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Horrified and confused, I set the boys down and then shifted back to human form. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t respond. He wasn’t looking at me. At anyone, not even the dragon. His unfocused gaze lived somewhere in the middle space between us and the burning edge of the city. Slowly, his head shook back and forth as if in denial of something.
“Roan, what’s wrong?” I threw a frantic glance at the dragon. The creature was almost on top of us. “We have to go!”
He didn’t move, and when he spoke, his voice was as distant as his gaze, like he was speaking from someplace infinitely far away. “You have to get away from me, Gwyneira. As fast and as far as you can. Don’t come back.”
“What? I’m not leaving you!”
He didn’t react at all.
At a loss, I floundered. Why would he say this?
Unless…
Cold fear stole my breath. The fire. That oily, oozing sensation. What if that strange feeling hadn’t been just the Voidborn’s power?
It was actually one of them.
And now they had Roan.
“Fight,” I urged, terrified. “Please, you have to?—”
The dragon slammed down onto the houses behind us, crushing the stone and wood and sending clouds of soot and dust into the air. Its roar bellowed out over the communal garden, shaking the walls of the houses and making me clamp my hands to my ears instinctively.
With a scream, the woman scrambled up and took off running, her two little boys in tow. She stumbled and wavered on her feet from her injuries, but adrenaline and the need to protect her children was clearly a powerful fuel, propelling her forward until she disappeared beyond the houses.
I couldn’t move. “Roan, please. Fight.”
A growl rumbled out over the gardens, and my eyes slid back to the dragon. Its emerald scales gleamed in the light of the burning city, and its eyes radiated a sickening shade of yellow, like puss and disease but lit up like the sun. While the harpies screamed and shrieked with joy above it, an orange glow started behind the green scales of the dragon’s belly, the promise of another blast of flame none of us would escape.
But its eyes weren’t on me.
“Gwyneira…” Roan’s voice was agonized. He still stared at nothing like he didn’t notice the dragon or the harpies at all. “Run. Get away. I… I don’t want you to die.”
Anguish flooded me like hot metal in my chest. Dammit, he’d just started acting like a person instead of an asshole, and now the Voidborn were trying to take that away.
I couldn’t let them have him, but I didn’t know what to do.
Desperate, I reached for him.
My hand landed on his arm, and he jolted like I’d struck him with a branding iron. A choked cry ripped from him and he tore free of my grasp, his body shaking so hard I swore he’d shatter his own bones.
Stumbling to a stop several feet away, Roan turned his head. His eyes found mine, and they were full of anguish like his heart was breaking. “Not her. Please don’t destroy her too.”
Horror stole my breath. He was begging the Voidborn now. Oh gods. “Please, Roan. No. Don’t give up.”
A red glow began to burn around the edges of his eyes. His expression was filled with such pain and regret, it made me want to cry. “Run,” he begged me.
The dragon drew a deep breath.
A scream ripped from Roan like the world was dying. With a lurch, he threw his head back, his spine arching and his body going rigid like he was being stretched to the brink.
Even the dragon paused.
Just as sharply, Roan’s body snapped forward again, his scream coming to an end. His dark hair fell around his face. Everything about him hung limp, as still as a puppet with his strings cut.
“No,” came his soft, pleading whisper.
