Forcing myself to breathe, I released Quinn enough to stand on her own. My hands felt wrong without her weight in them, but she stayed close, her fingers curled tight in my cloak. That one small point of contact was the only thing keeping me upright.
I gaped at Branrir. “Where did you learn to fight?”
He shrugged, unbothered. “Army service. Briefly. And…I may have memorized a few hundred volumes of military strategy and torture manuals. For context, not practice.”
“Remind me never to piss you off.”
“Sound advice,” Vesper said dryly, as he strutted past a corpse.
Thistle’s gaze swept over us, sharp and searching. “Are either of you hurt?”
Quinn tried to answer, but her voice cracked. She swallowed, nodded, then gave up. I answered for us, my own words rough. “We’re fine.”
But we weren’t. Not really.
Her hand tightened suddenly, clutching my sleeve like a lifeline.
I looked down, and my stomach dropped.
Blood coated her fingers.
“Quinn?” My voice came out ragged. “What happened?”
She stared at her hands, brows drawn. “It is not mine.” Her head lifted, her eyes wide and stricken. “It is yours.”
I frowned, ready to argue.
Then the pain hit. It slammed into me beneath my ribs, low and vicious. A white-hot burn twisted deep. My body had been lying to me, holding the damage at bay until the fight ended. My knees buckled. I staggered half a step, clutching my side. My palm came away hot and slick.
“Shit,” I hissed.
“Mav?” Quinn’s voice sharpened, panic slicing through the exhaustion.
Thistle was at my side in an instant, her hand glowing green. “Sit. Down. Now.”
Pride kept me standing. I couldn’t fall with Quinn looking at me like the world was being ripped out from under her. Except my body didn’t care about pride. The forest spun, tilting in a nauseating lurch. My vision blurred. Somewhere, Quinn said my name again—high, ragged—but her voice bent strangely at the edges, sound warping underwater.
The tether seized, not the soft, steady hum I’d grown used to. This was violent. A jolt of magic ripped through me, driving a spike of lightning through my chest. My lungs spasmed as my spine arched. Quinn’s fear poured into me through our bond while my pain crashed back into her. We were caught in a loop, each of us amplifying the other, until it threatened to split my ribcage.
It was all too much.
I gasped, choking on air that wouldn’t come. My knees hit the moss. The tether pulled tighter and tighter, a strangling thread wrapping our souls together.
Her voice cut through, my name as a command. “Mav.”
I forced my eyes open. Through the haze, I saw her crouched before me, curls tumbling loose, cheeks streaked with dirt and desperation. Her hands cupped my face. It may have been a side effect of the blood loss, but I could’ve sworn her skin shimmered silver, glittering moonlight on the surface of a lake.
“Mav, stay,” she begged, her breath hitching. “Stay withme.”
Her fear hit me again, raw and unguarded, but beneath it was something deeper. Fiercer. It wrapped around my fading consciousness like armor, like an oath. I tried to answer. I think I did. My mouth formed her name, though I couldn’t hear it over the deafening pulse in my ears. The last thing I saw before the world went black was her terrified, beautiful face.
Please, Saints—don’t let this be the last time I see her.
Then—
Nothing.
16
