Page 181 of Feralheart

Two teammates dead, and I was supposed to lead the rest of them through this?

“What the fuck was that?” Blair’s voice shook.

I didn’t answer because I didn’t know and because my shoulder was on fire and I’d watched a man I’d trained with since childhood get swallowed by his own regrets.

Aristus banked hard, and I locked my jaw against the pull on my shoulder and followed.

An exit appeared ahead, a door of solid light that hurt to look at.

Between us and it, a field of mirrors waited, dozens of them, each one showing a different version of failure. Eradin dead. Aristus broken. My mother’s face, disappointed each and every time.

“We fly through,” I said. “Fast. Don’t look at anything.”

My vision kept whitening out, sound going distant before snapping back too loud. I was holding on by will alone, and my will was running out.

“Aristus.” My voice came out soft. “I need you to get us through. I’m not… I can’t…”

Understanding and determination flooded the bond.

I have always had you, came though as clear as spoken words.

I slumped forward, lying along his spikes, my forehead buried in his neck, my arms hanging useless at my sides. Blood soaked through my tunic, dripping onto his scales. Feeding the void around us.

Each breath drove a knife between my ribs.

Aristus wove through the mirrors, his body responding to threats only he could see, his wings catching currents that shouldn’t exist. His certainty came through our bond, and his strength poured into me when I had none of my own.

Trust.

Vella and Blair followed in a silence that screamed everything they weren’t saying.

The door of light grew closer. Fifty feet. Thirty. Twenty.

My vision blanked out completely.

Sound went distant, muffled.

I was underwater.

I couldn’t feel anything except Aristus’s heartbeat beneath me and the warm slide of blood down my side.

This was what dying felt like.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

FEN

Aristus surged forward, his wings snapping hard against nothing, and then we were through. White heat seared across my eyelids, my shoulder tore further in the crossing. Then there was no saddle beneath me, no dragon. Just air and the sick knowledge that I was going to hit the ground very soon.

Impact.

Grass. My cheek pressed into it, and I let the cold settle against my skin like a verdict. Alive, then. The relief was almost funny.

Voices broke over me in waves. Hands, too many of them, rolling me over. Touching my shoulder.

“He’s alive,” Vella said, close by. “Someone get a healer. Now.”

I tried to open my eyes but only managed it halfway. The world swam in nauseating circles.