To Save Him, I Lost Him

by Zenia Garg


Chapter 1
Cael and I danced every evening on the porch of our old inn, bare feel, eyes locked, no music, no words, just the soothing wind and us. He always said that the pleasant smell of forest and us helped him sleep peacefully without any nightmares. And I never told him this but this was the time I looked forward to everyday as it was the only time I ever lived fully. It was how I counted my happy days not by hours or seacons but by minutes spent with him. His hand on my back, our fronts pressed together, his smile when I always accidentally stepped on his feet. I laughed at the memory and it was just that, a memory.
It was not a memory before the rot began, before the winds stopped playing and the scent of forest stopped being pleasant anymore. Before Cael stopped looking at me like I was his whole world, but someone who is nothing more than a stranger.
It all began on the day of hunt and blood.
Cael worked in the mountain pass, guiding caravans, fixing loose carts, haggling over goat cheese and silver trinkets. One evening when I was waiting for him on the front porch he didn’t return, making me worried. When he didn’t return by nightfall I went into the forest and found him near the riverbank, his tunic soaked through, chest rising in short, broken gasps. A jagged wound split across his side, still seeping.
“Silverroot,” I whispered, as I smelled the blade left by attackers.
“Goddess please help me, save my Cael.” I prayed as all that mattered in my life was him and nothing else, not even my old coven I left behind for him. This herb was rare and poisonous for humans with no antidote in their science. And I knew it must be from the elders of my coven who never wanted me to fall in love with a human and ‘wanted to teach me a lesson’ as they put it. But they have no idea about the power of love, the power even greater than magic and gods itself. I would go to any extent to save him. I knew a brew that could save him but it would cost more than just my magic.
“Seren…” he whispered, blinking up at me, pupils blown wide, blood crusting at his lips.
“Shh. You’ll be okay. I’ll make sure you are okay.”
With a lot of struggle I brought us back to our inn and rushed to the hidden cabinet of our kitchen I thought I would never use. I found the pouch with herbs I needed and dug into it with shaking hands. Salt powder, dried moonsbreath, a sliver of amberglass, I mixed the decoction in my palm, whispering the old words under my breath. Only the last ingredient was left and it was not something I could find in my pouch but in my heart. To give him more years of life I have to sacrifice mine, the only cost is that it would take a toll not only on my magic but also my health. And I was ready to sacrifice it to see him living and happy even if it meant I lived a little less. It would not hurt to give some to him when all I want is to live with him until my last breath and that is what I was going to do. I slit my hand and poured drops of my blood, my health, my life, for him.
I rushed to make him drink it to save him just before he closed his eyes forever. Because he could not leave me in the middle of the road like this. But he grabbed my wrist, weak but insistent. “Will it hurt you?”
He knew every magic had a price and that was why he stopped me from using it for every small thing like I used to because in this human world I had nothing to replenish or siren power from and when I left the coven they took away my connection to healing power as well.
The truth caught in my throat, but I swallowed it. “No,” I said softly. “It’s just some medical brew. Nothing more.” I smiled through tears to make him believe. Because it was not a lie, there was nothing I do for him, could ever hurt me.
He trusted me, of course he did just like me, and drank without any hesitation. I saw the magic working through his veins, sealing and stitching the harmed parts. I felt it slicing mine too, but I blocked the screams of pain just to see his smile that always made my heart flutter. But those quiet, inevitable tears rolled down my cheeks.
At that moment I forgot that the Salt Oath was clear. To lie while casting magic was to pay in the currency of love. We would love something we love the most and I was ready to sacrifice anything I ever loved for him, he was more important than anything, even my magic. In the moment all I wanted was to have him back in my arms and dance on our porch smiling and loving.

Chapter 2
He was getting better day by day and I was working in my bakery as usual. It had been a week since he was attacked and since we had danced or smiled together. Initially I thought he just needed time to heal, but I was unaware that there was something else brewing between us.
One day when I returned I found him sitting on the stairs of our porch and I smiled thinking he would ask me to dance as always. But today his hands didn’t reach for mine, he was lost in his thoughts.
“Feeling well enough to dance my bear?” I teased, approaching him. He hated when I called him bear but I knew he secretly loved it and would always take me into his bearhugs when I called him that.
But not today. He offered a polite smile. “Maybe later. I’m tired.”
It was small, that moment. Easy excuse on health. But salt magic was slow. I hadn’t noticed that it was the start of it.
As time passed he started forgetting things, though small but they were OUR things. I thought maybe the magic was taking a toll on him and let it slide when he forgot my favourite tea. “You always ask for mint,” he said, placing the wrong cup in front of me. Blackberry and clove.
I stared into the steam and whispered “I haven’t had that since last winter.”
He looked surprised, then embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Strange. I could’ve sworn I remember that you love it.”
I didn’t correct him. What would be the point of baseless argument? He must have been tired as he had been working extra these days.


Chapter 3
As the days passed the silence between us grew louder. The porch that contained our laughter now echoed only deadly silence. It had been untouched and forgotten like the rainy days after the sun shines.
I tried to initiate once, reaching for the familiar rhythm of our evenings. “Come let’s dance,” I said lightly. “The wind is perfect tonight.”
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes as it used to. “Maybe tomorrow.” And that tomorrow never came. As he started spending more time in the village now, talking with Eira, the blacksmith’s daughter. She laughed at him every time they talked, and he seemed to echo her joy like he used to echo mine.
I didn’t interfere, denying the clear facts and giving baseless reasons like he is working hard for our future, the children we planned to have next year. But Salt magic feeds on denial and I had been becoming its bacon.
Then he began questioning things, like how we met, where I came from, my family, why our inn was so far away from the village.
“Are you sure it was me who wanted to live in solitude away from friends and family?” he asked once, genuinely puzzled.
I nodded, forcing a smile. “You said you want our time to be just ours, in the peace of winds and forest.”
He laughed, uncertain. “Doesn’t sound like something I’d do.”
That night was not the first time I wept to sleep while he didn’t even notice or move. He slept peacefully which he swore he never would if he never got to dance and cuddle with me.
I again denied thinking maybe he wanted a different life now as he started visiting the village as it did contain more opportunities for children. I even tried to cook his favorite stew the next morning, but he never looked up with joy like he used to. Never hugged me or swung me in the air and shouted that he loved me. He ate in silence and when I asked if it did not taste like before he blinked confused “Have I had this before?”
I could feel the magic unspooling beneath my skin, peeling away each thread that once tied us together. But I denied to accept it, denied to accept that I was losing him and this time not for death but for someone else.
Evenings were the worst. I would sit on the porch, waiting for him to remember. Waiting for his body to turn, to reach, to ask for one more dance. But he never did, the wind never blew to our inn, the forest never smelled pleasant, and again, it smelled like nothing.

Chapter 4
He then stopped calling me by the pet names he used to and shifted to “Seren” or “you there”. Then, he simply avoided saying anything at all. Then it started with nights to weeks he would stay in the village, labelling it as work. I knew it was something else.
But I again denied even when deep inside the cuts in my vein were screaming of the loss, but I kept denying and fed the magic.
The night I went to search for him and I found him dancing with Eira outside the tavern, something inside me cracked. The music was clumsy and loud, played by a traveling bard with a crooked flute, but Cael was laughing. Not politely or out of courtesy. He was laughing like he meant it. Like something inside him had finally been set free. He was dancing with his love, like he used to dance with ME.
I stood there, invisible in the shadow of a lantern post, watching him spin her around. His hands knew the rhythm. The same rhythm we had carved into the dust with our own feet. He had taught me that step. But now he was teaching it to her. And she was not stepping on his feet. She was more perfect than me.
When he caught my gaze, he paused, not out of guilt, not even recognition. Just polite curiosity and smiling. “Do I know you?” he asked.
I shook my head and he nodded and turned back to Eira, his wife. That was the night I packed my things, the salt bowl, the dried herbs, the couple sweaters we never wore again. I didn’t leave him a note, as there would be no memory to read or remember. But I left the inn, the plants we planted together. Hoping someone else’s love would blossom with them in the silence of the night.

Chapter 5
I took to wandering the forest. The wind was crueler there, sharper, and the silence didn’t pretend to be anything else. I found myself muttering spells without meaning to, like I used to before him, just to remember the taste of power. Without him it was all hollow now. Like chewing on bone.
One morning, I came across a girl with a twisted ankle, her goat bleating nearby. I healed her without lying. I told her it would sting, and it did. But the salt settled in my veins like forgiveness, healing a cut I once made.
That night, I lit a fire alone. I watched it burn and thought of him, how he used to curl beside me, the way he used to hum a song he no longer remembered. It was then that the truth finally took shape.
I hadn’t lied to save him, I lied to keep him even if it was just for a little longer. And in doing so, I lost him forever.
Now, I pass through towns where lovers dance and forests still smell of love and peace. I smiled, and they never asked why my eyes were always rimmed with salt.
He might live there now. In one of the mountain towns. With Eira, maybe even have children like we planned. I don’t know. I don’t check. Because, I couldn’t bear to see him look at someone the way he used to look at me.
I never wished him bad, but every night one thought always lingered in my mind, my dreams that if things would have been different, if I had not lied, if he had not taken that decoction.
That death would have been easier but this? This is worse. Because he was alive and had forgotten me like I never existed. While I… I remembered everything, every single detail, every dance, every evening, every cut of my veins reminded me of him when he is making love with someone else.


“He still breathes, and I still ache. All I wanted was a little more time with him. I never knew that saving his life would mean erasing mine from it.”