I choke on another scream. The magic flickers. His wings dissolve.
He freezes. He knows.
Helena laughs softly. “Do you see?”
Eryx turns toward her, power gathering again.
“No—” I try to say. The word tears inside me before it forms.
He pulls the shadows harder. The bond screams.
I collapse, clutching my chest.
Through the frayed bond, I feel his realization hit. Every time he uses his magic, it hurts me. The thing that makes him who he is—the nightmare power he's wielded for years—now causes me pain.
And he can't stop it. Can't fix it. Can't take it back.
The stars above us dim again. Helena steps back, watching. Not afraid. Interested. Eryx releases the magic abruptly.
The dream goes still.
Too still.
He drops to his knees beside me. The bond hums wrong now.
Frayed.
Exposed.
Helena smiles. “How very…intimate.”
Then she lets the half of our power dissolve in her hand.
Not destroyed. Studied. She felt how our bond works. How our magic connects. How to break it.
She knows our weakness now, and she's going to use it to kill us.
The sky ripples.
And she is gone.
Eryx drops to his knees and pulls me to him. “Chelsea, what have I done?”
Nightmare is silent. Not joking. Not offering commentary. Not trying to fix things. Somehow that's more terrifying than anything Helena did.
I blink past tears. “You didn’t know. The magic…it’s broken.”
He smooths my hair from my face and hugs me to him. “It’s all right. I’m here now.”
I dig my fingers into his arms, making sure he’s real, inhaling him, finding comfort in his scent.
But our magic is ripped.
We're still connected. But the connection is unstable, and I don't think we can fix it before Helena comes back to finish what she started.
Eryx
Ijolt awake. Less than a second later Chelsea bolts upright.
