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The gun clattered to the floor.

She ran to him, frantically reaching for his face. He fought it, gaze drilling a hole into the ground while her name spouted over and over from chapped lips.

“No. No, please… Please don’t tell me.” Lily traced a hand over the clammy skin of his shaved head, down his neck. Tears pricked behind her eyes, and she knelt below to confirm a horror she never imagined. “Xavier?”

He quieted, and Lily found his soul behind a blur. Her gaze drifted down to his bare upper body, his veins pulsing with black blood. The scarring from the amputation met the seam of the intruding metal burrowing its way under his shoulder.

“Xavier,” he croaked.

Her thumb traced over his cheek. He never got out. He’d been trapped like this since she’d left. Almost a year for the metal to fuse with him, for it to steal his body, but not enough to forget who he was. She threw her arms around his neck and pulled herself against his cool body.

I left him and never came back. He’s suffering because of me. She couldn’t move, her body trembling under the pressure of the Wraith prickling her fingertips.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” The words spilled from Xavier coherently, sounding exactly as he did last she saw him. When she abandoned him. “Hear me.”

Lily thought of the day she met him in Kester. All bony limbs, scraggly hair, and enthusiasm. How he was able to ignore the shade of her soul and help her see the inside of Reave. How he gave her a home there. A life. Another family.

“I can’t leave you like this,” she whispered.

Xavier sighed, the motion heavy and noticeable against her chest. “It’s okay.”

He ripped Lily away from him, shoving her across the room with his ghosted arm. Pained pressure filled her shoulder, but she rolled with the motion, sliding to a crouch. She eyed the pistol but didn’t reach for it.

Xavier bellowed—the sound wounded and unbearable. He slammed his heavier arm into his head. Once. Twice.

“Xavier!” Lily screamed. “Stop it!”

He stumbled past the doorway, smashing his fist through the frame. He glanced at her—eyes now vacant of awareness. With another roar, he rushed into the room.

Lily dodged the tackle, but he was quick. He grabbed at her wrist, throwing her against the wall. Lily reached for his organic arm, but the motion froze—fingers nearly brushing against his skin.

Xavier did too as if a switch had been flicked inside him. He yanked her around, and a terrible force pulled her violently to the other end of the room. She stopped, suspended in front of the soldier she was watching moments ago—the Stalker from Reave.

His glower was filled with pent up vengeance. “Got you.”

He dragged Lily out of the house.

Outside, two soldiers approached with a pair of shackles. She was forced to her knees, hands pinned then secured behind her back. The Stalker released her, and two sets of hands lifted her under the arms.

From her peripheral, a tall, wide man approached with two soldiers as escorts. He walked with a cane, donned in light, gray armor. His presence was trailed by a long black cape trimmed with fur around the collar. The empire’s insignia rested over his left breast.

General Whart. The leader of the Swarm occupying Markoth.

He took one look at Lily before turning to her captor. “Are the gates still secure?” he asked, voice dusty.

“Yes,” he answered.

“And the Rogians?”

“They’re beginning to mobilize across the river. We’ve yet to locate those the Wraith entered with.”

Lily examined the shops across the street. Maude was gone. Where did she go? Was she safe?

Heavy and exhausted, Lily drifted her attention to Xavier. All traces of his humanity were gone—his stare as empty as an animal’s.

“You sure this is it?”

Lily turned back to Whart, his golden eyes and shriveled face now inspecting her.