Page 67

Adry’s mouth curled, a hint of a wrinkle appearing on her nose.

Merrik lay in the dark of his tent, blinking upward at the canvas. What had woken him? The sounds of the fort still busy and bustling even in the middle of the night provided such a background hum that he wouldn’t have woken to that.

“Merrik,” a voice hissed again, barely above a whisper.

Adry.

He rolled upright and fumbled in the dark for the gear arranged beside the bed. Did he want his wheelchair? Or should he take the time to strap on his peg leg or his regular prosthetic? Thankfully he and Pip had been able to fix it by replacing the bearings destroyed by mud. Or—his fingers brushed the tall wooden staff—perhaps he would just hop outside. That would be the quickest.

Gripping the staff and letting a hint of his magic flow down it, both to keep himself steady and to light his way, Merrik hopped on his foot, balancing with the staff as needed.

Thankfully, his ankle had healed to the point where this short stretch of hopping wouldn’t send him tumbling. Still, he missed the steadiness of his missing two toes. The prosthetic toes Mak had crafted helped for normal walking, but he hadn’t taken the time to put those on.

Pushing aside the tent flap, Merrik hopped across the platform until he reached where Adry crouched, facing the opening to his tent. He searched her face as best he could in the faint illumination cast from the various shielded and blacked out lights around the fort. “Are you all right? What is wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, exactly.” Adry hugged her arms over her stomach. “I just…I just needed you. I couldn’t sleep.”

He lowered himself to sit on the edge of the platform, setting his staff beside him. She sat next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. He placed an arm around her shoulders and tucked her closer, holding her tight. For long moments, neither of them spoke.

Adry gave a shudder, like the first gasp before tears. Her words were still a whisper, perhaps because of their weight, perhaps because she was mindful of waking up Fieran and the other flyboys sleeping in their tents, only a few yards away. “It wasn’t like I thought it would be. Well, parts of it were about what I expected. I knew it would be terrible. I knew I would kill. I knew it would be dirty and gross and tiring. And yet…” She trailed off as if she couldn’t put the experience into words.

“I know.” Merrik’s grip tightened on her.

He’d been in combat many times. Yes, he had the advantage, if one could call it that, of fighting at a distance. He didn’t have to see the enemy when they died. After a long flight, he returned to his home at Fort Defense. She had spent a week in mud and trenches and bunkers.

But in the end, the toll wasn’t that different.

“It’s strange. I didn’t have this much trouble sleeping when I was at the front.” Adry wrapped her arms around his waist as she tucked herself more securely against him. “I guess I was so exhausted by the end of each day that I just kind of collapsed. Sure, there were times that I was so tense I didn’t sleep well. But it wasn’t…wasn’t like now.” The last word broke on her first sob.

Merrik rested his cheek against her hair and tried to find the words. “I think perhaps your mind couldn’t process what you were experiencing while you were experiencing it. You needed to be back in the safety of Fort Defense before your body and mind felt safe enough to actually feel.”

Had that been part of his struggle when he returned to Estyra after losing his leg? By that point, he been in combat for several months. Yes, he’d been safe between battles. He’d had plenty of times where he’d relaxed, but he’d never really stopped. Never really gotten away from the war until then.

Had some of his anger been his mind processing everything he’d experienced in the war? He’d needed that time and space to heal not just after losing his leg, but after everything he’d gone through.

“You know what the worst part is?” She clenched her fingers in his shirt, pulling the fabric tight. “A terrible part of me loved it. Not the killing. But releasing my magic fully like that…it is the only time I have ever felt whole. Like I’m actually living instead of suppressing myself.”

He rested his head against hers, searching for the words. He had a completely normal elven plant magic. While he’d grown up with Adry and her siblings, he would never fully understand what it was like to live with such power simmering through one’s veins. He wanted to reassure her, but he didn’t want to minimize the struggle either. Perhaps there were no words for something like this.

Before he could respond, she kept talking, her voice lowering to an even weightier hush. “There were times I thought I might just lose myself to the magic. Just one momentary loss of control, one step deeper into it, and I’d lose myself completely.”

He continued to hold her, sensing that now wasn’t the time for words just yet. Even if his own heart ached at her admission.

“That’s how warriors of the ancient kings often died in the past. They’d do some great feat of magic, draining themselves dry and losing themselves so completely to the magic that they couldn’t pull back from the brink in time. That could be me. I can feel it.” She shuddered in his arms. “I don’t think Fieran feels that temptation. He has too much of Mama’s temperament. But Dacha? I think he does. Or did, before his heart bond with Mama steadied his magic.”

Would a heart bond with Merrik do the same thing for Adry? Or was that another one-of-a-kind aspect of Uncle Farrendel’s and Aunt Essie’s unique heart bond?

Still, Merrik murmured against her hair, “I will always pull you back. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that.” Her hard breath was somewhere between a bitter laugh and a sigh.

“Yes, I can.” He gathered her more fully to him until she was almost in his lap. “You were there for me when I was falling apart, just as you promised. I promise I will be there for you, no matter how much your magic threatens to consume you.”

She shook her head against him even as she gave another, stifled sob.

He rubbed her back, holding her tightly. “It is all right to cry.”

She shook in his arms, her face buried against his shoulder in a way that mostly muffled the sounds of her weeping. If any of the flyboys woke to the noise, they had the sense to stay in their tents and not interrupt.