Eres’s hands land on my face. “She’s exhausted. She wasalreadyexhausted.”
Silence. And then Valcor speaks. “Will she be all right?”
I blink, slowly. My vision blurs at the edges. “Did it—” I swallow, my throat thick and sticking together. “Check her. Did itwork?”
Eres pulls his fingers away. Kaelen shifts beneath me, until my body is laying down.
Oh. He’s…holdingme.
“She’s stable,” Eres whispers. He appears in my line of sight, his beam close to splitting his face in two. “You did it, Lyra. She’s completely stable.”
“She’ll live?” Elspeth’s voice cracks.
The words hit the room like a bell. Darian makes a sound that’s half sob, half laugh, and I feel his lips on my forehead. “Impossible.”
“And now she needs to rest.” Eres checks my eyes, his voice firm. “Lyra?”
“I’m fine.” Just tired. I’m so, sotired.
Kaelen’s arms tighten. “I’ll take her back to my room to rest and stay with her. Stay with Sera. I’ll call you if there’s anything.”
Eres wavers, his eyes flicking between me and over his shoulder.
“Go,” I urge him with a croak. “We don’t know if it will hold.”
It will, I think. It felt solid, each strand of luminth I wove inside her body seemingly unbreakable. But we don’tknow.Finally, he nods. His lips press against my forehead. “Kaelen will get me if you need anything.”
I rest my head against Kaelen's chest, too weary to move it, but my thoughts whirr with an energy that can’t be contained as the door closes behind us. He’s holding me so gently. Almost… hesitant. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“Neither have I.” My eyelashes flutter with the effort of keeping my eyes open.
I was always told I was made for destruction. That I wasn’t capable of anything else. I came here to kill him, to tear them apart from the inside out.
But they don't feel like my enemy. Kaelen doesn't feel like my enemy. Even in his anger and suspicion, he treated me better than my own family ever did. And he still doesn’t know the truth.
“Almost there, witch.”
Witch.
There’s no malice behind the word anymore.He thinks that he knows who I am. But he doesn’t know everything.
I have to tell him.
My eyes close. I’m certain he thinks I’m sleeping as he hesitates again at the door to his rooms, twisting the handle quietly and backing inside. Every touch I’ve ever received was with the intention of pushing me harder. Rarely did it come without pain. Being held by him… it feels as if nothing could get through, and I don’t want it to stop.
My eyes open as he walks across the room, heading for the bed. “No.”
He stops immediately. “What do you need?”
Nobody ever asked me what I needed, either. I breathe him in, the scent of his soap that I wear in my own skin. “Keep hold of me, wielder. Just for a minute."
I want to make the most of this feeling. Because I know that I’m going to tell him the truth of my birth. And when I do, I might never get this feeling again.
Kaelen
Her eyes are closed as I stare down at her. There’s faint bruising beneath her eyes that reminds me of Darian. She’s not getting enough sleep here.
Keep hold of me, wielder.
