“I thought…” he starts. His voice cracks. The guilt and fear roiling off him are overpowering. But I’m alive, and for a moment I’d really thought I was going to die alone. So right now? I don’t want to shut him out.
“I heard screaming,” Aria cries from the doorway. She rushes toward us. My eyes are still stinging and I let them fall shut.
“Fire. Help her,” Roiven begs his sister.
A gentle hand presses lightly to my forehead. I can tell it isn’t Roiven’s. Aria’s, then. My skin cools. As I draw my next breath, my lungs seem to expand, no longer catching and choking.
“She’ll be alright. Can you hear me, Cai?” Aria asks.
“You’re a healer?” I mumble.
“It’s my fault,” Roiven rasps. “I should have realized taking off the armor would free your magic. I should never…”
“You couldn’t have expected this,” Aria tells him.
“But I knew. I knew it was fire magic. I pushed her to take off that armor and then I left her alone like a thrice-damned fool instead of sleeping next to her where I belonged.”
“Roiven…” Aria sighs. “She wasn’t even burned. The smoke damage was bad, but she’sfinenow.”
How could I not burn? The heat was so intense. It’s not like I’m immune to fire. The scars from Sava’s still line my face.
Is it because dragonfire is more intense?
…Or maybe it’s because, even if my familiar is ignoring me, I’m more in touch with him and my power than I ever was before.
Aria’s hand slips off my forehead. In all honesty, I feel fine. So exhausted I can barely move, but fine. Minutes ago I may have been choking on smoke, but whatever Aria did is magic. Literally.
The emotion billowing off Roiven is heavy, thick, like the fire’s smoke. It’s clogging my brain and I don’t think he’s even conscious of what he’s sending down our bond. He’s dragging himself down,down, deeper, because he’s the kind of man who blames himself for not preventing anything that goes wrong. Because I almost died, and he thinks it’s his fault.
I reach my living hand toward him. Roiven’s breath hitches as he takes it in his own. The lines of our bond touch.
I’m glad he came for me.
And I might still hate that he tricked me into becoming his wife instead of telling me the truth about the bond, but I don’t hate what we are, and I don’t blame him forthis.
Roiven’s hand squeezes tight on mine, his palm warm and his fingers calloused. The guilt in him lightens, just a little. Not all the way. He’ll blame himself whether or not I blame him.
“What if I hadn’t. What if I’d been too late,” he whispers.
“I’m not easy to kill.”
“Iknowthat,” he says fiercely.
“I’d have made it through the opening. I’d have found a way.”
“I’m sure,” he says, and his chin tilts up as he looks at how far it is above our heads. “But you never should havehadto—”
“Enough,” I mutter.
Aria clasps my shoulder lightly.
“I’ll find you something else to wear,” she says, and stands to leave. I glance down. I wasn’t wearing trousers to begin with, and now my shirt is nothing but burnt, tattered rags.
“So. Fire,” I say to Roiven as she walks away.
“Fire,” Roiven answers. “I should have said something. After you asked if I burned your trousers.”
“I sort of guessed,” I mutter, thinking back to that day and then the plant I caught on fire. But I wasn’t even conscious of doing anything either of those times, and I almost just burned myself to death in my sleep. My heart thuds loudly in my chest.
