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I probably deserved as much.
“Your arm,” I murmured, seeing the bandages on his limb. “I thought they’d have had you right as rain by now.” I didn’t know how long I was out. It should have been plenty of time for them to purge the silver corruption and then get the wound to close.
“Healer says it needs a day or so to heal from the inside out, so it doesn’t trap nitrate infection inside. Packed with gauze right now, which I’m just realizing is pretty gross.”
I let out a frustrated breath. “That’s ridiculous. Here, let me at it.”
I placed my hand right on top of the bandage, sending out my magic to scan through it and make sure I wasn’t disrupting anything important. But the power just wouldn’t concentrate, fizzing out without answering my call.
That was strange.
I’d sealed my magic away for a bit to save me from my rapidly escalating curse. But that was meant to break off with sleep, and I was unconscious for at least a little while.
“What’s going on?” Kai said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly, my mind spinning. This wasn’t the first time I’d felt such a sensation, I knew it, but I ripped through memories to try to pick out exactly when.
It was like my magic was both unstable and separate from myself, my fingers moving through like it wasn’t even connected to me.
Wait.
Wait a gods’ damned minute!
Ihadfelt it once before, when I was full of adrenaline, sure I was going to die. It was after I’d insulted a certain powerful magic user and we clashed.
The Shrouded Shriek.
But why would my magic act the same way when I hadn’t interacted with him at all? The only force I’d interacted with was my own malignant shadow, and…
…no.
“Fuck,” I gasped, my mind twisting this way and that, my thoughts whirling a thousand miles a minute.
But if I was right, if the sudden theory blooming in my mind was even remotely true, then Ihadto end things with Kai. I had to run a thousand miles away and then some. Hell, I probably should even just use my magic to fling myself off the face of the earth. Remove myself as a variable in entirety.
I couldn’t be right though, could I?Could I?
“What’s wrong, Ayla? Is it your curse? Are you ill?”
I looked up at Kai with wide eyes.
“Kai, I think I know who cursed me.”
And I think it’ll end everything between us.
I should have said that part, but I couldn’t. Kai and I were inexplicably entwined. He and I, two halves of the same coin. We couldn’t be separated anymore than someone could remove different fruits from a fully realized wine.
…except wehadto.
“What?” he cried, pulling me into a hug, but I was so stiff I couldn’t return the embrace. Was I in shock? I was in shock. “That’s incredible.”
“No, it isn’t,” I droned, carefully sorting every puzzle piece my mind was connecting.
Kai heard the strange quality in my voice. He was starting to know me better than anyone. “Why? Who is it, Ayla?”
“We… we have to end this Kai. We can’t be together anymore.”
He stared at me like I’d suddenly grown two fire-breathing heads and honestly it kind of felt that way. It was like I was going against everything in my body and soul. Trying to sever what was inseverable.
