“Nym, you’re exhausted and we have to go. Come on.”
But I can’t leave again. Maybe I can save them. Maybe I can tell them I’m sorry and show I have control now.
I reach out, but it’s Eogan’s hands, not theirs, that find me and start dragging me back. Because he doesn’t care—for me, for them, for any of us. I squirm—pushing, pressing to get away. “You don’t understand. I have to save them!”
“Nym, you can’t save anyone. They’re all dead!”
What? For a moment my head swims, my thoughts melting into shadow. No, he’s wrong. He only wants to take me away from my white, snowy world. My five-year-old self is kicking and screaming and I’m half blind pushing him off again. “I have to find them! I have to help my parents!”
And then he’s yelling, too, but his words don’t make sense and, abruptly, the pain from my leg hits the raging torrent in my head. My screams cut off as my lungs suffocate from the smoke.
He yanks me against his chest and pins me there. And for one moment I swear I hear grief break his voice when he murmurs, “Your parents are dead, Nym. Because I helped kill them.”
My entire world dissolves into darkness.
CHAPTER 26
SILENCE.
I open my eyes to four stone walls and a drippy ceiling that, at some point during the night, spread its dampness to the blanket covering me. My breath rasps and when I try to sit up, my lungs catch fire. The resulting coughing fit sends the cut on my thigh screaming and my mind lunging into last night’s disaster: The flames.
The dying man.
The falling airship.
I hack harder—until I’m scared my lungs are going to rip out—and end up on my side just as the door opens.
I peel my swollen eyelids up.
Adora.
Arms crossed, mouth set in a gold-lined frown framed by perfectly erected hair and a gaze bloated with anger. “You’re awake.”
I’m dying, my brain whimpers.
She crosses to stand beside the bed, lips pressed, and taps her fingernail on her arm. “I doubt you can imagine how worried I was when Eogan brought you home last night. All of my time, all of my investment in you, almost vanished down the drain. I actually had to wonder if you’d survive the night with all that wheezing. And yet . . .” Her voice pitches as her fingers brush down the blanket covering my throbbing leg. “Here you are.”
Her hand stops over my wound.
“Which is what I like about you, Nym. Your determination to live—to survive—no matter how much trouble you cause others, nor how dreadful you treat me after everything I’ve given you. You. Still. Fight. To. Survive.” She mutters that through her teeth. Then she smiles, and it’s so fake it makes my gut flip.
“The physician informs me you’ll be fine enough within a couple days. The leg injury’s not too deep, but we’ll need to keep up with your medicine to hold off the sepsis. Although as far as anything to ease your pain . . .” Her fingers press on my injury. “I have opted to forgo that.”
Abruptly, her hand is digging into my wound.
I scream. She pinches harder until I’m writhing and my curse is flaring, except there’s no charge in the air to pull energy from. How deep is this room beneath her house? Water droplets collect in a pool along the ceiling, as if I could somehow manipulate them against her.
One, two, three more agonizing seconds and, mercifully, she relents and steps back. “You see, I need your head clear, Nym. Free of this ridiculous draw you have on Eogan, and from everything but the job I have for you.”
My entire body is pulsing. Fading. Where is Eogan? I consider asking, but the throbbing is jumbling my thoughts.
“King Sedric has met with Lady Isobel to negotiate the loan of her army, but in all likelihood, it’s too late. Three Bron generals have already taken a portion of Litchfell Forest and are currently holed up in a fortress there, commanding their armies. I believe our only hope is to have you and Colin buy us time by destroying that fortress and the generals within.”
My mind’s growing hazy.
“I’m giving you the choice, Nym. Save Faelen, or spend the rest of your days in this cell—which won’t be long when I decide to misplace the medicine and allow the sepsis to set in.”
If she slams the door on her way out, I’ve no idea, because everything slips from consciousness.
Drip.
Drip.
Drop.
I brush a splash of moisture from my cheek.
When I open my eyes, the ceiling is still dripping and the lantern is dimmer. Eogan is standing there studying me from a spot against the stone wall.
From the looks of his damp shirt and tangled bangs, he’s been here awhile.
King Odion’s twin brother.
I turn over and stare at the mattress. I’ve a million questions to ask, but no motivation to start. How long did he say he’d been with Adora—three years? The same time period during which Bron grew bolder. And here he’s sat, privy to Faelen’s most precious secrets.
The thought makes my stomach curdle.
“How do you feel?” His tone rings so official I could spit.