tap tap

The gentle poking of something small and pointed against her elbow roused Miriam into flinging her arm out to dislodge the tapper. She blocked the hazy light from her eyes with her forearm and slept again.

Tap Tap

Little gentleness accompanied the jabbing at her elbow this time. A low throbbing enveloped the back of her skull, and Miriam groaned and rolled to her stomach to relieve the pressure there and escape the mystery jabber. Somewhat more comfortable, she drifted back into the void, head pillowed on crossed arms.

TAP TAP, TAP TAP

The four sharp stabs at her temple snatched Miriam from the clingy embrace of unconsciousness, and eyes still closed, she thrust herself up from the ground to escape the stimuli, only to bang her shoulders into a solid surface before her elbows extended completely.

Where am I? The last thing I remember is being with Jonatham in his quarters. We ate, I had my first panic attack in nearly a decade, and Jonatham said something about a covenant...

Miriam forced her eyes to open, blinking rapidly to relieve some gritty dryness before peering into her dusky surroundings. At first, she did not recognize anything in the gloom. A faint scratching sound attracted her gaze, and the low light could not mask the glint of silver feathers on a familiar bird in the shadows.

"Hey friend. Thanks for waking me up. I wish you could talk and tell me about what happened here. Where are the other animals? Where are Jim and the king and– Jonatham!"

While she'd spoken, the lark retreated behind her, out of sight in the cloying dark. When he reemerged, a long section of once-white cotton dragged from his beak. The prince's cinnamon scent tickled her nose and shot a bolt of fear through her chest. If his shirt was so badly damaged, did that mean –

The bond! Miriam screwed her eyelids shut and fumbled for her end of the soulmate connection. Rather than the vibrant stiff rope she expected, the tie hung limp and frayed in her mind, a deflated cloth tube conveying nothing and ending just outside her mind. If she hadn't been seeking it, the bond would have been invisible to her thoughts. The state of it dropped her heart to the grimy rug beneath her, and she fought back tears.

How can I already be so attached to someone I have known less than a day?

Attached! Surely the bond would be gone if one half died, right? Miriam tugged at the connection lightly, and hope lifted her heart slightly higher when its threads didn't break off or unravel. A more forceful yank also did no further damage to the fragile link. Even as her heart settled back in her chest, the lack of any response to her pulls left it heavy with worry.

"Where is he?" she asked the lark. "Can you show me?"

The bird shook its head slowly back and forth. It hopped toward her and dropped the rag in front of her before tapping it.

tap tap

The cloth and rug softened the sharp sound; still it echoed in the wrecked chamber. Without hesitating, the lark hobbled forward, stopping directly under her sternum and tipping his face up in a blur that she had no time to interrupt before –

tap tap

Though softly done, the lark's beak on her breastbone stung her skin and sent fractals of pain across her ribs. To distract herself until the discomfort faded, Miriam picked up the piece of Jonatham's shirt and brought it to her nose, inhaling deeply. Instantly, the bond twitched and thickened, and the sensation of it spanning the distance between her and Jonatham returned faintly. Another breath of his spicy smell strengthened the tie further, and Miriam decided to see if it would lead her to her prince.

She shouted down the bond, I'm coming to you! Not waiting for a response, she closed her eyes and traced the connection beyond the tip in her mind. She crawled forward slowly, feeling along in front of her to avoid running into any obstacles. To her relief, the ceiling lifted higher the farther back into the chamber she traveled, untouchable from her knees just before her fingers brushed smooth leather on the floor among the debris of dust and small stones.

The bond felt short now, the end nearby. The leather lump became denim remnants as her hand skimmed higher, nails snagging in loops of cotton thread. Cool bare skin above the scraps of jeans tickled her fingertips with a single spark of warmth that faded almost before it began. Miriam pressed her palm flat on the exposed flesh, and for the first time since she'd met Jonatham, the skin-to-skin contact felt normal, as though she happened upon her mother or a friend who was injured.

Normal, save that no breathing lifted her hand, no heartbeat vibrated her forearm. And his chest hair swam in something sticky.

"No!"

Miriam snapped into action. Her semester of Advanced First Aid (squeezed into her schedule to increase her appeal to outdoorsy employers) took over. A quick check with her clean hand told her Jonatham's nose pointed to the ceiling, and nothing physically blocked his face or clogged his throat. She located his sternum tip and stacked her hands a handswidth above that and pressed down hard. As she counted to thirty, "Stayin'Alive" filled her thoughts and paced her compressions, but she mind-shouted these words:

"You're my soulmate and I am yours,

And you're staying alive, staying alive.

I know you a little and I wanna know more,

You gotta stay alive, stay alive.

Jon, Jon, Jon, Jon, stay alive, stay alive.

Jon, Jon, Jon, Jon, stay alive, stay alive."

After four rounds of CPR, Miriam's arms burned, and sweat trickled down her neck into her shirt. She paused to observe, forcing her own breathing to calm so she could listen for his; there had been no heat or even a tingle in her skin, even when she gave him the requisite two breaths at the end of the last round, but with all the magic around here, surely a spontaneous gasp wasn't too much to hope for?

For thirty seconds, the space around them echoed with her softening puffs of air and a few creaks and groans as the wreckage settled more firmly into place. Jonatham's form remained still, absent even the usual postmortem random muscle twitching of the nervous system ridding itself of all lingering traces of electricity. The bond between them shrank with every passing minute, and her heart beat painfully slow and hard, as though suspended in wet concrete and fighting for each movement.

Her eyes burned with molten tears, and she bent low over Jonatham's chest and sobbed into her hands. While worry for the fates of the worlds hovered in the back of her thoughts, waves of personal grief overwhelmed her. How did this happen? One moment, we were speaking of covenants and a month of exploring our bond, the next I woke up alone in a pile of rubble, and you're gone. I was already a little in love with you, I think, and now I'll never know what we might have been. Never explore this world with you, never show you my favorite places at home, never introduce you to my mother. What will I do now?

tap tap

Miriam could barely make out the outline of the lark standing beside her leg, between the dull light and her still-flowing tears. Thinking he must also be sad, she reached out to stroke his back but –

Tap Tap

Shocked at the sharp pain on the tip of her finger and back of her hand, she flipped her hand over and yanked it away. The bird followed and leapt onto her wrist, his talons grazing her flesh but not piercing it. Before she could react, he shot his beak toward her palm and –

He dropped something light and thin from his beak, and he fluttered back to the floor with a chirp.

At first glance, Miriam could not identify the papery object with its eccentric edges, a dark blob against her pale skin. She leaned back and lifted it to get a better look, and the faint scent of lilacs trickled into her sinuses. Recognition focused her senses on the object; a memory of it enclosed in plastic in bright sunshine a few days ago flitted through her brain, cementing her impression of what she held: the pressed not-columbine she'd kept laminated and holding her place in the latest Stephen King novel.

The lark didn't allow her any time to wonder at how the dry bud came to be in its possession. He sprang up onto Jonatham's abdomen and tottered up his body until he stood in the motionless hollow of the prince's throat. It stared pointedly at Miriam's hand, then at Jonatham's chin.

tap tap

"The flower, in his mouth?"

The silver beak flashed as it bobbed up and down.

"Nothing to lose by trying, I guess," she muttered. Remembering her mother's tip about getting the best results from dried herbs, she rolled the columbine between her forefinger and thumb just over Jonatham's open lips, breaking apart the blossom and releasing a potent whiff of new spring lilac perfume into the air. When no more particles of plant matter clung to her hand, she started CPR again; the sweet green taste of fresh honeysuckle remained on her lips after she gave him two breaths, and she savored it while she waited for something miraculous to happen.