Page 151 of Kissed By the Gods
Her lip still quavers, but she nods. “Ok.” She takes a deep breath. “I have something to show you.”
She touches me, and thoughtsshatter.
Darkness explodes behind my eyes. Not the Veil. Not memory. This is somethingother. This is vision.
Screams rip through the silence—raw and human. The air smells of ash and blood. The ground is black and wet. Draegothclaws slash through bodies like parchment. Pale-eyed Kher’zenn swarm through broken barricades. Faravars fall from the clouds, their feathers circling in the air. An Altor—someone I know, someone I love—is screaming. We fight. But it’s not enough. It’s never enough.
I turn, and it’s to find the face of someone I might know. It might even be my own. The face whispers a single word. I can’t hear it—but Ifeelit, vibrating in my ribs, etching itself into my lungs.
Run.
And then I’m back. Back in the Veil, gasping like I’ve been held underwater. Bri is holding me. Her fingers dig into my arms, her eyes wide and terrified.
“I didn’t mean to show youallof it,” she says, panicked. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just—I needed you to understand.”
My legs give out. I collapse to my knees, dragging her with me. By the Veil, how is such a sweet girl living with such horrors?
“What was that, Bri?”
She shivers as I press her closer into me. “It’s what happens to all of us if you don’t leave for Aish, to warn them.”
“To warn them of what Bri?”
“The Kher’zenn are coming.”
“Why do Altor not argue when told they must live without family? Simple. Most die before the question matters. The rest of us are so broken in ways that make solitude a mercy, not a punishment. Still, I find it a pity. Love is the finest jest the gods ever penned. And I do so miss laughing.”
E
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
RYOT
I’ve keptone hand on Leina’s wrist, two fingers pressed to the pulse point there, for the past day and a half that she’s been unconscious. That slow, steady beat is the only thing that assures me that she’s alive. Her skin is deathly pale, especially around her lips, like she’s not getting enough air. I honestly can’t tell if she’s breathing—she must be, for her heart to still beat. Even Altor can’t survive without air. But there’s no visible rise and fall of her chest, no flutter of air at her lips. She’s clammy and cold, no matter how many furs and blankets Elowen piles on top of her.
I’ve kept my other hand free. Prepared to pull the broadsword from the holster at my back at any moment, even here—in the infirmary at the Synod.
She’s so godsdamn vulnerable when she’s in the Veil. Here, and, if the journal I stole from the temple at Elandors Veil is accurate, also while she’s inthere. She’s vulnerable in two realms. In either place, she can fall. The thought is unacceptable, and I press my fingers deeper into the skin at her wrist, and the steady beat under her skin is the only thing that keeps me sane.
We’ll be sharing a room from now on. There’s no godsdamn way I’m leaving her like this, alone, ever again. I can and will protect her here.
The silence in the room is jarring. My ears strain in vain to catch the whoosh of her breathing.
I can’t take it anymore. I bend down, until my lips can brush against her ear. If she were awake—if she were here—that would have made her shiver. But she’s not here.
I start to whisper to her, to try to bring her back to me.
First, I whisper about politics and royal schemes and the history of Faraengard and Selencia. Things she should know but probably doesn’t. When she first arrived, I was always amazed by the things she didn’t know. Now, after seeing the conditions in Selencia, I’m truly shocked she knows anything at all. That she can read is a miracle, a testament to the determination of her mother.
When my voice starts to go hoarse, and she still doesn’t move, I whisper nonsensical things. Words of sentiment and tenderness. Things I should have told her at the Crimson Feather instead of “it’s time to go.” Forbidden things, things that I shouldn’t feel, much less speak aloud. About her smile and her eyes and her quick wit and her courage and her bravery. Footsteps sound in the hallway, I quiet, only to start again after they pass.
“You are a very special person, Leina of Stormriven. But not because you can stride through the veil,” I whisper against her ear. “Not because of your value in this war, or because of what the gods have planned for you.”
I clutch her hand and bring her wrist to my lips, feeling that beat with my kiss.
