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I was about to say, “I don’t want to,” asking him to talk me into being strong, but then I saw his face — the color had gone from it. He looked very frightened. I hadn’t seen that before, and it slammed into me that this was his best friend, the man he had been protecting and hanging out with every day of his life for years, and I was reminded that Torin was suffering, barely able to continue down this hall, and not saying it, to be strong for me.

I didn’t want to lose Max, he was my brother, but I barely knew him.

He was truly Torin’s brother.

I took his hand. “Torin, I love you, it’s going to be okay.”

He nodded.

I straightened my shoulders, pretending to be brave, and led us down the hall.

We entered a private waiting room, and then a physician met us, he bowed, “Your Highness, I am Doctor Thornberry, I am a thoracic surgeon... internal medicine....” Then he began saying words that were difficult to hear, “…the King has suffered a gunshot to the chest… lung injured… breathing tube in. We are waiting to see if the bleeding stays quiet and the fever stays down…”

I barely heard him, looking around the well-appointed room. …In the next few hours we will know if he is turning toward life or toward a harder fight… That was the last thing Dr Thornberry said as he gestured us into Max’s room.

It was like a nice hotel room fit for a visiting dignitary. Instead of a hospital bed there was a four poster bed, with fine linens and blankets on it. All the furniture was dark wood, the color scheme of a man’s study, and there, off to the side, was a sitting room of sorts. It did not look at all like a hospital room except for the humming machines with pulsating lights hooked up to the patient on the bed — Max.

He was too still. His color had gone wrong — not the living paleness of sleep, but a gray under the skin, lips dry, the bones of his face too prominent. Oh no.

My heart sank. They had cut his hair back from his forehead and tube ran from his mouth, taped at the corner, rising and falling as he breathed. Another line went into his arm and a third disappeared under the bandages on his chest… The covers were folded down to his waist so the physicians could reach him. What I could see of his shoulder and ribs was wrapped tight, stained through in one small place with a dark, dark color — blood.

Oh no. No no no.

He did not look like a king.

He looked like a man who might not make it, and no one knew what to do.

I heard Torin make a small sound: nae, not Max.

I squeezed his hand and he gestured that I could go to the bed.

I sat down in the chair by Max’s hand. “Max, can you hear me?”

He was still, sleeping, breathing by that machine.

My eyes swept the screens around us with lights pulsing in soft greens — this was good, right, green? Except there was one stubborn yellow I did not like.

Torin got down on his knees at the foot of Max’s bed, his hands folded, looking down, and his lips moving in prayer.

“Max, Torin and I are back, did you hear? We were stuck, somehow, in the fourteenth century without a vessel and then a man named Artair came to get us. He told us that there is a device called the Trailblazer that has to be used to get people when they are trapped in the past, did you know about it? I didn’t. I wish I could talk to Mom and Dad about all of this. I wish there was an instruction book with the rules.”

I put my hand on his and held on.

“We were very relieved when Artair showed up, we didn’t know if Torin was going to make it. I was terrified that he was going to leave me. I don’t know if you know this about me, but I have issues with this and I really need you to stick around… please.”

I leaned over and put my cheek on his hand.

“I thought I was going to lose Torin and it was so scary. I thought a lot about Mom and Dad, I miss them… but when I met Artair he told me that we have descendants who want us to…”

It dawned on me that Artair had hinted that Torin and I had descendants, but hadn’t really mentioned Max at all. A cold shiver ran down my spine, was Max dying?

I sobbed, bursting into tears, gripping Max’s hand in both of mine. “You can’t leave me, Max. I need you to take care of me, you just found me, and I need you. We haven’t had enough time.”

A faint hiss came from the machine with each breath. “I thought you would be awake. No one told me it would be this bad. I’m sorry that I’m crying.” I grabbed a tissue from a box on the nightstand and dabbed at my eyes. “Did you hear that Torin won the kingdom for us? You’re the king. They’re calling you king already. I’m really proud of you, you will make such a good king, you’re loyal and stalwart… you just have to live, please…”

Tears streamed down my cheeks and he was so still and lifeless that it all felt useless. I was begging him to live but it seemed like he was gone.

I stood from the chair and said to Torin, “I can’t… I need to go take a moment. I need to… I need to find out what the doctor thinks…. Will you stay?”