WREN
Getting him inside nearly killed us both.
Eight feet of feathers and muscle and deadweight. Elspeth grabbed his feet, I hooked my arms under his wings, and we dragged him across the balcony stones inch by agonizing inch. His head lolled. His eyes stayed closed. The only sign he was alive at all was the shallow rise and fall of his chest and the heat pouring off him in waves.
“The nest,” I gasped. “Down the hall. The room with the furs.”
Elspeth didn’t ask questions. She just pulled harder.
We left a trail of feathers behind us. Bronze and black, drifting loose from his wings with every scrape against the floor. I’d pick them up later. Keep them. Proof that this night had happened.
The nest room. We rolled him onto the furs and silks he’d spent days arranging, and his wings spread beneath him like a dark halo, and he didn’t stir. Didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t make a sound.
I pressed my hand to his chest. His heart beat against my palm, but wrong. Too slow. Long pauses between each thud, like it kept forgetting to continue.
“Is he dying?” Elspeth’s voice was very small.
“No.” I wouldn’t allow it. “He’s empty. He gave everything he had to get us out, and now there’s nothing left.”
“What do we do?”
I looked at my sister. Almost sixteen years old. The one person who believed I could fix anything.
I thought about what he’d said on the balcony. The word he’d managed before the darkness took him.
Bond.
“I need you to explore,” I said. “Find the kitchen. It’s down the main corridor, past the library, third door on the left. There’s a kettle on the stove. Tea in the cupboard above it. Make some for yourself. Find food. Get warm.” I squeezed her hands. “And find yourself a bedroom. There are dozens. Pick one you like, one with a view of the mountains. Make it yours.”
“But I should stay. I should help you lift him, or...”
“Elspeth.” I took her face in my hands, the way I used to when she was small and frightened. “I know how to help him. But I need time. And privacy. Can you give me that?”
She searched my eyes. I watched understanding dawn, followed by a flush that crept up her neck.
“Oh,” she said. “You mean... oh.”
“Sleep in your new room tonight. I’ll find you in the morning.” I managed a smile. “Don’t come looking for me unless the building is on fire.”
She nodded. Squeezed my hand once. And then she was gone, closing the door softly behind her.
I listened to her footsteps fade down the corridor. Counted to twenty. Made sure she was truly gone.
Then I turned back to him.
He lay in the nest we’d slept in together. The books he’d organized for me lined the edges, spines facing inward so I could read the titles.
He’d remembered everything. Every preference. Every offhand comment. He’d built me a home out of paper and silk and his own desperate hope that I would stay.
And now he was dying because he’d broken through a wall for me.
“Okay,” I said out loud. The sound of my own voice steadied me. “Hearts. You said hearts.”
The bestiary entry flashed through my mind. The bond texts I’d skimmed in the library, not thinking they applied to me. A sharing of life force. Each becomes anchor to the other. I’d read the words like academic theory. Now they were the only thing standing between Tavrin and death.
I pressed my palm flat to his chest, feeling for the beat. There. Slow. Stuttering. Wrong.
Then I pressed my other hand to my own chest. My pulse raced, beating against my ribs like a trapped bird.
