“How do I help him?” I demanded, my tears mixing with the ash and stinging my eyes.
“Oh, but if I told you, you’d surely owe me,” the crone sneered.
“I’ll owe you!” I shrieked. “I’ll owe you anything! Just tell me how to save him!” Perhaps it was only the ash in my eyes, but I thought I caught a satisfied smile on the crone’s lips.
“If he cannot manage to replenish his silver, and quickly,” she continued, “our Lord Silverstrand will not be able to heal himself, and he will surely die.”
“Then how do we replenish him?” Before the crone could reply, the silverkin began molding themselves into a flat surface, the base for a silver cairn. I remembered when Oriana had been rescued from the Iron Court, and how she had been bound in golden chains, and gold had been piled upon her to replace the element she’d lost.
If it worked with Oriana, it would work with Micah.
It had to.
He was not allowed to die.
Methodically, I removed what was left of the iron armor from Micah’s body, then I helped the silverkin move him onto the silver platform. Without a moment’s hesitation, I lay down beside him as the silverkin fitted themselves together above us, like a tiny metal igloo. Dimly, I heard Sadie bawling, Max and Mom yelling for me to stay away, that I’d suffocate beneath all the silver. Honestly, I didn’t care. Micah needed me, so I was staying.
I don’t know how long we were under the silver cairn, hours or days or maybe even years, before Micah twitched. I’d fallen asleep against his chest, my cheek against his throat, one hand laced into his while my other arm pillowed his head. Images floated behind my eyes, like a greatest hits episode of our short time together. The first time Micah had kissed me, both in a dream and in the flesh. The time I had been sick, and he’d brought me tea and toast in bed. The first time I’d felt his tongue against my mark.
But then, the twitch.
I held myself still, not quite believing that he’d moved, not breathing for fear I’d miss the next sign of life. Then, he twitched again.
Carefully, I pulled myself up to look at his face, cast in a muted silver glow. His eyes flickered behind his lids; I hoped he was having a good dream, like I’d been, and not reliving his last few waking moments.
“Micah,” I murmured, the silver cairn creating an odd echo. “Micah, please be all right. Please.” A tear splashed onto his cheek; as I wiped it away, he turned toward my hand.
“Micah!” I kissed him, then held him close, then kissed him again.
“Sara?” he croaked, his silver eyes slowly opening. “What…” He got a look at our silver ceiling, and began again. “Where are we?”
“You used all of your silver to kill Stoney. The silverkin had to heal you.” He looked again to the cairn, recognition lighting in his eyes.
“And you stayed with me?”
“I did.” Micah brought my face directly before his, so close our noses touched.
“Sara, you might not have survived this,” he whispered, his hand trembling as he stroked my hair. “Love, never put yourself in danger for me.”
“Why not? You do it for me all the time.”
Micah couldn’t really argue with that fact. “My copper girl,” he murmured, caressing my cheek. “My copper girl, who means more to me than my life.”
After a few more moments of cuddling, Micah placed his hand flat against the roof of the cairn, which was evidently the signal for the silverkin to disperse. We blinked as we sat up, joints creaking, bathed in the bright sunlight. As we stretched the kinks from our bones, something on Micah’s arm caught my eye.
“What’s this?” I asked, grabbing his wrist. There was a band of copper around his left wrist, spiraling up his arm like a ribbon.
“And here,” Micah murmured, indicating my right wrist, which now bore a similar ribbon of silver. Somehow, during the healing process, we’d gotten marks of each other’s metal. “We are truly joined, my Sara.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. Maybe I was a bit hysterical, being that Micah had nearly died, and his healing had involved both of us being buried alive under a mountain of metal, and we’d received permanent jewelry as a parting gift. Yeah, only a bit hysterical.
“Better than rings, huh?” I teased.
“But you will still give her one.” I turned and saw Mom, smiling, along with a worried Sadie and a pissed Max; the crone was nowhere in sight, thank the gods. Of course my family had waited here for us, though I wished they hadn’t. If this venture hadn’t worked out, I’d have hated for them to be burdened with two bodies.