Bend Her novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: Share It

I knelt on the stone with Ansel's head in my lap.

Every candle in the great hall burned white.

The current poured out of him and into me, and I could not close the door on it.

It was too much.

It was warm and enormous and mine, and it was killing him.

"Ansel!"

His skin had gone grey.

His horns were cracking at the base, and the black fur on his forearms was falling away in handfuls.

The rings around his seal were fading, one after another.

That should have meant he was healing.

It meant the thing that had held him together for twelve years was leaving.

"Majesty!" Bess shouted from somewhere behind me. "Do something!"

"Take the chancellor," Aldous said, and his voice was not the voice of a boy.

Four guards closed on Gisborne.

He stood in his white robe with the ward on his wrist and his mouth open.

Not one of the lords moved to help him.

The envoy had stepped back to the wall with his hand over his mouth.

I did not care about any of it.

I put my hand on Ansel's chest.

The seal under my palm was cold.

"Come back," I said. "You said I could ask you for anything."

His eyelids moved.

"Linnet," he whispered.

"Don't talk."

"Take it."

"No."

"All of it. It was always yours."

His breath rattled.

"If you take it all, you will live, and you will be free. I will not mind."

"You will die."

"I will die a man. That is more than I hoped for."

"I mind!"

I heard my voice break across the hall.

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