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It was a horrible, animal sound. Like a wounded zintar. Then a screech, and the ground under my feet began to shake.
The work we were doing, the shifting weight. It had cracked the upper crust of ice.
The ship was moving.
I only had time to throw my head back and watch the metal wall barrel my way. A split second, to force my mark to cover my body in armor.
It was not enough.
The ship groaned, crashing hard into me, and in an instant, I was trapped beneath it. Surrounded by cold and dark. But nothing was quiet. There was shouting. The screech of my name in a voice that made my chest spasm.
Wesley was afraid. It was almost like I could feel his terror as my own.
Or maybe itwasmine. I was not familiar with the feeling, but I had never died before. Common wisdom said it was not a pleasant experience.
Though I would have taken a deadly aleri plant over dying in the cold so far from home.
The ship was crushing my chest. I could practically feel my armor cracking, unable to withstand the weight and grinding pressure as the ship dug me deeper into the sheet of ice, pushing a crack apart beneath us.
Underneath? I hoped I never found out what lay beneath the ice of Zathkar. If the stars had blessed me, I would die first.
“Jax!”
I arched my neck back desperately, hungry for one more look of his beloved face. His glasses were covered in specks of ice. His lips pale and eyes wide as he reached for me.
“Hold on,” he rasped.
When I pulled on my arm, it stuck firm beneath the round wall of the ship. Another few inches, and it would crush my chest. My head. It would steal the sight of him from me.
But I stared at him. Whoever’s terror I felt, I would not have him afraid.
“Wesley,” I whispered, unable to expand my chest for more.
He was scraping at the ice around me with his hands, trying to dig me out. When I said his name again, his eyes flashed to mine. They were full of tears.
“Wesley, these days with you have been the best gift Lyr has ever given me.” My voice was a thin rasp, but I needed him to hear me, to know I did not sink into the dark with anything but gratitude in my heart. I did not want him to remember me afraid and in pain.
I expected some show from him, a sob perhaps. Instead, he set his chin firmly and glared. “Shut up. Shut the fuck up. Don’t youdaresay that to me.”
He dug with his fingers until his hands were soaked through the oversized gloves the Zathki had given him. Marex was calling him back. Urging him to safety. The ship was still moving, slowly rolling.
By some miracle, I was able to wedge my hand out and reach for his. To still his scrabbling.
“You must go.”
I did not want to lose him, lose the last sight of him, but I couldn’t be the reason for his death. Marex would keep him safe. I trusted that, at least.
He shook his head, grabbing my hand hard. Then, clutching my arm. He pulled with all his strength, trying to get me out.
At the first brush of his hand against my chest, under the coat that had split with the swell of my armor, warmth speared through my chest like the burn of acquiring a mark. It singed my veins, until my whole body was alight.
“Not ever,” Wesley hissed.
Suddenly, my armor was hard as titanium. Unbreakable. Forcing the ship back, steadying it, even as—as—
I watched, and thick green scales, so like my own mark’s armor, broke out on Wesley’s skin. To defend him from hurt. An instinct. My mark, working in the hands of a mage.
With a spread palm, he touched another of my marks. Light sprouted from his fingertips. It melted the snow, and he pushed with his feet, dragging me from that frigid, slick spot.
