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Now Peregrine actively wanted to scream, only he couldn’t.
The sound wouldn’t come.
His mouth fell open, but not so much as a gasp came out.
Was this what it felt like to die?
There came a great hiss of extinguished flame and with it, darkness, then a shuffling of scales dragged through sand.
Shouting. Men, shouting. Sebastian and others.
Footsteps.
Peregrine’s understanding of the world warped and curved, and when it snapped back into place, he became aware that his clothes were saturated with fluid as warm as bathwater, but perfumed not with rose petals, but copper.
Blood.
“My love,” came Sebastian’s voice from nearby. It was barely more than a choked whisper, and it wavered with uncertainty and fear. “Oh, my love. Do not die. You cannot. Hold on just a little longer and I will find a way to make this right.”
If only death could be wished away.
“Bertram,” Sebastian roared. “I know you are here. Fix this.”
“With what?” came a voice from nearby. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, Sebastian, and I’m on the job. You weren’t supposed to interfere. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for your intrusion. Raven is dangerous, but what was I supposed to do? The council wants him alive.”
“A pox on the council!”
“You’d best watch your tongue. You are in no position to—”
“I can heal him!” came Alistair’s voice. “I’ve been practicing. Surely I—” He stopped abruptly. “Good lord, he’s nearly been carved in half. I’m not sure that even magic can—”
“Magic will,” Sebastian growled. “Save him, Alistair.”
Peregrine tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids would not budge. The world warped again and only snapped back into place when a burning feeling lit him up from the inside. It crackled through his veins and seared his muscles.
This time when he tried to scream, it echoed through the encampment.
“You’re hurting him!” snarled Sebastian.
“I’m healing him! You have to be alive to scream! If I’d done nothing, he’d be silent, but dead.”
The bickering went on, but so did the fire that was devouring Peregrine from the inside out. He screamed again, but this time it was hoarse and barely registered as a noise at all.
“You’ve punctured his squishy bits, Bertram,” Alistair complained. “Look at this mess. I have no idea what any of this is, other than broken. I’ll put him back together the best I can, but I’m no doctor. Someone must send for Everard.”
A piercing pain deep inside Peregrine knocked the wind out of his lungs and the world off its axis. Darkness pushed in on him from all sides, heavier than it’d been before, and Peregrine knew that if he succumbed to it, it would mean death.
“Stay with me, Peregrine,” Sebastian uttered. There were arms around him, and while the change in position brought with it a great deal of pain, it brought him comfort, too. If he were to die, at least he’d do so in the embrace of someone who cared.
His dragon. His lord. His Sebastian.
“Don’t move him,” Alistair snapped.
It was the last thing Peregrine heard before the darkness became too much and crushed him beneath its heel.
* * *
Death did not come easily. Between bouts of nothingness, Peregrine caught glimpses of the living world.
