I’m a child again,small and frail, fever ravaging my body. Everything is hot and blurred, and I can’t move. I’m delirious, lost in the fog of sickness, when I hear voices—murmurs of concern.
“Where are they?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. But no one answers.
When I wake, the fever is gone, but so is everything else.
My parents… dead.
A hollow ache settles in my chest. An abject emptiness thatnothing can fill. The magic that had once been a part of me has now been stripped away.
I feel like nothing—like a shadow of who I was supposed to be, someone I never had a chance to become.
The grief floods me again, and I feel like that child once more—lost, scared, helpless.
“Eira,”Rylan whispers. “I’m right here. You’re safe, my sweet Valora. Just sleep.”
His words wrap around me like a blanket, pulling me from the nightmares, from the pain. I want to open my eyes, to see him, but I’m too tired. The pull of sleep is too strong, and for the first time in what feels like forever, I let it take me.
The darkness closes in again, but this time it’s peaceful. The pain fades, the fear recedes.
And finally, I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.
FORTY-THREE
Rylan
At its worst,hope is the cruelest kind of torment, a brutal, single-edged knife that cuts more deeply with every unfulfilled promise and unmet expectation. Or so it appears when the sun rises on the second day of me sitting vigil by the bed, hands clasped, whispering prayers and making threats to the gods, as I stare at Eira, willing her to keep taking one more breath.
Her skin is so pale, ghostly, and her face… it doesn’t look like her without that stubborn smile she always throws my way when she’s winning an argument. She’s still. Too still. Her chest rising and falling so faintly, I can barely tell if she’s breathing.
And so I sit, biting scars into my lips, trying to calm the storm inside me. My thoughts race back to when I took her from her village all those months ago. I thought I was saving her, protecting her from a life of danger shecouldn’t see coming. Now I wonder if I’ve made the worst mistake of my life. All the training, all the tests, all the risks I’ve asked her to take—maybe I’m the one who put her in harm’s way. She wouldn’t be here, fighting for her life, if it weren’t for me.
The thought cuts deeper than I can admit. I grip the edges of my chair, the helplessness gnawing at me.
A knock at the door interrupts my self-loathing. “Fuck off.”
“It’s me, and you should know better than to think I’m scared of you, prince,” comes a voice from the other side.
Astoris.
I take a breath, frustration flaring. I cross the room in two strides and yank open the door. Astoris stands there, his usual smirk absent as his eyes shift to Eira, lying motionless on the bed. For once, he’s not joking, not teasing.
“Halmor is the best,” Astoris says softly, his tone calm. “You know that. Remember where you stole him from, after all.”
I grit my teeth, unable to shake the fear clawing at my chest. “I’ll believe that when she wakes up, calls me a grumpy prick, and tells me she’s fine.”
Astoris chuckles, though it’s low, softer than usual. “You ready to admit your feelings yet?”
“What are you talking about?” I snap, trying to deflect the weight of his question.
He crosses his arms, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll take that as a yes. Or should I say, bringing her here is all the proof I need?”
I clench my fists. “I had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Astoris counters. “And you chose this. Don’t get me wrong, I would’ve done the same. But don’t pretend it’s not what it is.”
Before I can respond, a soft murmur comes from the bed. My heart leaps into my throat, and I turn, rushing to Eira’s side. Her eyelids flutter, and she shifts slightly, groaning.
“Eira?” I whisper, leaningcloser.
