Cut me

Part of the heartbreaking  Goodbye in Dragonfly in Amber– Other Parts from this Passage cant be found here: Cease to exist, Longer than that and Once more

The whole Scene:
I had thought I could not sleep, but the pull of exhaus­tion was too much, and I slipped beneath the sur­face with scarce­ly a rip­ple. Near dawn I woke, Jamie’s arms still around me, and lay watch­ing the imper­cep­ti­ble bloom of night into day, futile­ly will­ing back the friend­ly shel­ter of the dark.I rolled to the side and lift­ed myself to watch him, to see the light touch the bold shape of his face, inno­cent in sleep, to see the dawn­ing sun touch his hair with flame—for the last time.A wave of anguish broke through me, so acute that I must have made some sound, for he opened his eyes. He smiled when he saw me, and his eyes searched my face. I knew that he was mem­o­riz­ing my fea­tures, as I was his.“Jamie,” I said. My voice was hoarse with sleep and swal­lowed tears. “Jamie. I want you to mark me.”“What?” he said, startled.The tiny sgian dhu he car­ried in his stock­ing was lying with­in reach, its han­dle of carved staghorn dark against the piled cloth­ing. I reached for it and hand­ed it to him.“Cut me,” I said urgent­ly. “Deep enough to leave a scar. I want to take away your touch with me, to have some­thing of you that will stay with me always. I don’t care if it hurts; noth­ing could hurt more than leav­ing you. At least when I touch it, wher­ev­er I am, I can feel your touch on me.”His hand was over mine where it rest­ed on the knife’s hilt. After a moment, he squeezed it and nod­ded. He hes­i­tat­ed for a moment, the razor-sharp blade in his hand, and I offered him my right hand. It was warm beneath our cov­er­ings, but his breath came in wisps, vis­i­ble in the cold air of the room.He turned my palm upward, exam­in­ing it care­ful­ly, then raised it to his lips. A soft kiss in the well of the palm, then he seized the base of my thumb in a hard, suck­ing bite. Let­ting go, he swift­ly cut into the numbed flesh. I felt no more than a mild burn­ing sen­sa­tion, but the blood welled at once. He brought the hand quick­ly to his mouth again, hold­ing it there until the flow of blood slowed. He bound the wound, now sting­ing, care­ful­ly in a hand­ker­chief, but not before I saw that the cut was in the shape of a small, slight­ly crooked let­ter “J.”I looked up to see that he was hold­ing out the tiny knife to me. I took it, and some­what hes­i­tant­ly, took the hand he offered me.He closed his eyes briefly, and set his lips, but a small grunt of pain escaped him as I pressed the tip of the knife into the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb. The Mount of Venus, a palm-read­er had told me; indi­ca­tor of pas­sion and love.It was only as I com­plet­ed the small semi­cir­cu­lar cut that I real­ized he had giv­en me his left hand.“I should have tak­en the oth­er,” I said. “Your sword hilt will press on it.” He smiled faintly.“I could ask no more than to feel your touch on me in my last fight—wherever it comes.”Unwrapping the blood-spot­ted hand­ker­chief, I pressed my wound­ed hand tight­ly against his, fin­gers gripped togeth­er. The blood was warm and slick, not yet sticky between our hands.“Blood of my Blood…” I whispered.

“…and Bone of my Bone,” he answered soft­ly. Nei­ther of us could fin­ish the vow, “so long as we both shall live,” but the unspo­ken words hung aching between us. Final­ly he smiled crookedly.“Longer than that,” he said firm­ly, and pulled me to him once more.

All rights for the Pic­ture go to the right­ful owner Starz 
Quote and Excerpt by Diana Gabal­don from “Dra­gon­fly in Amber“
I own not­hing but the editing