73
AERIN
It takes Aerin and her ringing ears a minute to understand what happened. Her body is up against the mirror, over the top of the counter, Malice’s on top of her. There’s water falling from the ceiling but heat from somewhere else, and the only sound is ringing.
Fuck, her ears won’t stop ringing.
It takes Aerin another minute to understand that the entire building beyond them is blown to bits. That there is a tang of blood in the air. That Malice’s body over hers isn’t stirring. That there’s pain in her palm and when she lifts it, her vision focuses enough for her to see a piece of glass going straight through her hand.
Aerin looks beyond the room she’s in and more devastation becomes clear. She realizes she can see right out of the formal hall to the ocean beyond. Everything that stood between her and the outside: the hallway, the pillars, the grand room where the dinner had just been, is allgone.
Her brain seems to stutter on that fact. Not really understanding what itmeans. She’s frozen another minute before Malice groans on top of her. She shakes him with herunmaimed hand, Aerin feels unable to speak. Malice groans again, lifting his head. Maybe it’s seeing her coated in a layer of dust or maybe it’s seeing the shattered mirror, or what lies in the mirror’s broken reflection, but Malice is immediately pushing off her, stumbling to his feet.
“Mal—It’s… they’re…” Aerin stumbles on her words, looking out in horror. Blood and debris is all she can see.
“Aerin, are you hurt?” Worry threads his voice.
“The formal hall…” Aerin mumbles, still looking past him. Her brain is still struggling to process what the hell just happened. It’s gone. The whole building is gone.
Malice steps into her line of sight, snatching her focus away from the destruction. He raises his arms to appraise her and its then Aerin sees it. The way his left wing is hanging, limp to the ground, touching the floor in a way it never,ever,does. The thin membrane is torn in multiple places, allowing Aerin to seethroughit. Blood runs down it in rivulets, dripping onto the dusty, destroyed floor below them.
“Aerin!” He’s pleading with her. She can barely speak and he—he’s—oh Gods, he’s bleeding so much.
This is finally what snaps Aerin out of her stupefied state. Not the heat of the flames licking at the remains of the building. Not the pain in her hand. It’s the coppery tang of all the blood he’s losing from the scraps of the tattered wing. Hiswing.
“I’m fine,” Aerin finally gets out, her eyes meeting his desperate blue ones. “I’m fine. Mal, I’m fine.” Aerin rips the glass out of her palm, wincing as she does. She lets it clatter to the floor. “See?” Aerin says, holding up the hand that now looks whole. The wound isn’t life threatening, but still, with it out of sight, he won’t worry about it as much. Not when they have much bigger things to worry about.
“You don’t have healing magic.” Malice takes her hand gingerly, examining it himself. Aerin pulls it away.
“I will be fine,” she amends. “Malice,” she gestures, “your wing.” Her voice all but breaks, even though he hardly spares a glance over his shoulder.
“We need to get you to safety.”
Aerin ignores him, using her hands to direct magic. She carefully spools a golden twine around his wing, creating a sling to hold it up off the ground and close to his body.
“Save your magic,” he warns her.
As the urge to hit him resurfaces, Aerin almost laughs at the absurdity of it.
“I’ll use my magic however I damn-well please,” she says, finishing her work. He groans in pain when the wing is jostled as it’s secured.
Malice looks around them, then back to Aerin. His blue eyes meet her golden ones. His fear bleeds down the blood-bond. Aerin thinks he must realize something she doesn’t. They’re fine, right? A little beat up, but if she can get him out of here and to a healer, he’ll be fine. Hell, Reyna could probably fix him and?—
Khortland.
Bruin. Cisera. Her parents.
“Oh Gods,” Aerin says, shoving herself off the busted countertop. She almost falls but Malice manages to right her, only for Aerin to push away from him, scrambling over debris.
“Aerin, I need to get you out of here!” Malice calls after her.
Aerin doesn’t slow. She runs over busted marble flooring, hurdling chunks of unrecognizable rock. Her dress catches and tears, but she keeps going. Down the wreckage of the hall and back into the room that is no longer a room. A room where blood and body parts are everywhere. A room where there is no grand table or candles or flowers or dinnerware. A room where just minutes ago, her family and her Paramyr had been. Where now there is only carnage.
74
MALICE
Malice scrambles after Aerin, slower than he should be with his wing injury taking him off balance. The pain is excruciating if he thinks about it. He doesn’t. He shoves it behind a door. There are more important things to think about right now. Like Aerin.
