Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Andarna is gone.
Tairn leaves our bond wide open, giving me unfettered access to him in a way I’ve never had. He’s always been with me, but now I’m with him, too. I hear his side of the conversation when he tells the elders about Andarna’s departure. I hear him bickering with Sgaeyl over what he calls her excessive hovering, and I’m privy to the lecture he gives Xaden about making sure I eat.
That’s not all I hear. For the first two days, every time the door opens, there’s an air of celebration, sounds of happy voices and laughter that fade the second someone walks in.
Of course they’re happy. Aretia’s safe. The very thing we were desperate for a few months ago has been accomplished. I don’t blame them for celebrating—I just can’t join them. That would require feeling something, anything.
I sleep, but I don’t dream.
Andarna is gone.
The atmosphere shifts on the third day, but I don’t ask about the tension in my squadmates’ silence. Not because I don’t care, but because it takes all my energy to perform what should be the natural act of breathing.
She’ll come back, right? She has to. She isn’t dead. Leothan will ensure she makes it across the sea. And if she returns to find me like this, huddled in on myself, I won’t be worthy of her relic. If this is an emotional Gauntlet, I’m failing, but there’s no rope to grab to prevent my fall this time.
On the fourth morning, I wake when the mattress dips behind me.
“I did not fly through the night to watch you sleep. Wake up.”
Her voice jars me like nothing else can. I roll over and find Mira staring at me from Xaden’s side of the bed, her legs stretched out on top of the blankets, her stockinged feet crossed at the ankles. Dark circles linger under her eyes as she studies mine, but I don’t spot any new wounds, thankfully.
“I don’t want to.” Lack of use makes my voice scratchy.
“Yeah.” She studies my eyes with a creased brow and smooths my hair back from my forehead. “But you have to. You can cry, or scream, or even break shit if you want, but you cannot live in this bed.”
“I was whole and now I’m not.” My eyes sting, but I don’t cry. That stopped days ago. “She’s really gone.”
“I’m so sorry.” Sympathy fills Mira’s expression. “But not sorry enough to lose you to your grief. You just have to start by getting up.” She wrinkles her nose. “Then you can graduate to bathing.”
Someone knocks, and my focus jumps to the closed bedroom door. “How did you get in here, anyway?”
“Riorson let me in.” Her hand slides from my head as the door opens. Of course he did. “She’s awake,” Mira calls over her shoulder.
Xaden looks in, worry etching lines across his forehead until he spots me. “Look who’s up.” A corner of his mouth rises.
“Unwillingly,” I admit.
His eyes flare, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve spoken to him in days, too.
Shit. I need to pull myself together.
“How did you replace the power you lost?” Mira asks quickly.
I wrench my gaze back to hers. “I…didn’t. What are you talking about?”
“If she’s awake, then let me in,” Brennan argues from the hallway behind Xaden. “They’re my sisters!”
“I can kill him if you prefer,” Xaden offers, raising his scarred brow.
“And give him another opportunity to fake his own death?” Mira scoffs.
“He can come in.” Pushing with both hands, I force myself to sit up. I’ve been in Xaden’s sparring shirt and a rolled-up pair of his sleeping pants for so long, they’re practically embedded in my skin.
Xaden pulls Brennan through the doorway, and my brother immediately frowns at Mira.
“What are you doing?” Brennan questions as he shuts the door behind him.
Xaden leans back against the bookshelves and stares at me like I might flee at any second or worse—disappear back under the covers. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I don’t have it in me to smile, but I drink in the sight of him.
Mira’s eyes narrow at Brennan in warning. “You sent me a missive saying our sister was a breath away from catatonic, so now I’m here. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“I wanted you to get her out of bed.” Brennan gestures at me. “Not crawl into it with her.”
“I’ve been here less than half an hour and she’s already speaking, so I think my methodology is pretty sound.” She levels him with a look that reminds me of Mom. “What exactly have you been doing?”
Mom would definitely be horrified by my inability to function.
“Sitting in that chair”—he points beside the bed—“figuring out how to house and feed the thousands of people currently climbing the Medaro Pass, while overseeing a massive increase in forge output, in addition to spending my evenings mending every wounded rider capable of flying here from the front.”