Page 16 of Too Dangerous To Die

Watching.

Alwayswatching.

His massive form isstill half-formed, shifting in the dim light, flickering betweenstone and flesh.His golden eyes glow beneath his furrowed brow, molten and unreadable.

"You shouldn’t be alive," he says.

His voice islow, rough with something I can’t quite name.

I blink up at him, disoriented, my pulsetoo slow.My body feels wrong, like I’m inhabiting something that is no longer entirelymine.

"What did you do?" I whisper.

Rhaegardoesn’t answer.

His gaze sweeps over me,assessing, calculating, as if trying to decipher what, exactly, I have become.

I push myself upright, my body protesting the movement. My headspins, and I brace my palm against the earth.

And feel it pulse beneath me.

I still.

The sensation is subtle butunmistakable.The soil beneath my fingers shifts, recognizing my touch. The roots beneath the surfacequicken, a ripple of movement I did not command.

My magic is different.

It isstill mine,butit is also something else.

I swallow hard, panic clawing at my ribs.

"Rhaegar," I say slowly, carefully. "What. Did. You. Do?"

His jawtightens, his claws curling into his palms.

"I saved you," he says simply. "You were dying."

Something dark flickers across his face,quick but unmistakable.

I shake my head. "This isn’t just healing." I press my hand to my chest, where the pain of the wound should still linger—but there is only warmth, only the faint hum of something thrumming beneath my skin like a second heartbeat.

My fingers curl, nails digging into my palm.

"You gave me something," I whisper. "Didn’t you?"

A muscleticksin his jaw.

"The magic in this place is ancient," he admits. "I took what I needed to bring you back."

Istare at him."You took magic from a cursed ruin and put it in me?"

He tilts his head,unapologetic.

"You were dying."

I squeeze my eyes shut, my pulseuneven, unsteady.Gods, what has he done?

I take another breath, trying to steady the chaos inside me.It doesn’t work.

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