I nodded quickly and tilted my head to find the buckle. I undid it and pulled the band away from his chest.
A breath whistled past his teeth and he slumped back to the ground, eyes drifting shut. “Thank you.”
I held the band in both hands. It was rough, strong, and the side that had been pressed to Keir’s skin was scratchy. “Keir, what is this?”
He clenched his teeth and forced himself onto his elbows. He took one look at his cauterized side and coughed a humorless laugh. “There better be no more talk of me and my word now, Majesty.” He collapsed to the sand again, breaths quick. Even that small movement had taken a lot out of him.
“Keir, why were you wearing this?” I pushed.
“I have to.” His voice was softer than before. He was fading.
“What do you mean?”
“Pain… breaks through… the haze…” His breathing evened out as he lost consciousness again.
I glanced back down at the band. He’d said that to me before, when we’d been in the Shroud. But we’d both come into the Mirror Realm wearing what we’d been in before, which meant that Keir had been wearing this in his cell, far away from the Shroud. Why? It seemed torturous.
I placed the band in Keir’s hand. The last thing I wanted was for him to wake and add theft to my list of crimes. And then my eyes drew up to where the sun was glinting off Ashorah. My brows furrowed as a thought suddenly occurred to me.
Everything was reversed in the Mirror Realm.
My scars had switched sides. North was south. But…
But if everything was reversed in this place, then Ashorah would be to the east.
We’d been heading west.
This was the Wastelands, I was sure of it, and the sunwasreflecting off something out there. That compulsion in my chest remained, a gentle nudge in that same direction. But it was no longer comforting, no longer offering me the security of a plan.
Because if that wasn’t Ashorah glinting under the sun, then I had no idea where I was leading us.
Keir’s pained groan woke me in the middle of the night. My head popped up from where I’d been dozing beside him. “Keir?”
A sheen of sweat covered his face and his form was racked with shivers. I placed my uninjured hand against his forehead. It burned, hotter than his normal Shifter body heat. Fever. A spark of fear lit in my stomach.
I moved to reach for one of the water-filled boots, but Keir’s hand shot up to catch my wrist. I gasped, startled.
Eyes still closed, he returned my hand to his forehead. “You feel good,” he muttered.
“I’m just getting you some water.” I cradled the back of his head and fitted the boot to his lips. Precious drops leaked out the corners of his mouth as he drank. I let him have a few swallows before I had to pull it away. We were down to only three boots now.
But when Keir’s brilliant eyes fluttered open, dazed with fever, I wiped any anxiety from my face. “It’s going to be okay,” I told him calmly.
A large smile spread across his lips as he gazed up at me. The first real smile I’d ever seen on him, free of scorn or arrogance. Even in the dim moonlight, it made him look devastatingly beautiful.
Keir’s hand drifted up to the side of my face. He pinched one of my braids between his fingers, combed through it until the strands were free. “Soft,” he murmured.
I huffed a laugh. If he knew he was pawing at my hair like a kitten, he’d be furious.
Those unnatural eyes of his trailed away from my face to my neck, and his hand followed. He stroked the curve of my throat where it met my shoulder, the same place he’d buried his nose against during the Lunar Feast, and a soft heat spread through me. “Right there,” he slurred, voice a hoarse rumble. “I wanted to put it right there.”
“Put what?”
“But I’ve been thinking about it. Now I think I want to put it here.” His touch trailed down to my chest, pausing just above the mess of my scar. “People won’t see it as often, but you’ll trace it instead of this.”
A mass of goose bumps rippled down my body. Suddenly, I wasn’t laughing anymore. “Keir, what are you talking about?”
His gaze returned to mine with that dazzling smile, eyes crinkling. “Say it again.”
