Discord moves.
I don't see him cross the room. One second he's in the doorway and the next Kairis is flying backward, hitting the wall so hard the plaster caves in around his body. The god follows without pausing, blade already swinging, and there's a sound—wet, final—and then another, and another.
I close my eyes. Open them.
Kairis is on the ground. Not moving. Red spreading beneath him in a pool that creeps toward my fingers, and there's a lot of it, more than I expected, more than seems possible from one body.
Discord is crouched beside me. When did he—I didn't see him move, didn't hear anything over my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. His face is close, those white eyes filling my vision, and his hands are reaching for me and I should flinch, I should be afraid, I should—
"Iowyn." His voice comes out rough and wrong. Like he's the one who's been screaming.
Great. Another god who knows my name. My life just keeps improving.
I try to say something but my mouth moves and nothing comes out, just air, just this pathetic wheeze that doesn't sound like me at all.
His hands slide under me—careful, too careful, and that's wrong, that doesn't fit anywhere in my understanding of how this works. "Renan. Clear the east corridor. Everyone else is already dead."
"On it." Different voice, dry and familiar from somewhere I can't place. "Medical?"
"My rooms. No one else touches her."
And then I'm off the ground, my body folding against his chest without permission, and everything hurts so much I can't tell what's broken anymore. His heartbeat is loud against my ear—steady, real, this constant rhythm that doesn't match the chaos around us.
He came for me.
Stupid thought. Dangerous thought. Men don't come for girls like me, and gods definitely don't tear through estates for tributes worth less than the carpet I was bleeding on. There's an angle here. A reason. Something I'm not seeing because my brain is too busy trying not to die to figure out what I'm being used for now.
My vision blurs. Clears. Blurs again.
"Stay awake." His voice vibrates through his chest and into my skull, this low rumble I feel more than hear. "Iowyn. Stay with me."
I want to tell him I'm trying. I want to tell him to stop saying my name in that voice, the one that sounds like it matters, because I can't afford to believe it. I want to ask what he gets out of this.
He says something else. Low and soft, a word I don't recognize.
Órhal.
It catches in his throat—rough, pulled from somewhere deep, somewhere he doesn't let people see. I don't know what it means but my chest does this stupid flutter that has no business existing right now.
Stop it. Whatever this is, stop it.
The corridor tilts around us. Smoke and distant shouting, getting farther away with every step he takes. His arms tighten around me and the pain spikes white-hot behind my eyes and I'm—
Dark.
Light.
His face above me, still moving, still holding me like—
No. Don't finish that thought.
"—through the tunnels, double back if—"
"—stay awake, I need you to—"
The words fragment and scatter, pieces I can't hold onto no matter how hard I try. I'm dissolving, held together only by his hands and the steady drum of his heartbeat and the impossible fact of someone coming for me.
He came for me.
