keep from crying out. I know my feet have become frostbitten. I feel it. The numbness, the chill, the pain, the lack of control I now have over my own flesh. It's all the same, but worse, from that brutal winter two years ago. I'm not surprised with how I have been half buried in the snow while pushing Eric and the crude sled along these last three days.
I stumble a few more steps in the snow and pull Eric's oversized trousers down to my knees with ease despite my belt still fastened about me. The winter instantly tortures my naked thighs, wringing a short cry from me as I lower myself as close to the snow as possible and try to relax the muscles clenching my bladder shut. Somehow, despite the lack of water I've been drinking, I have been needing to relieve myself more and more, as if I have been doing nothing all day but drinking water!
"Come on," I plead with myself. Try to relax, Snow. Try. By some miracle, or perhaps by the long forgotten grace of God, my body relaxes just enough to let the smallest trickle out. I heave a sigh of relief, my mind turning to my numb, frozen fingers. I glance down at my hands. My hands hang in the frosted folds of my skirts, shaking beyond my control. I haven't taken off my gloves since last morn...I've been too afraid to see what damage this winter has done to my hands. They almost feel just as my feet do, chilled with the same chill, hurting almost as much but also still numb. I try to curl my fingers into fists. I try with all my might, but I only manage to curl them halfway. They shake more and send little spasms of pain up into my wrists. A small sob shakes me and I drop my hands, letting them hang in my skirts. What was I thinking!? That somehow I would be able to push Eric on a sled all the way to Vilgard in this deep freeze!? Before I know it, I will be frozen to death and Eric will slip away in his comatose state.
Finally emptying my bladder, I force my stiff body upright and pull up his trousers as best I can with my frozen fingers. I somehow manage to pull his trousers up over my skirts and tuck them beneath my belt. Fear sharpens in my stomach as I turn about, fearing that I may lay eyes on a dead corpse that was once Eric. I never checked his heart before I stumbled over here.
My foot takes the last step, pulling me around until my eyes see him. I watch him closely, his chest, his nose...his chest rises slowly and falls just as slowly, pushing white smoke out of his nose. I release the breath that I was holding. He's still alive...but God only truly knows how long. Even I cannot tell with this evil in me because of the poison in Eric's body.
I stumble over to Eric and collapse to my knees at his head, seeing him lying before me upside down. I swallow hard. I almost don't want to do this. More likely than not, I am doing the wrong thing. This power I am wielding is evil. There's no way around that. But can good come from evil? Supposedly, that's what God was good at. Taking the evilness of man and bringing abundant goodness out of it. It's a beautiful sentiment. I once believed it to be true. But with all I've seen, all that has happened to not just me, but to Eric and Sara and Greta and Eliza and everyone else in this whole kingdom!? The truth seems to be that evil creates more evil. It's as simple as that. Papa told Ravenna that she cannot rid the world of evil with evil. A man's last words…
I almost don't want to do this...but I cannot deny the small part of me still dreaming about a future where Eric survives this. It's a small part of me, a remnant that is very selfish. It would rather that I die trying to save Eric than to heed his plea to leave him and try to get myself to Hammond's. It's a small part of me that cannot let him go...though I never had him.
I stretch a numb, trembling hand towards him and rest it on his heart. My own heart sinks. Though his heart is still growing weaker with each passing moment, requiring more and more life to sustain itself, it has not yet failed. If the poison does not worsen or grow more aggressive at any point this day, the year and eighty-eight days of life will keep his heart beating until the sun sets.
I withdraw my hand from him. If I cut anymore of my life from my heart right now, it will sap me of my strength and send me into another deep sleep that will steal another day for Eric to reach Vilgard. I cannot sacrifice another precious day. Eric and I...even though the poison is flowing through his veins, I am at its mercy just as much as he is. He was foolish to think that I could ever possess the chance of reaching Hammond's fortress on my own. So very foolish.
I grab the edges of my sled on either side of his head as best I can with my half frozen hands and bring my leg under me. So starts another grueling day in this deep freeze in the middle of nowhere. Day nineteen. God, I knew the trek to Hammond's would be hellish, but I never imagined this. Nothing close to this.
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Night comes all too swiftly. I go as far as I can before I have no choice but to stop where I am and climb onto Eric's comatose body. I reach for his heart and take it in my hand, feeling the life draining from it with each beat it struggles to make. This heart has beat far beyond its own life. It is exhausted and worn, begging for that sweet relief of death. I can feel all the scars disfiguring his heart. He has experienced much pain. Not just bodily pain, but that of lost love...such as Sara's death.
If the poison does not act suddenly, then it will cost a year and one hundred thirty-two days of my life to sustain him through this night. But as soon as I cut that life from my heart and feed it to his, I will be rendered unconscious for God only knows how long. And during this time should the poison act suddenly, it will steal Eric's life. No, the best chance he has is if I give him a surplus of my life to sustain him. That way he has life left to live should the poison act suddenly tonight.
I take up Maacthis' knife and carve away another three years of my life in three clean slices. A slight sting is left in the void of the fresh wound, but nothing more. I take these three years and force them down into Eric's heart. He gasps in a deep breath with the infusion of life, his heart soaking up my life.
The exhaustion hits me at once like a massive tidal wave, crushing me down on Eric with all its fury.