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Until he turned his head to face her.
Divina stopped. Her smile frozen on her face, arms suspended in midair.
Something was wrong.
Very,very wrong.
Andros’ violet eyes had faded to a dull, glassy gray. He didn’t even seem to be looking at her. Instead, he looked right through her.
Or perhaps he saw nothing at all.
Now that she was close enough, she saw that his skin was ashen beneath the olive tone; his full lips, blue. He swayed unsteadily on his feet, his head lolling on his shoulders.
She rushed forward with a gurgled cry as he fell to his forelegs, the rest of him crashing to the ground heavily.
He was at a height now that she could reach. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him to her, his cold, wet face tucked between her shoulder and neck.
Others gathered around, but Divina didn’t notice. She only knew the warmth seeping steadily out of the male in her arms, how his natural heat was replaced by icy, deathly chill.
“Andros…” she whispered, holding his face close to hers, looking desperately into his eyes.
“My love…” she uttered on a broken, terrified gasp.
His thickly-lashed eyes fluttered slightly open, but the lids seemed too heavy for him to lift completely.
“Safe…” he rasped, the word barely a breath upon the wind.
“I won. All…safe.”
“Yes,” Divina agreed, covering his face with frantic kisses, trying to breathe warmth into his cold, bloodless skin.
“We’re all safe now, thanks to you. You’re safe too. Just need a little rest, hmm? Maybe some food to refuel?”
His head drooped as if he couldn’t hold it up any more. But then she realized that he was looking pointedly down.
It was only then that she noticed the thin horizontal gash across his chest. Less than an inch deep and no longer bleeding. It shouldn’t have worried her, a shallow wound like that. But she saw the black bruising spreading around it all across Andros’ torso like an angry rash.
Poison.
Whatever blade Ixion had used must have been tipped with poison.
“Divina…”
She snapped her eyes back to Andros at his breathless whisper.
He opened his mouth slightly as if to say more, but no sound came out.
In her mind, she heard the faintest plea:
Don’t give up on me, my female.
Don’t despair.
Be brave.
Then, he crumpled entirely to the ground onto his side, the most vulnerable, defenseless position for a centaur. His body lifeless and cold. His eyes open, but blank and unseeing.
And Divina unleashed a dragon’s terrifying scream into the silent, devastating dawn.
