“Look out!” Marcello cried, his voice breaking through the dull sounds that seemed to fill my ears, as if I were underwater, looking at me with wide, frantic eyes. But I couldn’t move out of the way fast enough. The man came from behind, the coward, and I was just turning to parry his strike, but I was too late, too late, too-

The deepest I’d ever been cut before was a kitchen knife incident. And it didn’t require stitches.

This was way worse.

As Luca jumped between me and my attacker and blocked his next blow, I hobbled away, unable to see anything but the blood seeping out into an ever widening pool of crimson at my side, crimson like the Paratore flag. I put my hand to my wound and pulled it away, staring at it, thinking that it was like something from a Halloween store. Fake blood. Like that much blood couldn’t be real.

I lifted my fingers and blood actually dropped from them, plopping to the cobblestones at my feet, exploding, dividing, hopping into ten more.

I didn’t feel any pain for a minute, maybe two. Probably shock, I assessed distantly. I turned, trying to get a better look at the gash.

Okay, huge mistake. I saw my gown, sliced open. Flesh, like a rare steak.

I turned and gasped for breath as Lia ran to me, taking a shoulder roll to dodge raining arrows, then taking aim and shooting again. Would we never reach the end of the Paratore knights? Were they not all supposed to be over at Castello Forelli?

She glanced at me, my wound, and then paled. She dropped her bow, letting it skitter to the ground-was it odd that I couldn’t seem to hear it?-and ran the few remaining paces to me. She took my arm as I went to my knees, fighting the urge to vomit.

“To your back, Gabi, go to your back,” she said.

I did as she said. But how was this supposed to go? I did as she said; I had always been the one to see to her scrapes and bruises, to comfort and care.

But I looked up to her as if she was more mother than sister in that moment. I was desperately afraid. And beginning to feel the searing pain in my side.

“Evangelia! The wall!” Luca screamed.

Two new archers had arrived and were running down the castle allure, alongside the outer parapet. We would be within range in seconds. Another was still shooting. We were lucky he had terrible aim.

Lia closed her eyes as if willing herself to take courage, then checked out my wound. She turned an odd shade of gray-green and looked away, gasping for breath. Then she turned to me, leaned over and took my bloodstained hand, pressing it to the wound. “You hold it there, Gabriella. Hold it!”

I pressed, but all I felt was soft, not muscle. Mushy flesh moving far too much. I could make no sense of it.

Lia was behind me, then. Lifting me by the armpits, dragging me around, behind a well. “Do not stop pressing,” she demanded. “You cannot die on me here, Gabs.”

And then she was gone. To bring down more archers? To help open the gates? I didn’t know. And truthfully, I had a hard time caring, one way or another. The sky was still a dark purple dotted by stars, and I could feel the drumming beat of the battering ram at the front gate of Castello Paratore, as if it were keeping time with my heartbeat, which seemed to be weakening, slowing, along with my ability to process what was happening around me.

I looked up to the stars, so familiar to me from my summers in Toscana. Clytemnestra, Orion. They all began to spin, above me, as if I were watching a time-lapse video of the constellations in motion. Here and there, the dark shadows of those fighting entered my field of vision, but I found them irritating, a distraction. All I wanted to do was watch this swirling pool of starlight above me, a dance that transcended this trifling world of humanity, an homage to God Himself.

God? God?Am Igoing home now?I want to go home now, I think… .

I was descending-or was it ascending?-when one thought abruptly stopped the skies from swirling.

Lia. I couldn’t leave without her.

And then a second thought.

Marcello.

I don’t remember much from those first days. Flashes of light. Screaming. Tears slipping down my face. And the blessed abyss … White light. Calming. Beckoning. Calling me.

Come…

Marcello’s hands covered my left. I knew him by his smell of wood smoke and cinnamon. But I couldn’t seem to open my eyes. He was praying for me, in Latin. Begging God to save me, to bring me back to him.

But wasn’t it easier if I just left now?

Returned to my own time or… disappeared altogether?

“No, Gabriella,” she was saying.

Lia.

“No. You come back to me now,” she whispered in my ear fiercely. “I cannot do this alone. And Gabi, I can’t get back without you,” she said, her tone rising several notes. “I’ve tried.” Was she crying? “God help me, I went back to the tomb, put my hand on the print. I was so scared, Gabs, so scared. But it’s cold, Gabi. Cold. We need to do it together. I don’t want you to die, Gabriella. I don’t want to grow old without a sister. But Gabi, Gabi! If you leave me now, I’ll be stuck here forever! I can’t get back to Mom! Gabs, Gabi…please. Please wake up. Please….”

It was time. Choose a path.

Succumb to the light and its entrancing pull, filled with peace, joy, completion.

Or drag myself back to fighting my way out, living my life until I glimpsed this gateway again.

It was that clear, that matter-of-fact.

Now? Or later, Gabriella?

Was that God speaking to me? Asking me? Was life and how I lived it-if I lived it-up to me?

Free choice, Dad always said. We all have freedom of choice. Over and over again, minute by minute. How will you live your life? For yourself Or for others? For something good? For love?

Love.

Evangelia. There was no one I loved more. My sister, so different from me, and yet one with me.

But it wasn’t her beside me now.

Marcello was by my side. I smelled him again. Felt his hands covering mine. So warm. So warm. Hot. Almost like the cave wall.

My eyes flew open, wondering if I was about to transport back to my own time. Away from him.

And in that moment, I knew I didn’t want to.

My vision, as if I was waking from a deep and long dream, was fuzzy. But bit by bit, from the outside in, each inch of what I could see was clarified. And there he was. Marcello.

His big, brown eyes grew watery, and he cradled my face in his hands and shook his head. “Gabriella. Gabriella?”

I tried to say his name, but my voice was garbled, weak.

Eagerly, he went for a cup of water and then gently eased it to my lips. I felt the water on my tongue, my cheeks. Knew enough to be embarrassed when most of it slipped down my face and neck.

But his eyes were alight, as if I were a miracle on earth.

I pushed what I hoped was some semblance of a smile onto my face, but I could feel my lips cracking as I did it.

Still, he looked at me, not like I was some monster of the desert, bleeding, pale, rising before him as a ghost…but rather like an angel coming to him across the far, green hills.

His lush lips parted in awe as my eyes flicked open. And he blinked with heavy, dark lashes, as if he might be dreaming.

Was I?

Could a guy-a guy like this be that anxious to see me to health, to wellness?

“Gabriella,” he said, winding his warm hands more firmly around mine, so wretchedly cold. “Gabriella,” he whispered, leaning forward and kissing my temple, my forehead, my nose, my eyes. “Gabriella.”

He spoke my name in the same way he might say beautiful or wondrous or amazing and really mean it.

“Marcello,” I croaked, wincing that it came out in a froggy voice in comparison to his princely tone.

But he smiled as if he had heard it as I had meant it.

Marcello. Dedicated. Strong. Mine.