M y limbs flailed in frantic, fruitless search for solid ground. I drew in a gasp, only to choke on a lungful of water. It was dark. I could feel
nothing, see nothing. Which way was up? Down?
Water. You are in water. Swim, Aefe.
I did not know if my body knew how to swim, but in a disoriented panic I kicked until my face broke the surface. I had never been so grateful for air.
I clumsily swam to shore, dragging myself through thick mud on my hands and knees. I coughed until my ribs ached, mouthfuls of putrid water dribbling past my lips. My head pounded and limbs shook.
For one horrible moment I thought perhaps I had lost my connection to Tisaanah and Maxantarius. I took several deep breaths, stilled my rising worry. As my heartbeat slowed, I found it again—there.
A smile twisted my lips.
Close. They were so close.
It was only then that I realized that Caduan wasn’t.
I forced myself to my feet and looked around. Nothing but forest, trees looming over me like shadowy guardians.
“Caduan?” I called out.
My eyes fell to the river. I had pulled myself from a deep but relatively calm section of it, but downstream, multiple tributaries combined into churning rapids dotted with jagged rocks.
What if he had landed in the water, too? What if he had been smashed upon those stones before he even had time to react?
“Caduan?” I called again, more frantically.
I heard voices behind me. Human voices, speaking Aran—a language I recognized immediately.
I spun around. Four humans emerged from the brush. They wore double-breasted jackets bearing a sun sigil.
My heart beat faster.
They spoke to each other—or to me?—in Aran. I knew this language, but it took several long seconds before I could make my mind translate their words.
The oldest of them, a man with a greying beard, was speaking. “…alright, sweetheart?”
Do not panic.
You are Aefe, not Reshaye. They cannot hurt you. You have your own heart, your own breath.
I counted them in the darkness. Five. I had fought so many more than that.
“You’re not far from a military base,” the man said. “Best you not wander out here alone at night so close to the wall. Folks have been a bit twitchy lately.”
“What the hell is wrong with her?” another soldier muttered.
Don’t come closer to me! I wanted to shout, but the Aran words twisted on my tongue.
My hand closed around the hilt of my dagger at my hip.
One of the soldiers lurched to a sudden stop, eyes going wide. “Fucking hell, look at her ears. She’s one of them.”
In that moment, I went from being a young woman in need of rescue to a dangerous animal to be contained.
I had been in enough battles to understand what was to happen next.
I grounded myself in my quickening heartbeat, and the magic that lurked beneath it. Gripped the cold steel of my black dagger.
You are not nothing, Aefe, I reminded myself.
And as soon as they took another step closer, I lunged.
I plunged my dagger into the youngest man’s neck, his blood spurting all over my face. He grabbed at me as he fell, sword spasming and knocking my leg from under me.
His companions were on me at once. They were Wielders. Light flashed, scalding my back. Stone leapt from the ground, locking around my feet.
So quickly, my composure unraveled.
I thrashed, stabbing with my blade. I struck flesh multiple times, moving too fast to know who. I kicked against the rock. My ankle cracked, sending my body collapsing.
Still, I struck out with my teeth, my fingernails. I tasted nothing but iron. But even just the three remaining were too many. I was on the ground. Weight fell over my chest.
The man with the grey beard was leaning over me, his forearm over my throat. He was so close that I could smell his breath. Blood covered his face. It dripped into my eyes.
Through the crimson, I could see only his hatred and nothing else. I could not move.
I was helpless as horrific pain speared through me, the blade slowly, so slowly, sliding through my abdomen.
I cried out. The man did not release me. I could not move.
Suddenly I was Reshaye again, trapped in a useless body in a room of white and white. Suddenly I was on a stone floor, being dragged away by humans just like these ones, watching Ishqa walk away.
I was helpless.
I tried to scream, but air evaded me. I tried to lash out, but all my limbs were pinned.
Who were you to think that you could do this? To think that you were something? You have always been nothing.
What good is a heartbeat, anyway?
They would hurt me, they would kill me, and I would be helpless, and I was helpless, and I was nothing, nothing, and—
A hot spray of blood splattered across me.
The man above me was suddenly gone, his face replaced by the sharp end of a branch that had pierced through his skull.
The other woman spun around, sparks of magic igniting at her hands. But before she could act, vines wrapped around her throat, her wrists, her waist—crawling over her face as they lifted her off the ground. The vines tightened, then abruptly pulled in opposite directions, leaving her in pieces.
I tried to move, but my body refused to respond. Tried to breathe, but each breath only left me more desperate, like I was drowning with every inhale.
The fight was only a blur of shadowy figures. Flashes of crimson and light flickered through my dimming vision. Screams ripped through the air, but quickly faded into garbled moans.
My hands found my abdomen, where there was a jagged, slick wound.
I was back in that stone room, paralyzed. I would be tortured, dismantled; everything would be stripped from me and I could do nothing.
I could do nothing.
I could no longer feel my heartbeat.
Someone touched me, and I let out a weak, broken scream, thrashing with what little strength I had left. A human. A human was touching me, and they would tear me apart, and I could do nothing, and—
“It’s me. It’s me, Aefe. Stop.”
Someone pulled me close, holding my shoulders. Took my blood- soaked hand and pressed it to smooth skin. Beneath it was the faint thrum of a heartbeat.
“It’s me, Aefe,” Caduan murmured, his forehead against mine. “Keep breathing.”
Fear. I heard fear in that voice. “You are safe,” he whispered.
I thought, You can not lie to me.
I realized I was sobbing. I realized I couldn’t breathe.
But he held my hand against his chest, and it was the last thing I felt as I faded.
“Keep breathing, Aefe.”
