I wake to the shuddering breaths and soft weeping coming from Saipha’s cage. The room is still devoid of light. I roll onto my side, staring at where I know she is.
Be it fear or exhaustion, I don’t call out to her immediately. And I hate myself instantly for it. I can’t let them win—let them take me from the people who matter most to me. Let them take my heart and soul and crush it with their fists and unending assault.
“Saipha.” My voice is little more than a croak, weak and thin. I don’t sound like myself. I try and clear my throat. It does little good for the overall quality, but I manage, louder, “Saipha.”
The whimpering pauses. “Isola?”
“Yes. I’m here.” Wishing every second that I could be closer, that I could hold my friend’s hand.
“How do I know it’s you?”
I ache at the question, knowing exactly where it has come from. Exactly how her hallucinations tortured her. There’s even a part of me that doubts in this eternal darkness that this moment is real. “It’s me.”
“How can I know?” she repeats, a little more frantic.
“Even… Even if it’s not me. Even if this isn’t real. There’s a piece of me, then, in you trying to help. There’s an Isola alive in your mind trying to defend you.”
She lets out a groan that devolves into whimpering and then muffled tears. “I can’t do this any longer.”
“Yes, you can,” I insist. “You’re not going to let them win. Because you’re going to be invited to Mercy, with me, and then you and I are going to patrol the wall together.”
“We’re all going together,” Lucan chimes in. His voice is gravelly from screaming. “We’re going to show them that we’re not dragons—we’re what the dragons should fear.”
I reach my hand through the bars of the cage, even though I know that they’re too far to touch. I imagine them reaching back out to me. I haven’t heard them move, but in my mind’s eye, their fingertips are just beyond my reach.
“It’s so cold,” Saipha murmurs. She doesn’t sound fearful anymore. Merely tired. Somehow, it’s worse than the alternative.
Her body is going into shock. Or her mind is retreating from reality. Either way…I can’t let her leave.
“Think about the wall, Saipha. Think about walking the ramparts with me,” I instruct.
“Is it warm there?” The question is so small.
“I’m sure it is. It’s the highest place in Vinguard, never any shade at all.”
“That sounds…nice…”
I think I can hear her teeth chattering between her words. “It will be one of the many things we do together. So you must endure, okay?”
There’s no response.
“Saipha?”
A long pause that I hold my breath for. Finally, “Yes?”
“Promise me you’ll endure?”
“Are you still with me?” she asks.
“Always,” I say.
“Will you always stay with me?”
“I will never leave your side,” I vow.
“Then I promise.”
…
