“He won’t listen. He either can’t tell you’re not acting like yourself or he doesn’t care. Either way, he doesn’t trust me.”
His lashes flutter, and for a moment a glint of shame slips through along with his frustration. He rubs a hand along his stubbly jawline. “Gowon was brought on as my father’s advisor when I was young, and I’m sorry to say that any coldness displayed on Draewulf’s part is more familiar to Gowon than anything I’ve become in the four years since he’s seen me.” His eyes level with mine even as his chest shudders and his body sags again. “But I need you to try again. Tell him to look again at the Elegy. Tell him it’s begun.”
I swallow. “What’s begun?”
His expression ices over as he pulls away. I watch it. One second it’s soft and tired and concerned, and the next it’s sterile. Something behind it flutters.
“Blast it all, Eogan, what’s going on? What’s begun? Why is Draewulf keeping us alive? And how do I use this . . . thing to free you?” I shove my fingers toward him and let a jolt snake out of them, latching onto his shoulder. He immediately lurches back again and thrusts my palm away.
“Nym, you can’t use that on me. I am trying my best to survive long enough to . . .” The stiff expression softens even as his voice is gravely cautious.
“Long enough until what? Until Draewulf leaves you?”
“Unlike Myles, Gowon’s a good man, Nym. He’ll look out for you and do what needs to be done for the Bron people.”
“That’s not what I asked,” I snap. “Can you survive long enough until Draewulf leaves you?”
A sigh. Finally, “No.”
And he doesn’t have to explain. Because he is dying too soon. Too fast.
And no one can fix it but me.
Eogan’s face yellows for a heartbeat and he looks even more ill. Aged. He runs a finger over a lock of my hair. His breath is coming thick, tangling against my skin and landing on my tears that appeared from who knows where and are dripping off my cheeks and chin. His finger brushes my lips. “Let me go,” he whispers. “End this for all of us.”
Not a bleeding chance. “Don’t you see what I’ve just done? That I’ve brought you to the surface? Do you know what this means? We’re so close. I can help you!”
“You can’t save me, Nym. Especially not with that ability.”
My voice cracks. “You don’t mean that.”
His body’s doing that shivering thing again, and it’s quaking so hard my body’s trembling too. “Get rid of this ability Myles gave you and get away from him. Get away from me.” He grips my arm but it’s not to steady himself; it’s to force me back, to force me to listen. “You have to survive, do you understand? For you, for me, for the Hidden Lands . . .” His quivering is becoming violent. His fingers cup my face. “Tell Gowon we were wrong. Tell him he’s taking the blood in order. He needed me first.”
I’m shaking my head. “First for what?” What is he talking about?
“Just as our Uathúil powers are bound to our land, so are they bound to our blood. He needed mine first for the block. To protect him.” His head tips strangely. I squint. And suddenly I’m losing him. “I will stay alive as long as I can because I will not let you die at his hands. But you have to kill me or run, Nym.”
And then he’s leaning in, brushing his lips against mine in a kiss. “If you don’t, I swear I will come back to haunt the very breath in your lungs and blood in your bones—I will make you survive.” His chest is heaving, his lungs shoving the words up his throat. And suddenly I’m watching him fade, fade, fade through my fingertips, clamoring for every single breath of consciousness as the black seeps its way back in to muddy those green eyes I could’ve swam in forever.
“No! I won’t let you go. I won’t let him take you!” Can’t he see that? Can’t he see he’s the only person who’s ever existed that I could feel safe with? That I could be better with?
That I can save?
His lips part into a bemused, ghoulish smile.
And suddenly that vortex in me is growing, craving, calling out for air. I press my palm back onto his chest and feel Draewulf’s essence fighting against Eogan.
I squeeze. I will free him.
“Nym, don’t. I won’t be able . . .” His voice cuts off as if he’s choking. And it sounds like death in my ears.
“I will not let you take him,” I say to the monster reappearing. But it’s too late because that smile’s already turning, twisting, even as I go from cleaving my hand against his chest to beating it and swearing that I will become strong enough to free him. “Just give me another day,” I whisper to Eogan’s fading emerald eyes.
Draewulf raises a fist to smack me.