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“You’re trying to strangle me!“
“You don’t know me at all, Honor. If I had wanted you dead, you would’ve been dead a long time ago. I’m trying to help.“
His fingers pressed hard into the veins on either side of my throat. Jaik and Caldren wrapped their hands around my throat to kiss me, and I loved the feeling, but Zehr’s possessive, intense grip was all consuming. My head swam, and I collapsed onto the bed beside him, and the world faded away until it was gone.
And instead, I stood in a narrow underground hallway. The ceiling had collapsed in, hanging oppressively overhead.
Down the hallway, I saw a flash of light and fire as Jaik transformed. His golden eyes were bright in the darkness, the only thing visible.
“Get out of here!“ Caldren called him desperately. “Can you fly out?“
There was a desperate screeching buckling metal as the ceiling bowed even closer toward us. I lost sight of them as the ceiling buckled between us.
Ebba was still trying to erase Caldren from this world. I wasn’t going to let that happen. No mere god could take my men away.
The magic built beneath my skin faster than ever before, a wild trickling sensation of pressure that had to be released. This time, I didn’t try to hold it back. This time, I trusted myself to keep us alive.
I directed all that force upward. The ground above me exploded out in a plume of dirt and rock.
Moonlight streamed in, beautiful silvery rays of light. Jaik and Caldren called to each other desperately, checking in on each other.
“What the hell just happened?“
I tried to call to them, but I was exhausted from expending that one magical burst. As I lay there in the dirt, I could see them fly out above me, Jaik gripping Caldren. The two of them flew slowly, as if they were hurt, but my men were alive.
“You have so much power,“ Zehr said. “But you need to have more than one shot.”
I turned my head to look at him. Zehr laid kicked back on the dirt beside me, looking entirely at home in this dank tunnel through the earth. His arms were folded beneath his head, and he looked up at that sliver of sky as if he were stargazing.
“What just happened?“ I asked.
“Did you shadow travel? Are you really here, or are we still both lying in that bed?” Zehr raise dark eyebrows. “I’m not entirely sure what your magic is up to, Honor. It seems like it’s… uniquely your own. Unpredictable and wild.”
“But it saved Caldren and Jaik.” As long as it wasn’t just a dream. I pressed my fingertips over the mark, trying to reach out to my men. But I couldn’t feel them. The blast of magic had taken all my power, which gave me a sick, helpless feeling. “Zehr. How do we get back?“
“I thought you’d never ask. I’m dying, I’m not useless.“
When I turned my head to look at him, he felt too close, too intimate. I didn’t want to be this close to the Lord of the Scourge, and I didn’t want my heart to lurch even after all he had done and all the lies he had told.
“Even as I die, I’ll try to look after you,“ he promised.
“I don’t need anyone to look after me, “ I shot back. “I was born to become the most powerful thing in this kingdom.”
Zehr reached up and stroked a thumb over my cheekbone. “It doesn’t matter how powerful any of us are. I’m powerful, ageless, and I still want to be looked after.” His hand caressed my forehead, caressed the side of my face, and my eyes drifted closed as I enjoyed his cooling touch. I felt so hot and frantic from the panic attack and then from the force of my magic. My eyes drifted shut.
“We have to go back,” he murmured. “The Scourge are swarming. I have to call them back… if I can.”
CHAPTER7
Jaik
I transformedback to collapse on the ground, breathing hard.
Caldren turned his head to one side to look at me, rubbing his hands across his face. “What the hell just happened?”
Honor,I wanted to say, but I didn’t understandhow.
“It was Honor,” he answered his own question, when I didn’t. “I don’t understand how, but I’m sure it was her.”
