“I pushed you away because I got you injured.” The pain tore at his heart. His words grew tight, emotion burning the corners of his eyes. “I heard you racing up behind me when I was dueling Creg. He swung at me, and I cut his sword in half and dodged the severed end out of instinct. I could have taken the blow on my shoulder, but I let it spin past. You had the bad luck to step in the way as you were trying to help me. When I turned around and saw you on the ground, it was the most terrifying moment in my life. I had to run and run holding you as you twitched. I didn’t think Dualayn could do anything, but I had to try because I couldn’t be the one to get you killed.
“If you died because of my mistake, how could I live with myself? I drove you away because I didn’t want to destroy you.”
*
Avena trembled as she stared at Ōbhin. His eyes gleamed with pain. He gripped her shoulders as he trembled. A strange sense of foolishness swept through her. Fingers had explained to her what Ōbhin was doing, and Deffona had agreed. It wasn’t Avena’s fault at all, but after she lost control of her body, she’d accepted her fears that she was too weak. A hindrance.
After all, she’d collapsed in an alley and was robbed. She could have been violated. Murdered. It still terrified her. Even now, she could feel that emptiness swelling in her. The alien feeling prickling through her. She swayed again.
“I’m so sorry for making you feel worthless,” Ōbhin groaned. “I never wanted to hurt you. I wanted to keep you safe. Keep you away from me. I only hurt those around me. I dragged Foonauri from her home only to abandon her in a foreign city. Can I even blame her for having to find other ways to survive? And you . . . I just wanted to push you onto another path, not crush your spirit.”
“It’s not just you,” Avena said. She grabbed at his leather jerkin with foreign fingers. The numbness was spreading. “There’s something wrong with me, Ōbhin. Something that terrifies me.”
Confusion spread across his face.
“I’m losing control of my body and . . .” The fuzziness slithered down her flesh. Her fingers went numb. It prickled across her cheeks. Her lips. “Ay ahm pahshing auwt.” Her words slurred, tongue thick. Her mind retreated. The fear built inside of her as she struggled to hold onto him.
“Avena!” he shouted, his voice so distant as she retreated further and further away.
The senses from her body grew muted. She forced out a final word, a croaking plea: “Help!”
“Avena!” His words sounded so far away, echoing through a misty expanse. “Someone! I need Dualayn!”
She sank into those strange dreams, a refuge for her terrified thoughts cut adrift from her body.
*
Her last word had come out clear but soft. Help.
Avena slumped against him. Her entire body was limp. Her eyes were open, pupils dilating so wide they swallowed her brown irises. Her arms fell limp down his body, her fingers no longer clutching him. If he hadn’t been hugging her, she would have struck the ground.
“I need Dualayn!” Ōbhin cried. This frantic fear rose in him, a dark tide. He shifted her weight and lowered her to the grass. Her chest rose and fell with soft breaths like she slept, but her eyes stared up at nothing. He lightly slapped her cheek to rouse her. “Avena! What’s wrong?”
He grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. Her head flopped to the side, limp. Her eyes stayed open. Horror squeezed his heart, a mighty fist threatening to crush the pounding organ into pulp. He shook her harder.
“Avena!” His shout cracked, half-choked by the fear clawing at his throat.
“Ōbhin?” a motherly voice said. “What’s wrong with Avena. Is it the heat?”
Ōbhin shook his head as Jolene, Bran’s mother and nurse to Bravine, appeared. She knelt down, skirts rustling. She tilted Avena’s head to face the sky and gasped. “Her eyes are open.”
“I know,” growled Ōbhin. Dualayn said there might be complications. Is this what he meant? His mind struggled to parse thoughts, to remember what to do. Shock rooted him in place. He hadn’t trained himself for Avena to collapse mid-conversation.
Heavy footsteps thudded up and then stopped. A hoarse groan burst from Fingers as he stood a cubit away, hands balling into fists, accentuating red, swollen knuckles. A few popped as he trembled, color draining from his weathered face.
“Is she . . .?” Fingers asked.
“She’s alive,” Ōbhin muttered. “She’s breathing, but I can’t rouse her.”
“Elohm’s damned Colours,” groaned Fingers. “The other night, she almost passed out on me. I thought it was just fatigue. She’d been working in the labs with Dualayn, and you’ve seen her. She ain’t been right since she was healed.”
Because I made her think she’s weak, echoed through Ōbhin’s mind.
“We need to get her to Dualayn,” Jolene said.
Her words were the first that made any sense to the addled Ōbhin. Think! Where is Dualayn?
Where he always was.
Ōbhin scooped Avena up in his arms. She weighed even less than last time. Her arms dangled limp. She didn’t spasm. She didn’t have a length of metal sticking out of her head, but the same fear gripped him. A hopeless terror.
He couldn’t lose her. Wouldn’t.
He raced across the lawn, booted steps pounding for the house. Jolene and Fingers followed, her skirts rustling and his steps heavy thuds. Ōbhin reached the open doors and burst into the cooler interior, his boots squeaking on the polished marble floor as he changed direction for the lab. He swept by the stairs and hurtled toward Dualayn’s door.
The sign hung
