Chapter
One
SALEM
Everything hurt.
Breathing, thinking, existing. All of it. Everywhere.
Salem couldn’t focus on anything else. There was only overwhelming and blistering pain. He couldn’t open his eyes. Time stretched eternal. Every minute—everysecond—was a lifetime.
He would wish it over, this life, if not for the gentle brush of delicate fingers on his forehead and over his hand. Or the sweetest hum of a melody he couldn’t quite place. He knew that touch, that musical voice.
He would cling to this life, to this pain, if it meant he’d see him again.
He’d suffer it for a thousand years if it gave him just one more day withhim.
His golden one.
He knew Aurin was with him, beside him. A small light in the darkness of agony. He tried to focus on that. A single candle in the vastness of bewildering pain, keeping him safe. Keeping him tethered to this life.
Humming the sweetest song that drifted Salem off to oblivion again.
The next timeSalem stumbled back into consciousness, the pain was different. It was in his bones now. All of them. And he was in human form, unfortunately. He wanted to morph into something without bones, without pain receptors, but his body wouldn’t let him.
A hand pressed his forearm. “Rest easy there, old friend,” the voice said. Familiar. Old.
Cern.
Then he heard Aurin’s voice. Soft. Scared. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Think he’s trying to shift into something that maybe don’t hurt as much,” Cern replied.
“He can’t morph?” Aurin asked.
“He’s lucky his body can even heal,” Cern said. Then he fixed something on Salem’s head, his touch like old paper.
“Will he be okay?” Aurin asked, his voice breaking. He was crying, and oh, how it added to Salem’s pain.
“He’s a strong one,” Cern said. “But only time will tell.”
Time,Salem thought.What a cruel and wonderful thing it is.
When Salem came to again,the pain was still there—a constant reminder that he was still alive, at least—but it was second only to the smell.
A pungent, earthy gods-forsaken smell.
He knew Cern was responsible for it. The old god and his earthy medicines of mud and muck, as putrid as they were potent.
Only a featherlight brush of fingers on his hand, accompanied by the sweetest song, made the smell tolerable.
Salem really would have to have a word with Cern about the smell. He was determined now to see he lived long enoughto have strong words with Cern about his offensive ideas of medicine.
And to see Aurin one more time, of course. To touch him, to kiss him. To tell him he loved him, to say sorry, to make everything better. These things were a given.
But the smell... yeah. He would also live long enough to cuss at Cern one more time.
The air feltdifferent the next time Salem woke. It was warmer. Or he was warmer, perhaps. He had memories of lazing in the sun as it beamed through the window, magnified by the glass. That’s what it felt like.
