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“Go away.” He clenched his hands in the sheets.

“Merrik?” Her voice came slightly closer, as if she’d stepped inside.

Why wouldn’t she listen? Always so stubborn. He loved her for it, but he hated it right then.

With his emotions roiling, his magic thrummed through him in a way he’d never felt before. It poured from his hands into the bed, flowing into the floor and the walls.

“I just want to—” She was still talking, still walking closer.

“Go away!” Merrik shoved onto an elbow to shout at her. His magic blazed around him, and a branch shot out of the wall, whipping toward her.

Adry lunged backward, her arm raising to block. Her magic flared, incinerating the branch before it came anywhere near her.

Mama gasped, her eyes wide again, her hand pressed over her mouth.

He’d lost control of his magic, something he hadn’t done since he was an adolescent first coming into his magic. Merrik squeezed his eyes shut, dropping onto the bed with his back to both Mama and Adry. Perhaps he should apologize, but he didn’t care. He simply couldn’t.

Chapter

Four

Adry stumbled away, staring at Merrik’s back. The evening before when Aunt Patience arrived, she’d said Uncle Iyrinder warned her that Merrik wasn’t himself.

But Adry hadn’t expected that he’d yell at her, of all people. That he’d lose control of his magic while doing so.

With a glance at Merrik, Aunt Patience rose to her feet and crossed the room. She motioned for Adry to follow as she stepped past the curtain and into the main hall of the hospital.

Adry followed, closing the curtain after her.

Once they were far enough to be out of earshot, Aunt Patience halted and turned to her. “I’m sorry. Iyrinder warned me, but…”

“It isn’t your fault.” Adry tried to keep her tone light. “He’s going through a lot right now.”

Aunt Patience sighed and nodded, her gaze drifting past Adry toward the closed curtain of Merrik’s room. “The healer told us that he will need surgery in a few days on both his legs to finish the reconstruction, shaping, and healing. He didn’t take it well.”

She could see that. Merrik had been snarling and emotional, nothing like the calm and collected friend who had kept both Adry and Fieran from their most reckless stunts over the years.

Adry wasn’t quite sure what to say or do. She finally settled for meeting Aunt Patience’s gaze. “Do you need anything? I can fetch whatever you’d like.”

“I’m all set for tonight. I packed a bag.” Aunt Patience drew in a shuddering breath, releasing it slowly. “The healer suggested that, if he seems stable, we take him home to rest in a familiar place for a few days and hope that helps his mental state.”

“That sounds like it might be the best thing for him.” Adry knew Merrik. He would hate the hospital setting with the unfamiliar bed and unfamiliar people bustling in and out of his space.

“Most likely.” Aunt Patience’s gaze drifted back to the curtain. “But the healer would like to keep him overnight at least, to ensure that he’s recovering all right. And he would have to pass the basic training for transferring himself in and out of bed and such things.”

Hopefully Merrik would cooperate enough to learn. Right now, he seemed to be withdrawing into himself, unwilling to participate in anything, even something necessary for his recovery.

Adry nodded, sending her own glance at the curtain. “I’ll be back tomorrow, whether he will see me or not.”

“I appreciate it.” Aunt Patience rested a hand on Adry’s shoulder. “And I know Merrik will appreciate it too, once he’s at a point where he can process everything. You’ve always been a good friend to him.”

Friend. Adry worked to keep her smile in place. Yes. That was exactly what she was to him. Nothing more.

Merrik lay on his own bed, the blanket dappled with the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the large windows set in the walls of his treetop room. Across from him, the door to the stairs was firmly closed, as were the double doors to his balcony.

His legs throbbed after all the jostling of being moved from the hospital to his family’s home beneath Ellonahshinel, yet he couldn’t bring himself to reach for the vial of juice laced with healing magic to dull the ache.

At this point, pain was hardly anything new. He lived it, breathed it, drowned in it.