Page 204 of Feralheart

My hands stretched toward him before I’d decided to move them. Selira made a broken half-sound again, and our bond thinned to paper. Tolross watched my hands reach for him, and his smile didn’t change. That was what stopped me. Real Tolross would’ve looked surprised. He’d have said something silly and affectionate, a joke that landed badly. He’d have reached back.

This Tolross just waited.

I couldn’t drag in a breath past the thing lodged in my lungs, couldn’t think past the certainty that turning away meant I was abandoning my brother when he needed me most.

Except it couldn’t be him.

I closed my eyes, cutting myself off from his face, and urged Selira to take me away.

Brave, Selira said through our bond.

“Eradin.” Tolross’s voice followed me, rising in desperation. “Eradin, please. Don’t leave me!”

Each word was a knife between my ribs. I felt them sink in one after another until I was bleeding on the inside.

Warmth flooded my palms. The red lines blazed bright enough I saw them through my closed eyelids, my magic screaming toward the vision of him the way it always had toward broken things.

Tolross was not here.

I shoved the warmth back down until it burned in my chest instead of my hands, and I opened my eyes, staring at Selira’s scales and nothing else.

Beside me, Fen followed my lead.

Aristus lurched as Fen’s grip slipped, his wounded shoulder giving out. He caught himself. Barely.

His face had gone to pieces, his careful control stripped off completely. Tears wet his face. His mouth twisted with grief and fury.

I’d worn that face while standing in front of my mother’s shelf, staring at empty herb jars.

Aristus held steady beneath him, and Fen trusted the dragon with everything inside him. His wounded arm had dropped to his side and hung there.

The other dragons flew erratically, their movements jerking and uncoordinated as their riders yanked them toward visions. The wet snapping sound came faster now.

Riders cried out, reaching for people and things that weren’t there.

They fell when their dragons couldn’t hold them any longer.

Reece yanked the reins so hard his dragon spun sideways, corkscrewing toward whatever he was chasing. The dragon’s wing caught mine on the way past, and Selira shrieked, dropping hard before righting herself.

“Reece.” Fen drove Aristus in from the other side, cutting off the dragon’s path. “Look at me. Reece!”

Reece white-knuckled the saddle horn, his body pitched forward. I worried he’d jump.

Fen grabbed the harness with his good arm, hauling back. The strain crossed his face, but he held on.

“They’re not there,” Fen said, his voice low and fierce. “Whatever you see, they’re not there. Turn away. Ignore it.”

Reece finally slumped, his hands opening.

His dragon steadied, shuddering, and pulled away.

Lyndie’s dragon had stopped responding, her rider frozen over its neck, her hands limp at her sides. Whatever she was seeing, it had stolen her completely.

I flew Selira in close.

Lyndie’s lips moved. The same word, over and over.

I didn’t mean to read it, but it was the simplest word there was.