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The sight pulled at my guts as I walked up to him—I knew that pain all too well. “You’re up.”
“Mm-hmm…” He acknowledged me with a quick glance over his shoulder, then his gaze meandered back through the window where he looked down at something.
At Galantia, to be precise, who paced a circle into the snow beside the cliff and around one of our younger female deathweavers and Asker. “I didn’t know she went outside. Don’t like it, either.”
“I have been standing here the entire time, watching her.”
“She’s still not giving up?”
Malyr scoffed, lifted a brow, and exchanged a knowing look with me. “This is the fifth weaver she dragged out there this morning, trying to echo shadows.”
“You think she can wield?”
“Hard to say with how fast everything went wrong that day.” His entire body tensed beside me, wrenching a pained cough from him, a trickle of dark blood glistening on one corner of his mouth. “What do you need?”
The sight of that black blood slowly running down his chin ate at me. I’d seen Malyr injured plenty of times. We’d sparred, fought… hell, I’d even accidentally stabbed him with a dagger once.
But this… this was different.
He’d decided to sacrifice himself that day so Galantia may live. And maybe he would have succeeded if it wasn’t for how she’d done the same for him. If that wasn’t a fated connection hard at work, then I wouldn’t know what was. Didn’t quite know how to feel about it, either.
“Making sure you stopped pissing blood, though there’s something I wanted to bring up now that you’re on the mend.” A tap of my finger at the corner of my mouth. “You might want to clean that.”
He lifted his arm, wiped the back of his hand over his chin, and frowned at the black smear. “Shit.”
“You should lie down again,” I said, and then more quietly, “Guess Galantia will have to spend another night here.”
The sixth one where she’d fall asleep beside him, probably not once reaching her fingers to her chest during sleep like she had with me. I knew because I’d been there, beside them, watching them all night in case Malyr got worse. With him, her void was sated.
My fingers lifted to my chest. The Endless Ache wasn’t something I would wish on my worst enemy—certainly not on my friend, and most definitely not on the woman I loved. Yet here I was, taking comfort in the fact that Galantia refused to bond to Malyr which, in turn, meant I took comfort in their pain. How fucked up was that?
“It bothers you,” Malyr stated plainly.
“As if it matters what it does to me.” Malyr was infested with more shadows than even he could handle, and Galantia was the only void strong enough to absorb them. End of story. “Now that you’re walking among the living again, what are you going to do about Lorn?”
Malyr sighed, running his fingers over his half-lidded eyes before he pinched the bridge of his nose. “That is a complicated matter.”
“Complicated matter?” I barked, anger seeping into my veins at the speed of lightning. “Galantia told Marla the shadows that attacked her felt hot and burning. Yours are cold, always have been. Lorn attacked youranoaley, and you’re saying this is acomplicated matter?”
“It is not a problem easily solved.” Malyr dropped his hand, his gaze lifting to mine. “In my current state, I am no match for Lorn, should things escalate. At the same time, I cannot draw attention by sending a small army to arrest the fated mate of the Raven bannerman who stores sixty percent of our grains and has soldiers under his command.”
“Send her away.”
“Oh, because I have not tried? Because Ihave.A dozen times, I sent her away, but she either refuses or returns within days,” he snapped. “Lorn is fully aware of Galantia’s strength, or she would have attacked sooner. I already ordered Asker not to leave Galantia’s side, did I not? I have been standing here, guarding over her.”
“Yeah, and nearly collapsing on your ass,” I snarled. “And what if Asker looks away for just one moment? If a vision distracts him? If you can’t shift quickly enough or not at all? Then what, huh? I told you back in the forest… I told you Lorn shouldn’t be anywhere near—”
“Yes, yes, you told me!” He threw his hands up. “Is that why you came? To ensure I know how terribly I misjudged the situation?”
“Misjudged the…” Goddess, drag his ass through hell. “She could have died! Lorn’s shadows could have killed her. And even if not, your shadows might have finished the deed! You fucked up!”
“I know I fucked up!” Malyr unleashed his temper with a roar, shadows drowning his eyes in pitch-black darkness. “I fucked up when I was so blinded by hate, I refused to recognize myanoaley!I fucked up when I betrayed her, breaking her heart and trust! I fucked up when I tried to force a bond on her, my mind drunk on shadows and the urge to hurt her! I fucked up when I shoved her to the—”
A cough cut through his words, lancing straight into his lungs until a blob of black blood oozed over his bottom lip. He quickly hunched over, wheezing, letting it drip to the floor. The rest, he wiped away on the sleeve of his robe.
“Fucking shit…” I turned away and grabbed a nearby shirt or whatever hung over the chair and reached it out to him. “Here.”
He took it with trembling fingers, wiping it over his mouth as he slowly straightened, but all it did was streak the lower half of his face a reddish black. The sight did something to me. Buried deep into my chest.
