They are dying again,his thought was a sob.Look, Aria. Look at Sergeant Keller.
I looked. I couldn't help it. The bond forced my eyes to the specific patch of fog he was fixated on.
A grizzled warrior stood there. He looked solid. Real. He was looking right at Thane with eyes full of trust.
"We held them, sir," the Sergeant said. "Just like you said."
Then, the mist took him. It started at his feet. His legs simply stopped existing. The man looked down, surprised, as his torso began to flake away into grey smoke.
"Sir?" the Sergeant asked, his voice distorting, slowing down like a warping record. "Sir... I'm... f-fadddding..."
"KELLER!" Thane lunged.
The movement was catastrophic.
He threw his weight forward, trying to reach the dissolving phantom. The mud surged up, swallowing his chest. He was drowning in the earth. The grey sludge poured over his shoulders, coating my legs. It felt freezing. It burned like liquid nitrogen.
"Kaelen! Flynn!" I screamed.
Kaelen was there. The Dragon Prince didn't try to pull Thane out; he knew he couldn't move a mountain. Instead, Kaelen breathed fire.
He unleashed a torrent of white-hot flame directly onto the mud surrounding Thane.
The mud hissed and shrieked, an actual, vocal sound of pain. It crusted over, turning to fragile glass for a fleeting second before melting again.
Flynn was a blur of motion. He was running circles around us, snapping at the encroaching fog, biting the heads off the static-ghosts before they could speak, trying to silence the accusations before they reached Thane’s ears.
Shut up!Flynn snarled, tearing a phantom throat out.Shut up and leave him alone!
But Thane was gone. His eyes had rolled back. He was vibrating, a low frequency rumble that was destabilizing the very ground we stood on. He wasn't fighting the mud anymore; he was embracing it. He was accepting his punishment.
I could feel him slipping. Not just physically, but spiritually. The bond between us was stretching, thinning. His light, the warm, brown earth-tone of his soul, was dimming, being replaced by the same grey static that was eating his men.
"Thane!" I shouted, leaning over his ear. "I order you to stand up!"
He didn't respond. He sank lower, the mud touching his chin.
I realized then that commands wouldn't work. He was a soldier; he knew how to die for a cause. He was doing this because he believed he deserved it. He believed his weight was a burden to us, a danger to the mission, and a debt he owed to the dead.
I had to change the equation.
I let go of his head and wrapped my arms around his massive neck. I pressed my entire body against his burying fur. I engaged the star-metal lattice, pushing every ounce of my will into the connection.
I didn't pull. You can't pull a Titan.
Iaddedweight.
I poured my own memories into him. Not the happy ones. I showed him the Citadel. I showed him the cold stone floor of my cell. I showed him the loneliness of the Gate. I showed him the terror I felt right now, the absolute, paralyzing fear of being left alone in the dark without him.
"You want to carry the weight?" I screamed into his mind, my voice cracking with desperation. "Then carry ME, you stubborn bastard! Don't you dare drop me!"
Thane froze. The mud rippled around his nose.
Aria?
"I am terrified, Thane!" I sobbed against his ear, letting the vulnerability bleed through the bond, raw and unfiltered. "The dark is too big. I can't do this without my wall. If you sink, I sink. If you die, I die right here with you."
The shudder that went through him was enough to crack the glass plains miles away.
