I forced my eyes open. The harsh overheads were gone, replaced by the pale grey light of early morning. Dad’s face was etched with exhaustion, shadows under his eyes mirroring the heaviness in my own limbs, but as he saw me stir, the tight line of his mouth softened.
“Selene, thank the gods.” His voice was thick, unused.
He brought a glass to my lips. The water was cool, a blessed relief. I took a long, slow drink, and reality returned in a sickening rush. The Lows. The concrete. Dane.
“Dane,” I said again. The name rasped in my throat. “Where is he?”
Eamon’s hand tightened around mine. His focus dropped to the edge of the blanket, refusing to meet my eyes.
“Dad,” I choked out. “Tell me.”
“He’s alive, Selene.” He spoke quickly, racing to get the words out before I shattered. “Broken spine. But Varkyn physiology… it protected the cord. Remarkable, really.”
He shook his head, a wry, tired smile touching his lips. “They have him in an induced coma. Let the healing magic work its course.”
My lungs seized. A broken spine. Induced coma. He was alive, but the limbo of the coma felt a thousand miles away from recovery.
“I want to see him,” I tried to sit up, but a sudden rush of dizziness swept through me. The room tilted violently. A sharp pain lanced through my joint. My scar. It burned, a dull ache radiating into my chest.
Eamon gently eased me back against the pillows. “Easy, easy. You’re not going anywhere yet. Your magic… it almost tore you apart. Severe depletion. They’ve been pumping you full of every healing draught the Calysteri know. Only two days, Selene. You barely survived.”
Two days. It felt like an eternity in a blink.
“I need to see him.” I ignored the dizziness, the weakness. Ignored the phantom ache in my shoulder. My feet hit the coldlinoleum floor. The IV tube tugged at my arm, a small, irritating tether to this antiseptic purgatory.
“Selene, stop it. You’re exhausted. You’re depleted. You are too weak…” Eamon’s voice hardened, his eyes wide with a fear he couldn’t quite hide. He’d seen something. He knew.
I waved away his words with a trembling hand, already yanking the IV from my arm. A tiny prick, a bead of blood. Nothing compared to the raw, deep-seated terror that still clutched my throat.
“I need to see him. He protected me, Dad. He took the hit meant for us both. He kept fighting.”
My voice broke on the last word. The memory of Dane’s struggle, the shadow tendrils, the desperate rage that had erupted from me… it all blended into a single, overwhelming need. To see him. To know he was truly alive.
My clothes hung on a hook by the door. Still damp, probably, but I didn’t care. The hospital gown fell to the floor with a soft rustle. My fingers fumbled with the buttons of my shirt, my hands shaking so violently I could barely manage them. My jeans were stiff. But they were mine. A small anchor of control in the chaos.
Eamon watched, helpless, his face a mask of worry. He knew better than to physically stop me. Not now.
“His room… which one?” I asked, yanking my boots on with an effort that left me gasping.
Eamon’s voice was a weary sigh of defeat. “Down the corridor. Room 304. I’ll come with you.”
“I’m going to see Dane alone,” I told him, already moving. My refusal was absolute.
I left him standing there and started the slow shuffle out of the room.
The hospital corridorwas a blur of featureless cream walls and hushed movements. Each step was a monumentaleffort, my legs still trembling from the recent battle, the pain in my back a constant, searing companion. My breath came in ragged gasps, each inhale a fresh reminder of how close I’d danced with oblivion.
Room 304. The door stood slightly ajar, a sliver of dimmed light spilling into the hall. I pushed it open, hand shaking. The room was quiet, heavy with the faint scent of antiseptic and something deeper, more primal—grief.
Mira sat hunched by the bedside, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Her usually impeccable auburn hair was dishevelled, her lab coat discarded over a nearby chair. She didn’t look up. Her attention was fixed on the figure in the bed.
Dane.
He lay utterly still, the stark white sheet pulled up to his chest. His face was translucent, a sharp contrast to his dark hair. A bandage wrapped tightly around his forehead, another peeked out from under the collar of his gown. His chest rose and fell with a hiss of the respirator.
The usual bright energy that radiated from him, even when he was asleep, was gone. Replaced by a crushing void.
The realisation hit hard, a punch to the gut that stole my breath. My own grief, a raw, tearing thing, clawed its way up my throat. My vision blurred. Hot, stinging tears ran down my cheeks. I reached a trembling hand to my face, surprised by the wetness.
