I dropped the sword and rushed to his side as quickly as my body would let me. I knelt next to him, and puled his head onto my lap, but it loled to the side. Blood stained the front of his chest, and I put my hand over the wound, trying to press the life back into him.

“No, Loki, please,” I said as tears streamed down my face.

“Loki, stay with me. Please. I love you. You can’t leave me like this.”

But he didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. I bent down, kissing his forehead as I sobbed, and I didn’t even have words for the pain I felt. With nothing else to do, I began to wail.

“My god, I’m too late,” someone said, and I turned to see Sara standing in the doorway. She looked at the dead King, her husband.

Loki had saved her life once, and she was a healer. She would be the only chance I would have at saving him.

“Help me,” I begged her and tried to hold Loki up to her.

“Please. You have to help him.”

“I…” Sara didn’t answer for a second, and then she ran over to us, kneeling on the other side of Loki. “I don’t know that I can. He might already be gone.”

“Please,” I cried. “You have to try.” She took a deep breath and nodded.

“Do you have any energy left?” Sara asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I felt weak and drained. Hurting Oren had taken most everything out of me.

“Wel, help me, if you can,” she said. She put her hand on top of mine, the one that covered the hole in Loki’s chest. “Give me any energy you have. I need al I can get.”

I nodded and closed my eyes, focusing on her and Loki. A warm tingling went through my hand, a sensation I was familiar with from being healed before. But something else happened. I felt it in my veins, flowing through me, being puled from me. Like hot liquid escaping out through my fingertips.

Then I heard it. Loki gasped loudly, and I opened my eyes.

He took deep breaths, and tears of relief slid down my cheeks.

Sara’s hand was stil over mine, and her skin had become wrinkled and pinched. Her hair suddenly had gray in it, and her face had aged noticeably. She’d given Loki a lot of her life force to save him.

“Loki,” I said.

“Hey, Princess.” He smiled dazedly as he looked up at me.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I smiled and shook my head. “Not anymore.”

“What’s this?” He took my hair and held it out so I could see. A curl near the front had gone completely silver. “I take a nap, and you go gray?”

“You didn’t take a nap,” I laughed. “Don’t you remember what happened?”