Page 279 of Blade of the Nightking

Before the thought had fully formed, I was already moving. I bent over Rìan, pressed my mouth to the wound, and drew a long, steady pull.

Warm blood flooded my mouth. Sweet. Coppery. Then came the iron.

Fire exploded across my lips and tongue, racing over the roof of my mouth like molten metal. I jerked back and spat the blood into the sand, then bent over him again at once, drawing a deeper pull until my mouth filled once more. The iron scorched me from the inside out, fierce enough to make my eyes water, yet I forced myself to keep drawing despite the searing pain.

Inside me, the Eidra recoiled violently from the threat, fleeing through my body and hurtling down my arm instead, silver light racing beneath my skin as it gathered in the palm pressed against Rìan's chest. There, it curled into itself like a frightened animal.

I didn't even need to look to know where it had sought refuge. The bargain mark had returned, ink coiling out from beneath my palm and creeping across the back of my hand.

Beneath my touch, Rìan's own mark bloomed over his heart, writhing and shifting as though it longed to climb onto my skin.

I sucked and sucked at the wound, spitting mouthful after mouthful of blood into the sand before bending to draw another. My mouth was a furnace. The iron had blistered my lips until they split, stripped the skin from my tongue, burned the roof of my mouth raw, yet still I forced myself onward.

Silent now, the Brinnekin sank beneath the still water one by one, swallowed by the swamp as though they had never been there at all.

My magic had withdrawn and in the silence it left behind, a pressure gathered deep within me, faint as a distant rumble. I scarcely noticed it through the heat shredding my mouth, yet as I bent again and again, it wound itself more tightly around my ribs, gathering strength with every passing moment.

Another mouthful.

Another searing wave of iron.

Another slow tightening around my heart.

It pressed harder and harder against my chest, searching for a shape, until at last it found one.

Fear.

Not the distant understanding that I might die, but true, soul-deep terror, so overwhelming it flattened the breath in my lungs. Terror that Rìan's next exhale would be his last, that I had already begun too late, that every mouthful I drew from his wound was nothing more than desperate futility.

My vision blurred as my emotions returned with staggering force.

Droplets spattered across Rìan’s bloodied chest, leaving streaks in the blood there.

Tears.

They trailed silently down my cheeks, falling faster with every insistent pull I drew from his wound, not born of the agony consuming my mouth, but of something vast and aching that swelled inside my heart, too powerful to name.

I hardly noticed the large hand that settled against the back of my head until warm fingers slid gently into my hair.

My mouth slipped from his shoulder as I slowly lifted my head.

Rìan was looking at me. His eyes were no longer glazed with the haze of imminent death, but clear, dark, fathomless, fixed entirely upon me. His breathing had steadied, each rise of his chest deeper than the last, color slowly chasing the ash from his face.

"You're back," I whispered, my blistered lips barely able to shape the words. My voice broke on the last one.

His gaze searched my face, landing on the tears, the burns around my mouth, his eyes holding me with an intensity I couldn't understand.

And then the corner of his mouth lifted.

"So are you," he murmured.

Our bond tightened, the single thread that bound us still strong enough to hold.

My gaze dropped to his shoulder, to the awful hole that still gaped open.

"Why isn't it closing?"

Rìan drew a careful breath and, with a wince, pushed himself onto one elbow. He reached for the wound but caught himself.