My right arm lights up with agony, a searing wall of flame sweeping over my skin as I double over.
Help me.
But it’s not me. And somehow my panic only grows as I grab for Eres’s hand, trying to make him understand.
Help him.
Gasping, I lift my head. “Darian.”
Eres steadies me as I pull myself to my feet, trying to breathe through the fire in my arm. “Is it the Binding? What’s wrong?”
I push myself free on unsteady feet, lurching toward the door with Eres on my heels, demanding answers. “I don’tknow.”
But something is. Something is badly wrong, and every sense I have is screaming for me to hurry.
“His chambers—”
Shaking my head, I shove the door open and take off. My bare feet slap against the floor as I race down the hallway.
Right, and right again. Down the steps we used to race down. Through the hall where my father’s office once stood, where we’d wait outside to be scolded for whatever prank we’d thought up that day. A few moments later, Eres catches up, his belt in his hands as he follows. “You can sense him? Is he hurt?”
“I don’t know.” Sweat sticks to my back. “He’s in pain.”
He’s been in pain formonths. Months, and I left him alone with it. I abandoned him to their derision and scorn, forever tied him to me with a Binding and cut him loose to drown under the weight of guilt he should never have had to carry.
“There was an incident today,” Eres breathes as we head toward the great hall. “In the medical bay. One of the soldiers called him a traitor, and I threw them out. If something happened—”
No.
He can defend himself. Better than anyone else beneath this roof.
But would he try?
The tall, thick entry doors crash open against the walls before we reach them, my erevas already pulling back into my palms as we race through and into the courtyard.
“Where?” Eres asks urgently.
It’s hard to breathe beneath the pain.Darian’spain, and the panic that thought invokes makes it even worse. Slamming my palms into my eyes, I force myself to calm, to concentrate.
My head jerks up. “It’sher.”
My feet move without thought. The door that leads down to the cells rips from its hinges with the force of my anger, tossed aside as I race down the steps. “Darian!”
If she’s hurt him, I will kill her.
Erevan, please, let him be alright—
His breathing fills the corridor. Harsh, and noisy, wetness rasping deep within his chest as I collapse down beside him, my hands tilting up his face. “Dare. Look at me.”
He doesn’t respond. Black eyes, void of light and life and everything that makes up him, stare out sightlessly. “Fuck—fuck, he’s walking.Eres!”
“I’m here.” He drops down on Darian’s other side, his hands already digging. “What was he thinking, walking without anyone with him?”
“Come on.” I shake him roughly. “Wake up.”
But his back arches, and my hands shift in panic, moving over him. “What’s happening?”
Oh, gods. He chokes once, and then again, and I stare down in horror at the foam that spills from his lips. The veins in his neck bulge as he arches once more, and then he stills.
