Chapter 7

Karys

I woke in the middle of the night, not because of nightmares or flames building around me, but because of a sudden pressure in my chest—like someone had taken hold of my heart and was trying to wrench it out.

I sat up in a daze. The potion Rieta had given me made my head feel as though it had been stuffed with dandelion fluff. It took several moments to form a coherent thought. Several more to blink my eyes back into focus and remember where I was.

Dravyn's room.

His bed.

He'd carried me to it, hadn't he?

Beside me was Moth; he'd slipped under the covers and now rested on his back. His beak was hanging open, little snores occasionally slipping out of it.

It was colder than it usually was in this room; the fireplace was full of nothing but glowing coals.

How odd .

I'd never seen that fire go out.

I rubbed my eyes, blinking a few more times to make certain I was seeing clearly…and what I saw made the uncomfortable pressure in my chest even worse.

At the foot of the bed sat Dravyn, his eyes closed, his head bowed low, his hands clasped together in front of him. His hair was damp. He smelled of mint and soap and oil, and his arms looked to have been scraped roughly enough that welts had formed on his skin, as though he'd gotten carried away while trying to scrub himself clean.

"Dravyn?"

He didn't reply. Didn't lift his head or stir at all, even as I sat up straighter and leaned toward him.

"Are you okay?"

Still no reply. I threw the covers aside—waking Moth and earning a disgruntled growl as I did—and I crawled toward Dravyn.

He jumped slightly as my hand fell upon his arm. Up close, I confirmed what I'd suspected: several of the welts looked prominent enough that they'd likely bled before closing into the raised wounds I saw now. Nothing terribly deep, certainly not concerning for a god; they would be healed in the next few minutes, most likely.

But what had caused him to do such a thing?

He still didn't look at me, so I cupped my hand against his jaw and turned his face toward mine. He didn't resist. As our gazes met, I had to fight the urge to jump myself. His eyes frightened me. They were glassy, wide, seeing right past me. And his skin…it wasn't cold , but it was not full of the warmth I was used to from him.

I drew my hand down, pulling it into a fist against my chest as I tried and failed to suppress a shudder.

He finally came back to life at this—maybe because he could see the fear he was causing me—and he mirrored my earlier movement, lifting his hand and pressing it to my cheek. His fingers trembled against my skin, but touching me seemed to give him strength. He managed a deep breath.

As he exhaled, the room warmed the tiniest bit.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he said, lowering his hand and trailing his fingers up and down my arm. "I just needed to be near you again. I hope you don't mind."

"Mind?" I whispered, mouth almost too dry to speak. "Of course I don't mind."

His fingers came to rest in the spaces between mine. He squeezed my hand tightly, holding it as though I was an anchor keeping him from drifting away again.

I squeezed back just as tightly.

He felt… strange . Like part of his magic had been drained. I don't think I'd fully realized how in sync I was with that magic until this moment, when the waning of it made it feel like a hollow cavern was opening in my own chest.

"What happened?" I demanded. "Where did you go?" I had a sinking suspicion I already knew the answer to that last question.

He hesitated only a moment before he told me the details—how he'd gone back to his old kingdom just as I'd feared. How he'd witnessed death and chaos starting to build, confirming the awful warnings Halar had given us. How he feared war was unavoidable, and that, when it came, what remained of our respective mortal families would be standing on opposite sides of the battlefield.

As he spoke, Moth crawled out from under the covers and curled up in my lap. Within moments, he was snoring again.

"It feels intentional, the elves targeting my old city all of a sudden," Dravyn said, absently scratching the griffin between its tufted ears. "As if they are trying to draw you and me into the fold, likely in hopes that we'll also pull other divine beings down with us. Chaos and complications—whatever it takes to undo the hierarchy of power as it is now."

I should have been focused on the bigger picture as he was, perhaps.

But at the moment, all I could think about was the danger he'd put himself in. And the pain. The haunted look in his eyes, the way his fingers had trembled against my skin only moments ago…

"Did you see your brother when you were in Altis?"

His gaze snapped to mine as though I'd uttered some heinous, unforgivable curse.

"No," he said, with obviously practiced indifference. "I didn't see him."

The words—and his obvious attempt to hide behind them—only made me more curious about what he had seen.

I swallowed down the frustration starting to build in my throat and quietly said, "You shouldn't have gone alone."

"It was faster that way. Easier."

"Not easier for you ."

"I've faced far more difficult things."

"That's not the point."

He stood, dropping my hand and making his way over to the fire. He rekindled the flame with a bit more effort than it usually took him; he actually had to kneel before it and shift the wood into a more deliberate position to help it catch properly.

"The past isn't finished with either of us, as you said." I got to my feet as well, gently placing Moth in a pile of blankets behind me. The griffin snored on, oblivious to the conversation around him. "But you don't have to face that past on your own."

He grabbed the metal poker and started stoking the fire. I'd rarely seen him use that poker, or any of the other tools on the hearth, for that matter; it wasn't as though the flames burned him when he used his hands.

Maybe he just wanted an excuse to stab something.

"Next time you do something like this, we go together." My words were firm. Unyielding. I felt bolder, stronger than I had in weeks. Maybe it was the balam potion—the fact that I'd finally managed to truly rest because of it.

Dravyn shook his head. "I barely made it back to this realm in one piece. If you had been there…"

"Then maybe we could have made it back easier."

He didn't reply.

"You're stronger when I'm closer to you," I said. "Admit it. Do you think I haven't noticed the way our magic reacts and builds when we're near to each other? Sometimes it's enough to take my breath away. Maybe it's not as overwhelming for you , but you must feel some sort of shift, too."

He relented with a sigh. "Yes. But that's a very simple—too simple—explanation of what's happening between us. There are too many unknowns. You need to get a firm grip on your own power in a safer, less volatile environment."

" Are there any safe, less volatile environments for me, at the moment? If so, I'd absolutely love to hear about them."

A muscle in his jaw ticked.

I'd made a point he couldn't refute.

Nevertheless, he didn't give in. "You're right—I do feel a shift in my magic when you're close. Sometimes it feels like I'm drawing more in, my power feeding from yours because you haven't yet learned how to hold your own. Don't you see how this could be dangerous? Destabilizing? I won't risk finding ourselves in a desperate situation where I end up taking from you and—"

"You aren't taking anything, you idiot. I'm freely offering it. No matter what happens, we're supposed to face things together, right? And there's more to my power than the fire you gave me. Remember? You said that right after I ascended."

He didn't take those words back, but his gaze remained troubled.

"Either way," I continued, "we can't avoid these complications forever. We have to figure out how to make sense of these new versions of ourselves."

For a long moment, he regarded me with the same practiced, stony expression he'd used when I'd mentioned his brother.

Then, without answering me, he straightened back to his full height and turned all his attention to the fire he'd built.

"I already made up my mind earlier," I pressed, stepping toward him. My words were sharp-edged, honed by the frustration building inside me. "I'm going to work harder to control my divine powers so you can't inadvertently take them, and so nothing else can go wrong in that regard. I'll focus on my ability to transport first. I'll prove to you that I can use magic to get myself out of danger, same as you. Will that make you feel better?"

He slowly drew his gaze back to mine, turning to meet me as I approached.

He still didn't speak.

I swallowed down more sharp words, trying to ignore the painful way they carved and settled into my stomach.

The fire burned brighter the closer I came to him. Brighter as I exhaled as much of my frustration as I could, and brighter still as I wrapped my arms around him and rested my head against his chest, watching the flames dance to the rhythm of his breathing.

His body was stiff at first, each muscle clenched impossibly tight. But the longer I held him, the more he relaxed against me.

Finally, his hands moved, abandoning the rigid grip he had on my hips. He circled his arms around my waist instead. Pulled me against him. Buried his face in my hair, breathing in my scent, his hands moving over my body and tracing the curves and lines of me as though he was trying to convince himself that I was solid. That I was real and safe and here .

I stretched up and pressed my lips to his, so he could taste the realness of the moment as well as feel it.

He kissed me back, fiercely, fingers threading through my hair, clenching hard enough to draw a small gasp from my mouth.

His hold relaxed at the sound, but not by much. He was holding on just as he'd held my hand earlier—as though he was worried he might float away without me to anchor him down.

Even when he ended the kiss, he stayed close, his fingers still tangled in my hair.

I wondered again at what he'd seen and experienced while I'd slept. I didn't ask this time, but he soon offered up more on his own, his voice barely audible even though his lips were close enough to brush my ear when he spoke.

"I had a vision earlier," he said, "while I was trying to wash up. In it I…I was carrying you through the halls of my former palace. You were bleeding. I'd moved too slow. I…" His hold on me tightened even more as he trailed off.

My heart skipped several beats as I realized what had caused him to dig so deeply into his skin: He'd been trying to get my blood off his arms. My invisible blood.

"It wasn't real," I whispered, leaning back so I could see his face. I brushed strands of damp hair from his eyes, willing my fingers not to shake. His expression was frightening again—distant and almost… panicked .

I'd never seen him like this.

I did my best not to let my fear show, closing my eyes and pressing my lips to his again, trying to say with my kiss what I couldn't manage with words.

He kissed me back, but with less force than before. Less awareness.

"It wasn't real," I whispered again.

He nodded absently.

But no matter how many times I repeated the words, the guilt still remained in his eyes, haunting and dark, even in the bright glow of firelight.