Last Mark

He woke in the dark. She was beside him. Her body against his. Her hand on his chest. On the letter. The blood had dried on both of them and the sheets were stiff with it and the room smelled of copper and sex and the particular smell of two people who have been together in a way that goes past the body.

She was awake. He could tell by her breathing. The rhythm was wrong for sleep. Too even. Too controlled. The breathing of a person who is lying still and thinking and the thinking is going somewhere that cannot be followed.

"Elara."

"I am awake."

"I know."

She was quiet for a moment. Her hand moved on his chest. Tracing the letter. The cut from last night had scabbed in the night and the scab was rough under her fingers.

"I have been thinking," she said.

"About what."

"About what I am. About what the tower made me. About what the throne made me. About what last night made me."

"What did it make you."

She was quiet for a long time. The room was dark. The fire was dead. The only light was the grey of pre-dawn coming through the window. A thin cold light that did not warm anything.

"It made me sure," she said. "Of what."

"Of what I need. Of what I have always needed. Of the thing that the tower showed me and the throne could not fill and last night confirmed."

She sat up. She looked down at him in the grey light. Her face was half in shadow and half in the thin cold light and the two halves were different. The shadow half was the woman he loved. The light half was the thing she had become. And the two halves were the same face and they had always been the same face.

"I need all of you," she said. "Not part. Not most. All. Everything you are. Everything you have. Everything you will ever be. I need it. The way I need air. The way I need blood. The way I need the knife. I need you completely and last night was not enough. Last night was close but it was not complete and I need to be complete."

He looked at her. He looked at her face in the grey light and he saw the thing behind her eyes. The thing the tower had let out. The thing she had warned him about. The thing that was not going back in.

It was not hunger. It was not cruelty. It was not sadism. It was the need to consume. To take everything. To own so completely that there was nothing left. Nothing that was not hers. Nothing that existed outside of her. The need to make another person so entirely hers that the boundary between them dissolved and what was left was not two people but one. One body. One will. One existence.

And the only way to do that was to end one of them.

He understood. In the grey light. In the room that smelled of blood and sex and the particular smell of the end of something. He understood what she was saying and what she was going to do and he understood that he had always known this was coming. From the first cut in Greyhollow. From the first night on the stone floor. From the first time she had held the knife and looked at him with that hunger and that clarity and that need. He had known that the road ended here. In a room. In the dark. With her hands on him and the blade between them.

"I am not going to fight you," he said.

"I know."

"I am not going to run."

"I know."

"I am not going to stop you."

"I know."

She leaned down and she kissed him. On the mouth. For the first time. The kiss that she had never given him. The kiss that had been forbidden from the first day. The kiss that was the line they had never crossed. She crossed it now. Her lips on his. Soft. Warm. Real. The kiss of a woman who loved him and who was going to kill him and who was going to enjoy both and the both were the same and they had always been the same.

She pulled back. She looked at him and her eyes were wet and her mouth was open and her face held everything. All of it. The hunger and the love and the need and the clarity and the tower and the knife and the room and the years and the scars and the blood. All of it on her face at once. Not hidden. Not managed. Not controlled. Everything she was. Everything she had ever been. Everything she was going to be.

She reached for the knife.

She held it in front of him. He looked at the blade. The small blade. The one that had been with them since Greyhollow. The one that had cut every scar on his body. The one that had carved the letter. The one that had killed the King. The blade that had been the third thing in every room they had shared. Her. Him. The knife.

"I love you," she said.

"I love you."

"I know. And that is why I can do this. Because you love me. Because your love is the kind that does not run. That does not fight. That does not stop. Your love is the kind that kneels on a stone floor and lets me cut my name into its chest and says yes. Your love is the kind that dies."

She straddled him. She sat on his lap the way she had last night. Her body against his. The blood from the night before still on both of them. She reached between them and she took him in her hand and she guided him into her and she sank onto him and they both made the sound. The sound. Their sound. The sound that was pain and pleasure and need and surrender all in one note.

She moved. Slowly. Not the desperate movement of last night. Something deliberate. Something final. Each movement was a word. A sentence. A paragraph in a story that was ending. She rode him slowly and she held the knife and she looked at him and her eyes did not leave his.

She put the knife on his chest. On the letter. The tip of the blade resting in the groove of the E. The scar that was still healing from last night. The scar that she had reopened and deepened and made permanent.

"I am going to take the last thing," she said. "The last thing you have. The thing you have been holding onto. The thing that is yours and not mine. I am going to take it and it is going to be mine and then everything will be mine and I will be complete."

She cut. Into the letter. Deeper than before. Deeper than any cut she had made. The blade went through the scar tissue and into the muscle and the pain was beyond anything he had felt. Beyond the first cut in Greyhollow. Beyond the letter. Beyond the long cut that had crossed all the scars. This was the pain of the body being opened in a place that was not meant to be opened and the blood came and she moved on him and the pain and the pleasure were the same thing and they were both enormous and they were both hers.

She cut and she moved and the blood ran down his chest and onto her body and she was covered in it. His blood. On her stomach. On her chest. On her face where she had pressed against him. She was painted in him and she was moving on him and the knife was in her hand and the blade was in his chest and she was making the sound. The sound. That sound. The sound that said his pain was her pleasure and the pleasure was building and the knife was building and everything was building toward a point that they were both approaching.

"I can feel you," she whispered. "I can feel you inside me and I can feel the knife inside you and both of them are mine and both of them are you and you are giving me everything. Everything. Right now. You are giving me your body and your blood and your life and you are not fighting and you are not running and you are here and you are mine and I love you and I love you and I love you."

She was close. He could feel it. In the tightening of her body. In the acceleration of her movement. In the pressure of the knife. She was climbing and each cut was a step and each breath was a step and she was almost there.

He was close too. Not just from her body. From the pain. From the blood. From the knowledge of what was happening and the fact that he was letting it happen and the fact that his body was responding to the ending of his life with arousal and the arousal was building and the building was going somewhere and the somewhere was the end.

She cut deeper. The blade found something. A place inside him that was not muscle. Something that pulsed. The blood came in a rush. Hot. Fast. His body jerked and the pain went past anything he had a name for and into a place that was white and silent and the white and the silent was where the pleasure lived and the pleasure peaked.

She came. Her body convulsed around him and her back arched and the knife pressed hard and she screamed his name. Not a whisper. Not in her sleep. A scream. The sound of a woman taking everything and being filled and the filling was the killing and the killing was the love and the love was the knife and it was all the same thing.

He came with her. The pain took him over the edge and the pleasure took him over the edge and they happened at the same time and they were the same thing and he broke. His body broke. Everything broke. The release was enormous and it was the last release and his body gave her everything. The last thing. The thing she had said she needed. She took it. She took it and her body took it and the knife was in his chest and the blood was between them and they were one thing. One body. One wound. One end.

She collapsed on him. Her body on his. The knife still in her hand. The blade still in the wound. She lay on his chest and she was shaking and she was crying and the tears and the blood mixed on his skin and she held him.

He was dying. He could feel it. Not as pain. The pain was fading. Everything was fading. The room. The grey light. Her body on his. All of it going soft at the edges. Going distant. Going away.

He could feel her. That was the last thing he felt. Her body on his. Her tears on his skin. Her hand on the letter. On her name. The name she had carved and recarved and that was now open and bleeding and the blood was her name and the name was the blood and it was all the same.

"Elara," he said. The name was the last word. The only word. The word that had been the first cut and the last cut and every cut between. Her name. In his mouth. In the air. In the room where they had been everything and nothing and both at the same time.

She lifted her head. She looked at him. Her face was wet and her eyes were raw and her mouth was open and she was beautiful and terrible and she was the last thing he saw.

"I love you," she said. "I love you. I love you."

He tried to say it back. The words were there. In his chest. Under the letter. Under the wound. Under her name. The words were there but they could not reach his mouth because the distance between his chest and his mouth was too far and the distance was filling with dark and the dark was warm and the warm was her and she was the dark and the dark was her and the warm was her and she was everything and everything was fading and the fading was gentle and the gentle was her hands and her hands were on his face and her voice was saying his name and her name was the last thing and the last thing was warm and the warm was dark and the dark was her and she was the dark.

And then the dark.

And then nothing.

She lay on him. For a long time. The room was grey. The light was coming. The palace was waking. The kingdom was waking. The queen was lying on the body of her knight in a room that smelled of blood and sex and love and death and she was holding him and he was not holding her back and the not holding back was the thing she had done and the thing she had needed and the thing she had taken and now it was done and he was complete and she was complete and the completion was empty and the empty was full and the full was nothing and the nothing was everything she had ever wanted.

She pressed her hand to the letter on his chest. The E. Her name. The wound was open and the blood had stopped because the heart beneath it had stopped and the stopping was permanent and the permanent was her name and her name was the last mark and the last mark was the only mark that mattered.

She pressed her lips to the letter. To the wound. To her name.

"Mine," she whispered. "Mine. Mine. Mine."

The word was a blade. The last blade. It cut the air and the silence and the room and it was the last cut and there was no one to receive it.

She lay on him in the grey light and the morning came and the palace woke and the kingdom continued and the queen would rise and she would sit on the throne and she would rule and she would be what the tower had made her and what the throne had made her and what the knife had made her and what his blood had made her and what his love had made her and all of those things were the same thing and the same thing was her name and her name was on his chest and his chest was still and the still was permanent and the permanent was the cost.

The cost of fealty.

She rose. She washed. She dressed. She did not look at the bed. She did not look at the body. She walked to the door and she opened it and she stepped through it and the corridor was empty and the palace was waking and she walked toward the throne room and her back was straight and her face was the queen's face and her hands were clean and her heart was beating and inside her body something had begun. Something small. Something that was his and hers and theirs. Something that was the last thing he had given her and the only thing he had left to give and she did not know it yet but she would know it and when she knew it she would press her hand to her stomach and she would feel the letter on his chest and the letter was her name and the name was the child and the child was the cost and the cost was the fealty and the fealty was the love and the love was the knife and the knife was hers and he was hers and he was gone and she was not alone.

She was not alone.

She walked to the throne room and the morning came and the kingdom turned and the queen sat on her throne and the empty space behind her where a knight should have stood was empty and no one asked why because no one had ever seen the knight who stood there and no one knew his name and no one knew what he had given and no one knew what she had taken and the throne room was full of people and the queen was alone and the alone was the cost and the cost was everything and everything was hers.

Everything was hers.