“Hover less.”
“I cannot.”
Lena sighed. “If you’re not going to stop hovering, then talk. Help me understand what’s happening.”
She wanted answers I could not give her.
“I have nothing to offer you.”
She wanted the truth, but telling her would only burden her. She was human. This problem was older than her bloodline, older than her country. Older than the foundations beneath our feet.
I stepped closer to the bed, staring down at Nadia’s pale face. Her lashes were dark against her pale cheeks, her breathing shallow but steady.
My emotions waged a war inside me, each one vying to take up a bigger part of me. Rage, helplessness, guilt, fear, something close to grief.
Nadia murmured something unintelligible in her sleep, and my heart fractured.
Lena placed a steady hand over Nadia’s wrist. “She’ll be okay. She just needs rest.”
But I knew better.
Rest would not save her.
Only I could.
Nadia’s lashes fluttered. A small sound left her throat—weak, confused, unbearably human.
Then her eyes opened.
She blinked up at me, dazed. “What… what happened?”
I forced my jaw to unclench, and when I spoke, my voice came out lower than intended. “You passed out.”
She pushed herself halfway upright before I could stop her. “I did? That’s weird.” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “I’ve been feeling strange lately. Kind of like when I caught the flu from one of my students last winter. Maybe I’m coming down with something.”
I looked away, the words scraping in my throat. “Perhaps.”
She frowned. “I should call my doctor. Get checked out. Make sure I’m not dying of something stupid, like adult-onset plague. Will you come with me?”
“Yes.” My answer was immediate. Too sharp. Too revealing. “Of course.”
If I stayed beside her another second, I would shatter something—my composure, the wall between truth and what she could survive, perhaps the room itself.
So I stood up, turned around, and walked away.
Her voice followed me, thin with confusion. “Cristian? What’s wrong?”
I did not trust myself to speak. I kept moving.
“Cristian.” Her voice was stronger this time. Commanding. “Stop. Tell me.”
I stopped, but I did not turn to look at her. The truth clawed at my tongue, desperate to be freed. I want to tell her the bond was doing this to her, that every second she stayed tied to me, she slipped closer toward something irreversible.
But telling her would carve a new terror into her chest. She was already fraying; I would not cut the last thread myself.
So instead, I said something far worse. “You were safer before I woke.”
The silence that rang through the room was the same silence that descended at the end of a battle when the steel of swords stopped ringing. Her breath caught, as if I had wounded her, and it cleaved through me with surgical precision.
