“When they stood together,” he continues, voice dropping, “I saw proof that Lyria’s sacrifice meant something. That herbrother survived. That her bloodline continued.” He pauses. “And I felt like I was drowning.”
My chest tightens. “Because you loved her.”
“Because I failed her.”
The words land heavily.
I turn to look at him fully. His profile sharp against the mountain light. Beautiful in that devastating way that makes my throat tighten. “How did you fail her?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then: “She died. I could not save her.”
Wait.
“But you saved me.” The words come out before I can stop them. “You brought me back. You—” I gesture vaguely at my chest, at the bond humming between us. “You literally refused to let me die. So why couldn’t you save her?”
His hands curl into fists against the concrete. “Because what killed her was not injury. It was corruption.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Dark magic.” He finally turns to face me. Eyes burning with something I can’t quite name. Pain. Grief. Something rawer. “Vaelric—the dragon who sought to steal the Heartstone—he struck Lyria with dark magic. It unmade her from the inside. Took her life.”
Oh.
Oh fuck.
“I tried,” he continues. Voice rough now. Stripped of the careful control. “I poured everything I had into her. Every spark. Every ember. Burned myself hollow trying to anchor her the way I—” He stops. Swallows hard. “The way I anchored you.”
The way he anchored me.
The comparison is glaring.
“But it didn’t work,” I say quietly. Not a question.
“No. Your injuries were physical. Mortal wounds that fire understands—broken bones, torn flesh, blood loss. I could heal that. Could command your body to knit itself back together.” He pauses. “But dark magic is not injury. It is entropy. Dissolution. By the time I understood what was happening to Lyria, the magic had already consumed too much. She was already—” His voice breaks. Just slightly. Just enough. “She died in my arms. And I could do nothing but hold her while the Vaelric’s evil finished its work.”
My throat closes.
I want to reach for him. Want to offer comfort. But I don’t know if touching him right now would help or hurt.
“I’m sorry,” I manage. “That’s… I can’t imagine.”
“No.” He looks at me intently. Like he’s seeing through skin to something underneath. “You asked me once. In the mountains. Why I saved you.”
I remember. The question that’s been sitting in my chest since the helicopter. Since he pulled me from wreckage and refused to let me die.
“The answer,” he says, “is that your injuries were within my power to heal. And I had just woken. My power was raw. Unfiltered. I poured it into you before I understood what I was doing. Before memory could tell me all the ways it might fail.”
Before he could remember Lyria.
Before he could remember that sometimes saving someone isn’t enough.
“So you acted on instinct,” I say.
“Yes.”
“And now? Now that you remember?”
His eyes hold mine. “Now I know how fragile this is. How the bond I created in desperation is the only thing keeping you alive.”
