Cutting it out of Max’s mind.
Panic suddenly overwhelmed me. I knew right away that something was wrong. Everything was wrong.
I was halfway across the tent, on my hands and knees, when the curtain parted.
“Tisaanah.” Sammerin said my name in one breath of relief. “You woke up.”
“Tisaanah?” I heard the shout from outside. Seconds later, and Serel pushed his way through, already on his knees beside me, wrapping me in a rough embrace. “I was so afraid you were never going to wake up. Gods below, after a month, I—”
A month?!
I was only looking at Sammerin’s face. Something in it made my stomach churn with dread.
“What happened?” My voice was hoarse.
“We fled,” Sammerin said, quietly. “Fast.” There was a wrinkle between his brows. Something he was not saying.
Panic rose.
“Where’s Max?” I asked.
Neither of them answered.
“Where’s Max?”
Silence. Horrifying silence.
I tried to get to my feet, stumbled. Serel tried to stabilize me, but I yanked my hand away.
“We had to leave fast,” Serel said, quietly. “After the collapse at the Scar, the Syrizen were already looking for you. And Sammerin. And all of us. Ishqa brought you back to us.”
I didn’t care about how little sense any of that made. I didn’t care about how casually Serel mentioned Ishqa’s name, or that he knew Ishqa at all. I didn’t know why he was telling me any of this when it didn’t answer my damned question.
My head whipped to Sammerin. Sammerin, who was looking at me with this terrible, terrible sadness.
“Sammerin. Tell me where he is.”
And then Sammerin said, quietly, “He is in Ara.”
In Ara?
Where were we?
Bile rose in my throat. I forced myself to my feet, ignoring Serel as he tried to steady me, as if I were a newborn deer about to fall. I pushed past Sammerin and stumbled outside, squinting against blinding sunshine. The smell of the ocean hit me all at once.
Ara’s ocean? No, that smelled thick and weedy. This… this was dry and salty.
When my eyes adjusted, I was looking at a beach. Large tents, like the one I had stumbled out of, were set up along it. People — men, women, children — were going about their business outside. It was clear that this was a settlement that had been here for some time.
Slowly, people stopped. Stared at me in silence.
It took me a moment to realize that these were the Threllian refugees. Only one of them approached me. Filias, who took two steps forward, then stopped, lips parted, looking lost.
They were all looking at me with such pity.
“Where are we?” I demanded, to no one in particular.
“We are in Threll.” A gentle voice came from behind me. I whirled around to see Riasha, books stacked in her arms, as if she had been on her way somewhere important.
All the air left my lungs. “Threll?”
“We fled. Do you remember, child?”
I did not remember. I didn’t remember anything.
“Of course you didn’t. You were… in and out. Ishqa told us everything, as we left. He brought you to us. Told us of the Fey war, and how they have allied with the Threllian Lords.” Hatred flickered in her eyes. “The new Arch Commandant hunted everyone who had anything to do with you. Just like you feared. So we fled. Barely escaped, if I’m being honest.” Her gaze rose past me, to Filias. “And now we are here. Biding our time, until we can fight.”
No.
None of this made any sense. How could I have been unconscious for so long? How could I have made it out, but Max didn’t? The last thing I remember, we were entangled. Even our minds were locked together.
How could I have escaped without him?
My gaze fell to the horizon, to the sea. The next thing I knew, I was running down the beach, my limbs only half-cooperating. I didn’t stop until the cold rush of the surf hit my feet, then ankles, then my shins, and then I fell down to my hands and knees in the water. I tasted nothing but salt.
“Tisaanah.”
I hated how gentle Sammerin’s voice was. How calm. How could he be calm?
“How could you have left him?” I whirled to him. The words wrenched through me like knives. I didn’t realize I was weeping until sobs contorted my words. “How could you have left him behind?”
Pain shuddered across Sammerin’s face. He said nothing.
“We have to go back for him.”
“We’ve tried, Tisaanah. Many times. Nura has him. She sentenced him to Ilyzath.”
I closed my eyes.
This pain put everything else to shame.
“No,” I choked out.
My love, trapped in a place that preyed upon his mind, that twisted all of his worst memories. The most precious soul imprisoned in the most horrific place. The thought of it made me want to tear out my own heart. The thought of it made me want to burn down the world.
“We will find a way to get him out, Tisaanah,” Sammerin murmured, but my rage was already bubbling over.
“We must go back now. Now, Sammerin.” My voice rose to a hysterical spike. I could barely breathe. “We cannot leave him there, not for a second longer. We cannot leave him. We can’t—”
Sobs unraveled my words. Sammerin’s arms wrapped around me, and without thinking, I clung to him, to his stability. I felt his grief, his anger, settle over mine.
“We are going to get him out,” Sammerin whispered, against my hair.
I pulled away from him and looked out across the sea. It was an endless expanse. Thousands of miles of ocean between here and Ara — thousands of miles between me and Max.
I thought of that goodbye kiss, right between my eyebrows.
I thought of everything I didn’t tell him. Of the life we could have built together.
And I thought of the person who had taken him from me.
I had no words for this. But I sank to my knees and looked out over the sea, as if, if I tried hard enough, I could reach out over those thousands and thousands of miles, reach out for him in
