The water is boiling around me and I’m screaming now—I can hear the sound tearing out of my throat but it doesn’t feel like it’s coming from me. The heat isn’t stopping. It’s building. Climbing. Racing toward something I can’t see.
Pain surges in my wrist worse than anything else.
I lift my arm out of the water and there’s light there. Gold and red, pulsing under my skin, forming shapes I don’t recognize. A symbol. Something that’s never been there before, flickering in and out like it can’t decide ifit’s real.
“NOVA!”
Someone’s shouting my name. All of them, maybe. I can’t tell anymore. The world is narrowing down to just the fire and the water and the thing that’s trying to tear its way out of my chest.
The light at my wrist pulses brighter. Faster.
I throw my head back and scream.
Chapter 42
Kyron
The water is boiling.
I can see it from here—steam rising in sheets, the surface churning around. My arms are screaming, the skin red and blistered where I held her, and I can’t feel anything except the thread in my chest pulling so hard I think it might snap.
Nova.
She’s fifty feet out. Might as well be fifty miles.
“I’m going in.”
Locke’s already moving, hitting the water before anyone can stop him. It hisses against his legs—I see him flinch, see the pain flash across his face—but he keeps going, wading deeper, reaching for her.
“Locke!” Vaelor’s voice cracks. “LOCKE, STOP—”
The water hits his waist and he staggers. I watch his whole body seize, watch his hands go under the surface and come back up red. He’s still trying to move forward. Still trying to reach her.
Trey gets there first.
He tackles Locke from behind, dragging him back toward shore while Locke fights him—actually fights him, throwing elbows, snarling something I can’t make out over the hiss and crack of the lake tearing itself apart.
“LET ME GO—”
“You’ll die!” Trey’s got his arms locked around Locke’s chest, hauling him backward through water that’s leaving welts on both of them. “You’ll fucking die and it won’t help her—”
“I DON’T CARE—”
Vaelor wades in to help. Between the two of them they drag Locke onto the shore, and he’s still fighting, still trying to get back to her, and I’ve never seen him like this. Never seen any of us like this.
Rane hasn’t moved.
He’s standing at the waterline, arms limp at his sides, staring at her. His face is completely blank. Like his brain checked out and left his body behind.
Beckett’s beside me. His hands are shaking so hard he’s shoved them under his arms, and he’s making this sound—low, continuous, barely audible. Not words. Just sound.
I feel all of it. Their fear, their helplessness, the bond pulling at something bigger than just me and her. We’re all connected to this. To her.
And we can’t reach her.
I can’t reach her.
The thread in my chest is on fire. Not the cold I’ve carried my whole life—actual fire, burning through me, and I know it’s her. I know I’m feeling what she’s feeling. The pain. The pressure. Something building toward a breaking point that’s goingto—
