It wasn’t until he’d caught his breath that he realized how wrong he was.
Still on his knees, his strength spent, Eiri realized that the weak, rattling gasps weren’t coming from him, but from Syrus.
“What’s wrong with him?” Ellis whispered, clinging to his older brother’s hands and looking to Eiri, silently begging him to make this better.
Shifting so his cheek rested on the mattress and he could look up at Syrus, Eiri held his own breath so he could listen. Alarm coursed through him, settling into a sickening dread with each shallow, ragged sound. This wasn’t an illness. Something was seriously wrong.
Eiri’s hands shook when he took hold of Syrus’ wrist, the other man’s skin clammy in his grasp. His thumb settled over the pulse point there, but it took several tries to locate the dull throb there. It was fast, far too fast, and thready, his body fighting to keep him alive.
“Syrus?”
His husband didn’t so much as twitch in response, completely still save for the weak movement of his chest as he struggled to breathe. Eiri leaned closer, dread moving into outright fear when he heard the wet rattle in Syrus’ chest. He’d only ever heard a sound like that once, when a raider on his crew went overboard and got sucked under a wave. By the time they’d pulled him back, the man had been half-drowned, his lungs full of water. Eiri’s magic saved him, but only just, and it had left him weakened and unable to continue raiding after that day.
Syrus didn’t appear to have been near the water, though, and over a day had passed since Eiri’s arrest. If he’d nearly drowned, he would either have come around or died by now.
Whatever it was, he could at least try to help. His magic had never felt so far away, but sheer desperation gave Eiri the strength to push through the wall of exhaustion and grasp his power.
“Eiri?”
“I’m going to try something and I don’t have time to explain. Just don’t panic.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Focusing a thin thread of his elemental magic, Eiri closed his eyes and followed the call of water. What he found sent another wave of fear down his spine.
Liquid filled Syrus’ lungs, cutting off his air. Even without touching water, he was still drowning.
As badly as Eiri wanted to pull hard with his magic, he forced himself to go slow, drawing the liquid out gently so Syrus’ body could adjust. A cold sweat broke out across his skin, and he gritted his teeth when his head spun. He knew he was reaching too deep, drawing on the last reserves he had that his body needed to keep functioning, but he didn’t care. It was worth it if he could do this.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Syrus’ breathing eased. A truly alarming puddle formed in the corner of the room as Eiri kept pulling, dumping everything he drew there rather than expend the additional energy to get it through the spelled glass windows. How Syrus had survived this long with so little air was a testament to the man’s strength.
Finally, after what felt like forever, Eiri cleared Syrus’ lungs and watched through heavy eyes as the man’s chest rose and fell in his first unfettered breaths in who knew how long. He didn’t open his eyes, but a hint of color returned to his ashen face.
Eiri tried to shift, to lean back so he could observe Syrus better, but his body didn’t respond. When he tried to lift hishand, it felt as though heavy steel suffused his body rather than blood, making it impossible to move.
Fuck it.
With a quiet groan, he let himself fall forward, his head coming to rest on Syrus’ chest. He heard a cry beside him, but it sounded muffled and distant through the buzzing in his head. The bed was low to the ground, more a cot than a true bed. He wanted to crawl up onto it and lie beside him, but falling seemed to be all he was capable of. His eyes closed without his permission, but he didn’t fight it. It allowed him to focus on the heartbeat beneath his head, still too fast, but stronger than before. Syrus still stood a chance of coming through this.
I’ll be better, Syrus. Come back to me, and I promise I’ll try to make this work for us. Please.
He drifted, his mind conjuring images of what it could be like. They could have a genuine marriage and work together to fix things for his people back on the island. Maybe they could even return and visit together. Everyone on the island knew Syrus, of course, especially the raiders, but they wouldn’t hold on to their grudges as long as the Vaetrean people appeared to.
Canjir might appear stark to outsiders, who saw nothing more than a barren desert, but the island was beautiful in its own way, and Eiri wanted to show it all to Syrus. The way the black sand beaches lit up at sunrise, the early light catching the sand and making it shimmer. The dark beach made the sunrises and sunsets more dramatic than those he’d seen here on the mainland, and it was a sight he never tired of.
He’d take him to the far side of the island, where the burnt-out remains of Anatau created a caldera with water so clear he could see straight to the bottom. They could hike deeper into the interior, where hot springs dotted the land. The once-lush forests of Canjir were now gone, but the new trees showedevery sign of reaching the massive size of their forebears, and one day, the island would be as it had once been.
Few took the time to appreciate Canjir for what it was now, but he believed Syrus would be able to see the beauty there. A wave of nostalgia hit him hard, a desperate homesickness for the island he’d left behind. Everything would be in full bloom now, fed by the spring rains and warmer weather. Eiri could almost smell the deep, complex scent of thestaliflowers that climbed trellises and clung to anything their vines could reach. Canjir was the only place in the world those flowers grew and, as such, had become part of their culture. Syrus wouldn’t have understood how significant it was that Eiri had chosen those flowers to embroider on his clothing, of course, but by doing so, he’d clearly signified to any Canjiri that Syrus was one of their own.
Looking back, it was no wonder Kien had been so furious.
Eiri needed to move and check on Syrus. He needed to explain to Ellis what had happened and calm the other man’s increasingly panicked questions. He knew that, but moving was far beyond his capabilities at the moment. He took a few slow breaths, frowning when the scent of thestaliflower grew stronger, too strong to be just a memory.
Prying one eye open, Eiri looked up toward Syrus. The man’s eyes moved behind his lids, hopefully a sign that he was waking. His lips had parted and his breathing was steadier when he exhaled, but still weaker than Eiri would have liked. The smell of flowers wafted across his face and in an instant, he knew why Syrus wasn’t recovering.
He had to get up. He had to get helpnow, even though in his heart, he knew it was too late. Eiri couldn’t move, though. His body simply had nothing left to give. Every scrap of his strength was gone, his reserves scraped clean in his desperation to save Syrus. Even his magic was gone, leaving an echoing emptinesswhere it had been. There was no way to replenish himself when he was this far from the water, and he’d never make it down those stairs again.
There was another reason thestaliflower had become the symbol of Canjir. The flower itself was a delicate thing, with petals ranging from deep crimson red to vibrant purples and pinks. Its scent was strong without being overwhelming and instantly recognizable to anyone on the island, something that permeated their whole lives. The flower had survived the volcano and come back stronger for it, with a resilience his people tried to emulate.
It was also lethal.
