Emotions raced through her, one after the other. Fear. Anger. Despair. Guilt. But she couldn’t let any of them show. She had to be the strong one.
Andra shifted and lifted Kael’s head into her lap, allowing him to continue to squeeze her hand, and wrapped her other arm over his shoulder and across his chest, trying to help him still the spasms of pain in his body.
The gray eyes, clouded with pain, never left her face. Andra glanced up at the shredded skin of the arm, then bent her head toward his, trying not to look at it.
She pressed her forehead to his and whispered, “It’s all right, Kael. I’ve got you. It’s all right.”
She whispered those meaningless words over and over until they sounded like a prayer, an insistent demand. She gripped desperately at the magic in her mind as she continued to speak.
“You will be all right. This will pass soon. You’re going to live, Kael. I promise.”
His trembling subsided, and Andra heard Eithne’s agonized groans quiet. Kael closed his eyes with a sigh. The fierce grip on her hand went lax.
Andra didn’t stop speaking as tears began to fall down her cheeks. “You’ll be okay, Kael. You have to stay. It’s going to be all right.”
She didn’t want to listen. She didn’t want to hear Tiri tell her that he was gone, that Eithne had gone with him. It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t leave her now.
“I need you, Kael. You have to stay. It’s going to be all right.”
She kept whispering, muttering the same phrases to the closed eyes as she wept.
She lifted her head slightly to see a blue-violet glow around her hand, which gripped Kael’s limp one.
The light seemed to trail across his skin in a stream of light that flowed over his arm and across his chest, then down the wounded arm, wrapping around it like a glowing ribbon, tracing the bloodied flesh in glowing light.
Kael stood among darkness, endless nothing stretching out around him. He could hear nothing, see nothing. He could only feel—and all he felt was pain.
The Darkness surrounded him, searing his flesh, stripping him away bit by bit.
Fear edged its way into the darkness, mingling with the agony that filled him.
He fought desperately to find something to hold onto amid the sea of black, some sense of himself that was not this soul-shredding pain.
She appeared suddenly in the darkness, a flicker of light in an endless night. He reached for her, for that part of himself that she held, the part of him that was better, stronger because of her.
But her radiant face seemed to suddenly darken, and took a step away from him, regarding him with cold, empty eyes.
She seemed to measure him for a moment, and from the expression that came over her face, it was clear she’d found him wanting.
Andra held a hand out—not toward him, but toward the empty air beside her. And, suddenly, another figure was there, gripping her hand. Talias.
Fresh pain seared through him, shredding away another piece of himself.
She didn’t speak to him, but instead, turned toward Talias, taking his face between her hands, drawing him to her.
Kael had no body, no voice, and so he could do nothing but watch as Andra rose to her toes and kissed Talias. Their arms twined around each other, forms seeming to merge amid the shadows and blackness that surrounded him.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad, he thought. Dying could be easy. Easier, certainly, than this endless agony. Let the darkness strip him away. Let it shred him to pieces and make him into nothing.
Because when he was nothing, he would feel nothing. This pain would end. The pain of losing her…that would end as well.
The darkness seemed to flicker briefly from endless black to a dull gray, and the vision of Andra and Talias’s entwining forms disappeared like smoke.
Kael turned, searching futilely with eyes he no longer seemed to have amid the nothingness. That voice… It hadn’t been his own. But it hadn’t been the cold, hissing voice either.
And this time, he knew it.
She’d never said she loved him. Perhaps she never would. But she’d said she needed him, and for now, that had to be enough. That was something he could live for.
Amid the darkness, something began to glow. Kael glanced around for a moment before realizing what the source of the light was—him.
He gazed down at his own form, suddenly solid and whole amid the nothingness, and found a ribbon of blue-violet light dancing across his flesh.
It streamed up the length of one arm, shimmering and writhing as it crossed his chest and wound down his other arm, seeming to bind it in its luminescence.
He knew in an instant who that light belonged to, where that magic came from.
Kael awoke.
Andra watched as the light flared brighter and Kael’s skin rushed to reunite with itself. The edges of the torn and burned flesh seemed to shift, drawing together over the exposed muscle, ceasing the blood flow.
Then the light began to withdraw, sliding back up over Kael’s smooth, flawless skin, leaving it in a puddle of drying blood, gathering in a spiraling pool of light atop his chest, just over his heart.
The light seemed to sink into his chest, absorbing into his skin as the dark orb had done. And then, it was gone.
Andra hesitated for a moment, the clearing around them silent. Then, cautiously, hopefully, she pressed her ear to Kael’s chest. She could faintly hear the slow, steady thudding of his heart.
With a small laugh of amazement, she leaned close to his nose and mouth. His soft, warm breath caressed her cheek.
Andra sat back and stared down at him, his face pale beneath the natural olive tones of his skin. Then she tilted her head back and laughed with relief.
There was a deep, rumbling groan, and Andra turned to see Eithne lift her head, blinking her bleary brown eyes at them. A moment later, she felt Kael stir, and she looked down as his gray eyes fluttered open.
She laughed again, surprised to find tears of relief on her cheeks.
“You’re alive,” she breathed, speaking the words with a hint of disbelief.
Kael winced as he sat up. “Yes, and in a world of pain,” he answered. He looked at her, his expression considering. “Andra, did you...Heal me?”
“I... I did,” she answered.
“How?” he asked, his brow furrowing. “That was a Dark spell that struck me, Andra—one designed to kill. No one can Heal a spell like that.”
Andra shook her head slowly, looking away from him. “I just... I knew I couldn’t let you leave me, Kael. I...need you to stay with me.”
She felt his fingers touch her cheek, and she looked up again to see him smiling softly. “I will stay with you, Andra, for as long as you will allow me to be by your side.”
She hesitantly put her hand over his, meeting his tender gray eyes. How had she ever seen steel in them?
She remembered with vivid clarity that moment before the Kingsmen had arrived in Bellris, when Kael had held her, and she wished to know what his kiss would feel like.
So much had happened since that moment, so much had been lost, but knowing how close she had come to losing him, the desire burned in her chest again.
Trying to still the trembling of her fingers, Andra raised one hand to Kael’s cheek, drawing closer to him.
His gray eyes watched her carefully, looking almost uncertain as he allowed her hand to guide his face toward hers. Their foreheads touched, and she felt his breath on her skin.
And then, it was gone.
She blinked in surprise as Kael pulled back from her, turning his face toward the trees as he sat more fully upright.
“We should…get back to the others,” he said, wincing slightly as he struggled to stand.
Andra scrambled quickly to her feet, seizing his arm and helping him up. Once he was steady on his own feet, he extracted his arm from her grip and turned toward Eithne.
She stared at him in stunned silence, watching as he limped to his dragon’s side.
He ran his hand over the scales of her neck as they shared a silent exchange, which involved Eithne staring at Andra over Kael’s shoulder for a long moment before looking at her Rider once more.
Finally, Kael stepped onto Eithne’s bent knee and pulled himself into the saddle with a groan.
“Come on,” he said, his voice still hoarse from his screams. “They’ll have set out already. We need to join them before they get too far.”
Andra mounted without a word, securing herself in the saddle before Eithne and Tiri rose up into the sky. They banked back toward the desert, flying low to search for their party.
But Andra’s eyes were on the shadowed form of Kael, silhouetted against the night sky.
Andra swallowed and nodded, sending her silent agreement along the thin string that connected their thoughts. For all that Tiri claimed to not understand human hearts, she seemed to understand Andra’s at least.
When she’d seen Kael crumpled on the grass, broken, screaming, and dying, Andra could only think that she’d never been so afraid.
Because she was losing him, losing her chance to tell him just how much he’d become a part of her.
Perhaps she didn’t understand what that meant yet, but when he opened his eyes again, after coming so close to leaving her forever, Andra had felt certain that she was ready to try.
Try to understand why her heart seemed to be so tied to his. Try to let herself be loved by him and, maybe, even understand what it might mean to return that love to him as he deserved.
But it seemed she’d been wrong. She had Healed him, saved him, and yet she’d lost him after all. He’d offered his heart to her, and she’d waited too long to claim it.
With a terrible certainty, Andra knew that she’d missed her chance to ever understand what it was to be loved by him.
