Steam rises from my scales where her electricity dances across my skin. My hydrokinesis churns without my permission, reaching for her heat like a drowning man reaches for air. The bond wraps around something deep in my chest andpulls, and Ifeel her pulse like it’s my own, feel her pain like it’s written in my bones.
No.
The denial surges up from somewhere primal. Not her. Not a Sky-dweller. Not the
enemy.
But the bond doesn’t care about politics. Doesn’t care about the blockade, or Caspian’s war, or the generations of isolation that separate our peoples. It sees her—golden and fierce and burning with a light that calls to something dark and deep in me—and itwants.
Gods help me, so do I.
“What—” Her voice shakes, amber eyes wide with shock. “What was that?”
I can’t answer. Can barely breathe. My scales are still tingling where her lightning touched them, and every instinct I have is screaming at me to close the distance between us, to touch her again, to see if the bond will settle into something less catastrophic or if it will simply consume us both.
I force myself to step back instead.
Think like a Sentinel,I tell myself.She’s an intruder. A prisoner. Act like it.
I move to the back of the cave where I keep emergency supplies—rope, dried fish, medicinal herbs. My hands are steadier than they have any right to be as I pull out a length of enchanted kelp-rope, the kind we use on dangerous prisoners. It dampens magic, prevents escape.
It also means touching her again.
I grit my teeth and return to where she’s still half-collapsed against the stone floor, watching me with those storm-lit eyes. The bond hums at her proximity, a low vibration in my chest that makes me want to do deeply inadvisable things.
“Your wrists,” I say, and my voice comes out rougher than I intend.
She stares at me. “You’re... you’re binding me? After what just?—”
“You’re an intruder in Deep Runner territory.” I force the words out like they’re stones. “Whatever else just happened, that hasn’t changed. Wrists. Now.”
Something flashes in her expression—hurt? anger?—but she holds out her hands. The movement makes her gasp, her right arm trembling. Her shoulder. I set the bone while she was unconscious, but it needs proper splinting, proper healing. The break was bad.
I bind her wrists as quickly as I can, trying not to notice the warmth of her skin, the way sparks still dance at her fingertips even through the magic-dampening rope. The bond sings at every point of contact, and I have to physically stop myself from smoothing my thumb across her pulse point.
Focus.
“Your wing—shoulder,” I correct myself. “It needs to be splinted properly or it won’t heal right.”
“So concerned for your prisoner’s wellbeing.” Her voice drips with something that might be sarcasm or might be pain.
“A prisoner who can’t travel is a prisoner who has to be carried. I’d rather not.”
It’s a lie. The bond is already screaming at me to gather her up, to protect her, to make the pain stop. But I can’t let her know that. Can’t letmyselfknow that.
I find driftwood among my supplies—smooth pieces I’ve collected for fire-starting—and tear strips from my own shirtfor bindings. The splinting requires getting close, requires my hands on her shoulder, her arm, the delicate place where wing-bones would emerge if she shifted.
She doesn’t cry out. Doesn’t whimper. Just grits her teeth and breathes through her nose, her bound hands clenched into fists in her lap. I can feel her pain through the bond—sharp and throbbing and nauseating—and she doesn’t make a sound.
I try not to admire her for it. I fail.
“There.” I tie off the last binding and sit back. “It’s rough, but it should hold until we can get you to a proper healer.”
“We?” She looks up sharply. “You’re taking me somewhere?”
The question hangs between us, and I realize I’ve already made a decision I haven’t consciously acknowledged.
“Tell me about yourself.”I settle against the opposite wall, putting as much distance between us as the small cave allows. “Why did you come here? What did you hope to accomplish?”
