It had to be the Command-Rune. The King owned his Mark. Every use required permission Eryndor didn't have.
All the tendons in his neck popped. Held for one impossible second.
Then he screamed.
The sound was ragged and ripped from somewhere deeper than his gut, and his body convulsed beneath mine, spine bowing, hands clawing at the dirt like he was trying to tear himself free from his own skin.
The sound arced through me. My body couldn't tell the difference between his pain and mine anymore—his scream vibrated through me.
Get off him. Get off him now.
But my hands wouldn't open. My marks wouldn't release. They werefeeding—not on his pain but onhim, greedy and desperate, and I couldn't tell if I was killing him or saving him and the not-knowing was worse than either.
The Veil screamed. The sound split the cavern—a guttural wail that vibrated the stone under my knees and shook pebbles loosefrom the walls. Every flame in the ring bent flat and snuffed to blue. Time stuttered, lurched, caught in a loop I couldn't break. The cavern warped. Dual timelines fractured before my eyes: one bathed in golden light, the other consumed by ash-white death.
Then massive hands tore us apart. My body and the bond split from him by force.
Eryndor hit the floor with a sickening thud.
Dreadscale caught me before I followed. His voice was a deep growl, barely words: "Breathe, girl. Breathe."
I tried. My lungs wouldn't cooperate.
I gasped as dust settled on my lips and grit lined my teeth. My ears rang—a high, thin whine that swallowed every other sound in the cavern. Eryndor was on the ground, thrashing, one hand clawing at his Mark. His lips parted. No sound came.
Our eyes met.
He recoiled, wrenching back like I'd burned him. His hand came up—reaching toward me or warding me off, I couldn't tell—then he dropped it in the dirt like he didn't trust it anymore.
His body started shaking uncontrollably. He closed his eyes and with his last efforts, turned his back to me.
Then his body went still.
I stayed on the ground, breast heaving, the taste of his pain still coating my tongue.
I didn't mean to.
But meaning didn't matter. His Mark was built to bind—one thread, one soul, one clean tether. It wasn't built for me. For the Shadow that rose to meet his, twisting what should have been a connection into something violent. His thread had tried to take hold, and my Marks had torn it in two different directions.
No wonder he'd looked at me like that. Like I'd almost ripped him apart from the inside.
But even now, lying in the wreckage of what we'd done, I couldn't answer the question gnawing at me:
Had my Marks been trying to destroy him? Or claim him—and in their starving hunger, nearly killed what they wanted most?
And his—was that why his Soulbinder had fought so hard to touch me that itshattered the King's Command-Rune? Had it recognized its true enemy? Or had it been just as desperate, just as starving, just as unable to tell the difference?
I just lay there, staring at Eryndor’s back.
The pain came in waves now. Each one worse than the last—cresting, receding, then slamming back with fresh teeth. I felt like I’d been hollowed out, and like I was too heavy and too empty all at once.
Serenya's voice found me from somewhere far away. Hands on my shoulders. My name, over and over, but I couldn't find the voice to answer.
The third wave hit. Didn't recede.
The world went white. Then black. Then nothing at all.
UNKNOWN
