Page 203 of Feralheart

Riders peeled off, chasing their visions. Dragons fought them, pulling in different directions. I swore I heard bonds straining, ropes about to snap.

Some did give way, with the crack of breaking bones.

Selira lurched beneath me, a full-body shudder that nearly unseated me. Her wings faltered, one powerful stroke cutting short, and we dropped before she caught herself. The bond between us stretched thin, a rope pulled past its capacity. I felt her on the other end of it, holding, but I also felt Tolross in front of me, and I couldn’t tell which direction was which.

Hold on, she said through the bond, but it came through distorted, like she was shouting from underwater. I dug my knees into her sides and grabbed the neck spike until my knuckles screamed.

Tolross walked ahead of me, sending a mischievous smile over his shoulder. He looked so good I couldn’t stand it. “Come on, sis. You can stop now. I’m healed. Come home.”

I tightened my hands on Selira’s neck spike. She peeled away from him, diving to our right.

Every instinct I had screamed I should force her to follow my brother. This was why I came here. This was everything.

Fen flew beside me, transfixed on a vision I couldn’t see. Aristus flew lower. Side to side. Fen didn’t seem to notice. He’d stopped seeing anything except whatever had appeared ahead of him.

“Dad?” The word came out lost. “Is that⁠—”

Aristus pulled him to the left.

“Fen.” My voice cracked. “Fen, look at me.”

He didn’t respond. He strained toward whatever he was seeing, tears tracking down his face.

“Look at me.” My voice cracked on the words.

Nothing. He’d gone somewhere I couldn’t reach.

“Fen.” I drove Selira closer, close enough that her wing nearly clipped Aristus. “Fen, look at me. Not at him. At me.”

His head turned by degrees, like dragging something heavy. When his eyes finally found mine they were glassy, somewhere else, the careful control that usually lived there completely gone.

“He’s real,” Fen said. “Eradin, I can hear him.”

“So could I.” My voice dropped. “This…thing knew exactly what Tolross’s dimple looks like. It knew what I came here for.” I held his gaze. “But my brother didn’t reach back.”

A frown grew on Fen’s face.

“Trust Aristus,” I said. “Just that. Nothing else.”

“But he’s—” His voice broke. “My father’s alive. I can see him.”

“It can’t be real.” Though I wanted it to be true. So much. “Trust your dragon. Please.”

Tolross moved closer to me, near enough to catch the pulse in his throat and the exact shade of brown in his eyes that matched mine and my father’s.

“Please,” my little brother said. “I’m right here. Don’t you want to save me?”

Every fragment in my body screamed yes.

Tolross was everything. I’d risked death and worse to protect him.

But Selira was terrified of something beyond the vision, something buried in the center of this place that her wild-born senses could feel but couldn’t reach. It felt older than all the realms, and it was testing us.

“Come with me, sis.” Tolross smiled, and it was exactly right, down to the way his left dimple appeared first. “I’m healthy. Feeling fine. You can rest now.”

You can rest now.

I wanted to. Fates, I wanted it so badly my bones ached with it.