He’d always been lost among piles of bandages and blankets during my former visits, the low lighting hiding the worst of his condition. But now he was sitting up, his gaunt face fully on display. The curtains over the nearby window were drawn back, the late afternoon sun shining brightly over his emaciated body.
Gone was the handsome, always laughing young man I’d come to know. There were tired lines around his eyes, his mouth. His skin was pale. His muscular frame was alarmingly thin, distorting the tattoos that covered his arms. Among those inked designs, I found myself searching for a circle with a crescent curving away from either side of it—the mark of the Light Vaelora.
I was relieved to see that mark had disappeared along with Lorien’s claim on Zayn’s body. I used my magic to briefly study the energy his body gave off, too, making certain it wasn’t Lorien’s.
Nothing was visible, at least. But I would have been a fool to think Lorien hadn’t left any lingering effects on his former vessel—even if I could no longer see them—so I still approached with caution.
Zayn’s warm brown eyes were unfocused, staring in the direction of the nurse who had moved to the foot of his bed, yet clearly past her, even though nothing was beyond her except a blank wall.
I swallowed away the lump in my throat. “Zayn Caldor, Lord of the North Reaches.”
His eyes continued to stare at nothing, but his mouth curved in a way that made him look a bit more like the man I remembered. “So formal,” he chuckled, “even after all we’ve been through.”
I pulled a chair up to his bedside, forcing myself to sit calmly in it despite the anxiety raging through my insides. “…Do you actuallyrememberwhat we’ve been through?”
“You might have to fill me in on the finer details.” He still didn’t look at me as he spoke. “And feel free to skip over the more gruesome parts.”
“That would leave little story to tell.”
“Yes.” He stretched, wincing as he did. “I was afraid of that.”
The sound of a metal cup hitting the ground startled me; the nurse at the end of the bed picked it up only to nearly drop it again.
“Leave us,” I commanded.
She looked only too happy to do so, curtsying before joining the two maids now hovering by the door. Those two grabbed for her as if snatching her from the depths of hell itself. With one last distressed look in our direction, they hurried away, the sound of their whispering voices echoing long after they were out of sight.
“Skittish things, aren’t they?” Zayn commented.
“In their defense, they’ve just witnessed a man essentially come back from the dead. A man who was recently possessed by a horrible demon, at that.”
“And yet,youdon’t seem fazed by it.”
I shrugged. “I’ve never feared death. It comes more naturally to me than life.”
“That much I do seem to recall.”
“Whatelsedo you recall, though?”
He was silent for a long time.
“Zayn?”
He sat up more fully, wincing again even with his slow, gentle movements. But whatever pain he was in, he pushed through it, remaining upright. “I do have one very clear memory. One that’s played over and over while I’ve tried to sleep.”
I waited patiently, despite wanting to grab him and shake him until all the answers I was desperate for fell out.
“A vision…” he began slowly, squinting in thought, “of a crumbling palace. And a bridge leading away from it. Swords…two swords in a door. That’s all clear enough, but then it gets very loud, very chaotic, and there’s pain. You’re there, sometimes. A shadow in the corner of my vision. Aleks, too—a brighter force directly in front of me. Then I see a knife plunging into his chest, and he disappears. I never get a clear image of it, but several times I’ve woken up with a strange weight in my hands, as though I was the one holding the blade.”
I clenched the cushion beneath me, steadying myself.
“Maybe just a nightmare, though,” he said, almost hopefully.
“No.” I swallowed hard. “That is… What you’ve described is what happened in Midna, in a way. You didn’t stab anyone, though. It wasn’t really a knife, and it wasn’t your fault. But Aleks…”
He tilted his face toward me.
I couldn’t bring myself to finish my sentence.
