Still, none of those things helped him calm down. He was seconds away from ripping someone’s throat out if they tried to speak to him. All his energy was centered on her, on praying to Eurydice that she would wake up perfectly fine.
“We should call for a healer,” he growled to Ellerry, his patience thinning.
The Keeper had pushed through the crowd the moment Evelina fell. Ellerry waved her hand in the air. She knew something and she wasn’t saying it.
“It won’t be long now,” Ellerry said quietly. “Patience, Commander.”
He closed his eyes, panic filling his chest as he thought of her and only her.
His body swayed, his head growing light.
For a moment, he could see her. It was like a frosted glass had been placed between them, making her outline hazy. But it was her. He would recognize her anywhere.
She was standing on an empty hill, an odd pattern of stars above her head, flowing grass beneath her feet. She was crying softly.
“Eve?” Daimon whispered, taking a step forward. “Tell me you’re okay.”
She wouldn’t look at him, unmoving, as if she hadn’t heard him. Her eyes were sad.
“I’m sorry, Daimon,”she whispered desperately, like a rush of wind twisting around him and cascading over his skin. He shivered at the way her voice sounded saying his name, at the way her lips formed the word in a way no one else’s could.
But it didn’t feel like she was saying ittohim.
“Why?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
This time, she turned toward him, as if hearing him for the first time.
“Daimon,” she breathed. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Everything has changed.”
He shook his head, not understanding.
“The crown is going to me.”
Shock rolled through him. “How do you know?”
“We’re in the Celestial Plane.” She gestured to the space around them. “Carwyn is gone and now the crown has gone to me instead.” The tears broke free, slipping down her cheeks. “Iwill be the next queen of Valon.”
Even as the words left her mouth, they didn’t feel real.Daimon wasn’t just losing her on the border—a daily routine to which he had grown accustomed—he was losingeverypiece of her. It would never again be as simple as stealing her away for a ride through the clouds or sneaking off to the waterfall. He would never feel her lips against his, because she was bound to marry another. Would Senna get her smiles? Her laughter?
His stomach roiled with nausea.
Would he get to keep her love?
But he always knew, in a way, this would be their fate. She was exactly what the kingdom needed: a queen who would never put her needs first. A queen who would love her people so fiercely she would protect them until her dying breath.
Daimon didn’t know what words he could say in this moment—didn’t know what could properly convey the weight of his grief, or of his love. So instead, he said, “Dream with me, my queen.”
She stepped forward, and he bent down, pressing his forehead to hers.
“Always,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes and breathed her in. His shock dissipated and began to turn into something darker—more painful. Despair filled his chest, his lungs.
He opened his eyes and found hers already open, watching him.
“I don’t want to go back and face this. Not without you.” Her voice broke.
His heart twisted. He wanted to take her pain away.
