Throat burning, I met his stare. “I don’t—didn’twantto be here. I wanted to stay in Leihani.”
A branch snapped behind us, and Kye and I swiveled to watch Hadrian turn around and cough into the cool forest air. He sat heavily on a log.
“Shit,” Kye breathed, darting a glance at me before releasing my arms. Dimly, I felt the scrape of rough bark as my spine dropped away from the tree.
Kye clambered over the mossy floor to his brother. “Water?”
Hadrian shook his head. “Elros.”
Kye’s gaze whipped toward me and back to Hadrian. “Is he here? He’s in the castle?”
He took a bracing step backwards, ready to run. My knees wobbled, hands and arms shaking as my rush of adrenaline ebbed. Legs crossed, I sat down among the roots, feeling their eyes on me.
“I can’t leave her with you,” Kye hissed through his teeth.
Anger and confusion flared through me, though I was too relieved I wasn’t dead to care. Instead, I watched them both, trying to understand what had just changed.
“Take her, then,” Hadrian wheezed, the tendons in his throat flaring as he dropped his forehead into his hand and lost himself in a fit of coughing. His face turned the color of a newly ripened plum. Grabbing his collar, he ripped the neck of his shirt away from his throat, the top button popping free, but the movement did nothing to ease his coughing. He worked his jaw, eyes full of terror, the purple color deepening across his face, and I realized he’d lost the ability to speak.
Feet ready to bound away, Kye returned in front of Hadrian, hands hard on each shoulder. “Relax,” he said, though sudden desperation rippled through his own voice. “Breath slow. Breathe like you’re making fog.”
Hadrian gazed up at him, his mouth working soundlessly, a fish with no water.
“Breathe!” Kye thundered.
“He can’t,” I said. Their shared gaze snapped to me as though they’d forgotten I was there. Kye growled, turning back to his brother. “Leihani, get back to your horse and go to the castle. Ask for Elros.”
I didn’t move. Frozen, I watched as Hadrian’s eyes rolled, his shoulders drooping. He began to fall forward, but Kye caught him under his arms, hauling him back to the log.
Humans can hold their breath for one to two minutes before they drown.
Eyelids low, Hadrian’s muscles went slack. He leaned against Kye, their eyes meeting in sudden understanding. He slid off the log again, and this time Kye went with him, holding him upright as they huddled against the rotting wood.
Hadrian was suffocating.
62
For a moment, one selfish, easy moment, I was grateful. Hadrian would die, but not by my hand.
He’d die, and I wouldn’t have to kill him.
One step closer to my own freedom, and I wouldn’t have to do a thing. My blood hummed at the thought of escaping my own entrapment, and I envisioned myself somewhere in the not-too-distant future, the Queen of Calder. I’d cast off my crown in the middle of the night, steal from the palace and enter the crashing sea, never looking back.
And then I met Kye’s eyes. Teeth clenched, he stared at me in mounting panic. The horror in his gaze drove me to my feet, and I crossed the mossy floor to kneel before Hadrian. I thrust my hand into his open shirt, where his chest had gone cool and clammy, calling to the water within him, mapping out the fluid in his organs and muscles, seeking an obstruction.
Faster than I’d guessed I would, I found it.
A thick plug of water at the base of his bronchial tube, obstructing his air flow like a cork in a bottle.
Hadrian leaned against Kye, mouth hanging softly open as he watched me, heart beating weakly under my hand.
Kye pulled his brother an inch away. “What are you—"
“Hold him up if you can,” I instructed, hoping a straight body would help me make sense of the puzzle of his internal body.
To my surprise, Kye obeyed, watching my hand on Hadrian’s skin. Ignoring him, I coaxed the moisture in Hadrian’s body to loosen. It ruffled against my call like breath across the top of a pillow, heavy and unwilling to move. I tried hooking it and lifting to no avail. Tried reforming it—stretching it up toward his trachea. I’d never called to water I couldn’t see before. It was like trying to mold clay with my hands tied behind my back, unable to see the shape I was forming. Intuition was all I had.
But slowly, I felt it loosen.
