Page 96 of Echo North
He was just trying to save his own worthless skin.
He never wanted you.
He never wanted you.
Heartbreak and betrayal twist across beautiful-me’s face. Despair weighs in her eyes. She is broken.
She lets go of Hal.
NO!I want to scream.
But it’s too late.
The Wolf Queen laughs and drags Hal away from the other me. Bonds of silver close around my wrists.
“Do not let her take you, too,”says Hal, staring into the other-me’s face,“Please. Please, Echo. I can’t lose you. Not like this.”
And the other me lifts her head, the Wolf Queen’s laughter ringing in her ears. She looks grim. Determined. Whatever Hal had done, it was at the Queen’s command—he doesn’t deserve to end decaying on her throne—and neither does she. She refuses. She screams into the sky, over and over and over, and I know the words like the own beats of my heart:“I call upon the Winds! South and East and West! Come to my aid!”
They come in a wheeling fire, spinning and raging. Heat sparks on my skin, smoke stings my eyes. They resolve into three forms that look something like men, though they are taller and stronger andbrighterthan men should be: East blazing like the sun, West with his gold wings furled wide, South with his spear made of mountains, all with jewels flashing white from their foreheads.
The other me can feel the Wolf Queen’s bonds tightening around her, but she’s not giving in, not yet.
“Please,”she begs the Winds,“Take up the threads of the North Wind’s power. Harness time and turn it back. Let me try again to save Hal. Let me have another chance.”
“Daughter, you do not know what it is you ask,”says the East Wind.“It is no little thing.”
“Please. I will do anything. Give up anything. Just let me try again to save him.”
“Would you give up your memory?”says the South Wind.
“Yes.”
“Would you give up your life? Yourself?”says the West Wind.
“I would give anything.”
The words echo in my mind, glinting like embers on my tongue. I know the taste of them, know the feel of them leaving my lips. Because I said them, in another time and another life, in this very spot. In this very moment. I begged the Winds to turn back time, and they did. The other me, the beautiful me—sheisme, or was. The first me. Before the Winds sent me back to try again.
“You won’t remember,”warns the East Wind.“You won’t be able to warn yourself. You could go through all of this and still die. Still lose him. Nothing might change.”
The other me—the first me—lifts her chin, unafraid.“It doesn’t matter. I have to try.”
The Winds look solemn.“So be it.”
“No, Echo!”cries Hal.“You don’t know what might happen, you don’t know—”
The first me grabs Hal’s hand and shuts her eyes.“Find me,”she whispers,“And this time I swear I’ll save you.”
“Echo—”
But the world breaks apart and his voice is swallowed in the spinning fragments of lost memory.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
IAM EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE ATonce. I am pain and heat and light. I am sorrow. I am joy.
It hurts. It hurts so much.
