Page 72 of The Bound Mage
Rest—she should be tired. Exhausted, even. But instead her heartbeat thundered in her ears, her feet carrying her past her own door without pause. There would be no rest for her—not until she knew exactly what Eryn had found.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
Loren staredout the window overlooking the courtyard, watching as Ilyana rushed through the gate with dusk on her heels. Thorne must have survived then—there would be no reason to send for a Healer otherwise. And Araya—she would certainly be angrier if Thorne was dead. Grief-stricken, even. But all he felt through the bond was a confused tumult of frustration and worry. For Thorne, of course, he assumed. Not for him. The fool who’d nearly let his wayward magicmurderhis best friend.
Go to her, the shadows whispered, stirring around him.
“She doesn’t want to see you.” Loren didn’t bother to look down at them. “Not after what you did earlier.”
Us?The shadows hissed.You left her. Foolish prince?—
“You attacked Thorne!” Loren hissed, yanking his arm back as one of them dragged a frigid tendril across the back of his hand in reprimand, as sharp as a frozen blade.“Have you forgotten the difference between friend and foe?”
Friend?
The shadows recoiled, muttering amongst themselves as they broke apart and reformed, working themselves into a churning frenzy.
He raised his hand. Reached for her. We saw—we saw—we protect. Protect her. Protect you. We don’t know—can’t say?—
Goddess help him, they were madder than ever. Loren braced his hands against the sill, staring down at the empty courtyard. He couldn’t shake the memory of her panicked face, her shield the only thing between Thorne and death as she shouted at him tostop.
But he hadn’t been able to.
Because you falter,the shadows muttered.You fail—failed her. She is yours—yours to protect. And theyhurther. And you—their voices broke apart, hissing over one another.Coward. No vengeance. You refused—youfailed?—
“I know,” Loren hissed.
The temperature plummeted. A hairline fracture raced across the glass, the aetherlamps guttering in their sconces. Loren bit his lip until he tasted blood, his knuckles white on the edge of the stone sill—but it wasn’t enough. The crack was a fault line across the window, silent proof of just how close he’d come to losing control. Again.
The shadows coiled around his boots as he stormed away, their many voices echoing the truth he refused to speak.
They were slipping. And so was he.
By the time he reached his room his breathing had evened out, the pressure in his chest easing. He sank into a chair, not bothering to kindle the aetherlamps. Stone walls and darkness—that was all he was meant for. He might as well have stayed in that cell after all.
They were right about him. He couldn’t keep his mate safe. He’d made mistakes at every step—claiming her against her will, hiding the truth from her—short of locking her up again, there was nothing he could do to make her stay.
“I’m sorry,” Loren murmured into the shifting darkness. “I know I’m a broken excuse for the prince you chose. You would have been better off with Eloria.”
You are not the only broken one, foolish prince. The shadows murmured amongst themselves, their voices ebbing and flowing before coming together again.We are splinters. Shards. Only pieces of the greater power. Lost.
Loren frowned. “What do you mean?”
The whispers fractured, breaking apart in discordant hisses before falling silent so abruptly Loren wasn’t sure they would answer him at all. But then?—
We remember. Their voices were thin, strained and out of sync.But to speak it?—
Pain, another whispered.
But we can show you, several voices said as one.Should. Should show you—if you’re ready.
Loren knewit was a dream the moment he opened his eyes.
He stood on the steps of the temple, its polished stone shot through with threads of aether, lighting it from within. It glowed in the bright moonlight, shining down from a sky free of shadow and mist. This was Eluneth as he remembered it, the surrounding forest alive with the sounds of animals and the air sweetened by the flowers that bloomed on the vines climbing the temple walls.
Not a dream, a sibilant chorus of voices whispered, curling around him like smoke.A memory.
