“Neirin?”
A sharp pain in my head sent me curling forward. I held my head atop my knees, hands cupping my ears to fend off the ringing.
“Neirin …” The voice, smaller and frightened this time, seemed so distant I almost didn’t hear it.
Intense pain took me, blurred my vision until darkness consumed my sight as I fell to my side. Half-unconscious, aware only of agony, time fragmented. Cloth confined me, but when I sought to push it from my face, I could not. I had no controlover my limbs. I tried to cry, to scream, but I was trapped within myself.
On shaking limbs, the body that bound me got to its feet. The world took on a lower vantage point, and I beheld my brother before me like a giant, the colors of the world around him all off. Again, the wooden sword was pointed at me. This time, tears gathered in Thatch’s eyes.
“Monster,” he cried, his voice broken. “Give me back my brother!”
I am your brother. Monster?
Thatcher jabbed at the air in front of me, and the body that held me leapt back, snarling. My brother stepped forward, cornering me against a garden hedge. The tears that welled in his eyes created paths down his cheeks.
“Monster!”
This time, the wooden sword struck my head, radiating dull aching pain, sending the world sideways. Again, I growled, getting to my feet. But the sound was not my own. Neither were the steps that took me toward my brother.
When Thatcher struck out again, the monster leapt at him. And in the next moment, the taste of iron consumed my senses. My brother’s neck snapped within the grip of the monster’s jaws. So fragile. The gasping gurgles silenced, and from a place outside of myself, within the confines of a monster, I watched my brother’s eyes loose their life. All I could feel was the pounding of the monster’s heart. Shock consumed my thoughts, even as the monster licked the blood from its snout.
The murky darkness of a nightmare held me. But this was not a nightmare. It was a memory. I’d seen this before, been here before.
I’d killed my own brother.
I woke with a start, heart thundering in my chest.
Reality came back to me in a rush. I became aware of the lack of warmth, of the quiet, of the absence of my mate.
Evera and Calix—they were gone.
Rushing to my feet, I forced the memories of my brother’s death down. The small blanket that had covered me in the night fell to the earth. The only remains of our supplies aside from Sorrel, who nibbled at the short grass. Panic, anger, and worry sent me pacing. I’d slept in my boots, and twigs snapped beneath my feet. Sweat beaded on my forehead.
Where did they go? Why would they leave without me?
Through the rasping of my breath, I fought to make sense of the situation. How had I not woken? I cursed to myself. With Evera, I slept more soundly than I did on my own. But that was no excuse. If anything, I should sleep lighter when I have my mate to protect. Was it the nightmare that had held me in sleep and kept me from waking?
“Neirin.” A voice carried from across the river, and I turned.
Evera.
She stood at the far bank, Calix beside her and a sack of supplies over her shoulder. Relief fell over me to see them safe, though in the next instant, frustration took its place.
“Dammit, Evera,” I growled. I didn’t want to snap at her, but what she’d done was reckless, and she’d only done it in the dead of night because she knew I would not agree to the plan. “How did you cross the bridge?” Soldiers were mostly young, selfish pricks of men who would take such an opportunity to— And after what she’d told me the night before … “Did they touch you?”
“No.” Her level tone spoke for itself. She’d known, then, that it had been a possibility that one of them would try something.
Clearing the few short steps to the river’s edge, I ran a hand through my hair. “You shouldn’t have gone without me.”
“We couldn’t have crossed with you; those soldiers are posted there in search of you.”
She wasn’t wrong. Still, she’d put herself in harm’s way. Equal measures of guilt and fear flashed hot and cold through me. I should have woken.
“What now?” I asked, knowing the answer. There was only one reason they would cross without me, just to meet me at the opposite bank.
“You can’t swim the river,” Evera said calmly, “but your fox can.”
“That’s a bold assumption.” My worry tainted my tone with sharpness.
