Magda’s throat constricted, her heart seized.
She thrust her dragon spear into the manticore’s temple. It jerked and twitched and then went limp.
Anqa fluttered down over the stream. A moment later, Honey appeared next to Damion.
Gur released the manticore’s throat. Magda leaned on his shoulder as she pushed up to her feet and returned to Kaelan.
She eased him over. His skin was chill, his lips violet and trembling, his eyes filming with haze.
His quaking hand groped for hers. “Magda . . .”
She clasped his hand, touching his hair lightly.
Honey dropped down next to them. “What’s happened?” she asked.
“Manticore venom,” Damion pronounced, remaining at a distance, blood drying in smears on his face.
“Is he dying?” Honey’s eyes remained as glassy blank as ever.
The bones of Magda’s chest felt as if they were turning brittle, collapsing. She bowed her head, unable to speak as Kaelan’s pain plied her empathic senses.
“It’s venom,” Damion said as if it were taking all of his strength not to strike Honey. “Deadly poison.”
“Oh.” Honey sprang up, like she was afraid venom might be catching, and dashed away.
“Unbelievable,” Damion muttered.
Kaelan’s eyes shut. The press of his emotions sank from her as his body gave up. She wanted to pull her hand away, so as not to be dragged down with him, but she couldn’t let him die alone.
His grip tightened as the poison worked on his body. Suddenly, his eyes opened wide. An explosion of pain burst through him—through her. She dropped her forehead to his, fingers clenching in his hair, growling through a scream that was his—one he couldn’t release because the poison was swelling his throat closed.
Tears burned her face. Her lungs hitched for air; unconvinced they weren’t suffocating, because he was. She wanted to break their connection, and yet, couldn’t.
From somewhere in his mind, deep beneath the turmoil of pain and confusion and frustration drowning him, she heard him call her name, pleading, as his body began to convulse.
But she couldn’t reply. She didn’t know how. She wanted to give him comfort, but didn’t have any to offer. Fury and guilt kept flaring up, preventing her.
Why hadn’t he listened to her and fled? Why hadn’t she kept up her training all these years? She would’ve been faster, deadlier, she could’ve done something. Sheshould’vedone something. Why couldn’t she do anything?
Although she had lost many people in her life—her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, even a boy who was meant to be her Prince—she had never experienced their deaths with them in a telepathic way.
Never had the pain torn through her as it was now, the oxygen fled. The frantic helplessness of his body losing its battle overwhelmed her. The cascade of his emotions, intense and clear and yet a tempest—so much fear and anger and regret—hurt all the more because they were ebbing away. He was ebbing away. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.
He was falling and she was plunging after him, trying to catch hold, and failing
His free hand groped at her, digging into the thin skin above her breasts. His eyes were open and clear, even as the blood vessels in them burst.
A jolt passed through her, from his fingers into her chest. The forest around them disappeared.
His inner storm ceased, as though they’d come into the eye of it.
Free-fall stopped and she drifted, weightless, quiet, lost in some silent space that existed only between the two of them.
In that dream-like place, Kaelan appeared before her. His hand pressed to her chest.
“I wish we could fly one more time,” he said with a smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said, clutching at his hand with both of hers.
