I had destroyed who I was. And though I was made anew, my breathing suddenly became erratic with the awareness of fresh dangers. “I don’t… I don’t… I—”
“Shh, it’s all right, Niawen.” Kenrik crushed me to himself. “I’d like to see Caedryn track us down. We’ll travel far away. I’ll protect you.”
“You don’t understand. You’re connected. He’ll always know where you are. As long as he’s a half-emrys carrying light, he’ll feel the bond forged between you. This is my fault. I’m sorry. I didn’t think things through when I gave you my light.”
Kenrik lifted me as my wobbly legs crumbled. “I’m not taking you back. You’re too weak. If he catches up, I’ll end him.”
We raced down the corridors. I felt drained. My child’s light was tiny. He or she gave me only enough to fight the darkness. The baby needed the energy to grow. I couldn’t harm him by siphoning any more.
I hoped I wasn’t dying.
My chest was hollow. My heart-center was void of light and darkness. Empty. Waiting to be filled.
Would my light return with time?
It could. New light. Light unconnected to Caedryn’s. My heart-center will always create light. I had that hope.
A little light was all I needed to stay under Caedryn’s radar. If my light grew to the level of a mere mortal’s, Caedryn would never distinguish my light from a human’s light. I’d be concealed. Safe.
I just wouldn’t be able to harness such a trivial amount.
I was giving so much up for freedom.
SIXTY-SEVEN
Kenrik fought us free of the citadel. He did have the strength of twenty men. We hid in the city, down a trash-strewn alley. Kenrik leaned me against a wall behind a barrel, and he went into the rear door of a pub. He came back with a cup filled with ale. “Drink.”
I gulped greedily.
“Tell me how to give your light back,” he said.
I wiped my chin. “I don’t want it.”
“Niawen…” He crouched in front of me. “I only just found you. I can’t look at you, knowing you healed me by giving away your grace.” He tapped his chest. His brown eyes shimmered. “Take it back. Your soul needs it.”
My cup fell to the earth as I touched his shoulder. “My soul is free. Don’t ask me to bind myself to Caedryn again.”
Kenrik slid onto his bottom. “By the Creator, you’re right.”
Horror filled his face. I knew what he’d realized. Even if he wanted to—and I knew he did—even if I fell in love with him, he could never bind himself to me. Not ever. A three-way bond would plague our souls.
“How can I rid myself of it?” Kenrik asked. “The light feels as if it’s fused to me. As if it’s in my blood, my bones. I am breathing your light, smelling your light. I see your light! Your light! This is your grace, not mine! How do I become free?”
“You should be able to pull the orb from yourself.” I put my hand over his chest. I didn’t have the ability to coax his light out, not without my own to guide me. Besides, Kenrik was the only one who had power over his light—his new light. “It’s your light. I can’t take it from you. You have to remove it yourself.”
“How do I do that?”
“Find the orb in your heart-center.”
“What orb?” he asked. “I don’t detect an orb. The light is everywhere in me!”
“You close your eyes and see it.”
“I’m telling you it’s not there.”
I heard his words, but my head refused to absorb them. “It’s intuitive. Look harder. Tell the light what to do.”
“I wasn’t born an emrys. I don’t possess that intuition!”
I was too weak to be frustrated with Kenrik, but his fear worried me. What did it mean if he couldn’t identify a clear source of light? I believed his assessment though. With that much light inside him, the light would guide him. If he didn’t sense an orb in his heart-center, it wasn’t there.
We simmered in silence as our words processed. Every deep inhalation and exhalation of Kenrik’s drove the truth into me. It’s in my blood, my bones. It’s fused to me. My light had become a part of Kenrik—a part he wouldn’t be able to remove. Can this be true?
“It changed you, didn’t it?” I whispered.
Kenrik squeezed my hand. “Yes.”
Mulling the situation over wasn’t going to change anything. Kenrik’s transformation was my fault. A mortal couldn’t carry light the way an immortal could. I should have known better.
I was fooling myself. There was no way to know the effects.
Kenrik’s mouth burst open with exasperation, jarring my thoughts. “Niawen! I can’t be near you with Caedryn inside me. Even if I carry your light forever to keep you safe, I’ll never be rid of him!”
I closed my eyes. Oh, Deian, Kenrik is right. “I told you we should have killed him.”
“Are you mortal?” Kenrik asked. “Am I immortal? What have we done? You should have let me die.”
“Shh, shh, shh.” I held his face. “We couldn’t have switched roles.”
“You don’t even know how this works. Something has happened to me. I took on your grace. My body is stronger. I feel inhuman.”
Another truth spread through me. “Caedryn won’t leave the citadel. He won’t go where you can get at him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If he knows what I’ve done to you, he knows the results. He’ll come to the same conclusions we are. You feel him, can’t you? What’s he doing?”
“He’s angry. He’s in pain. Some dolt is setting his legs. He’s furious he doesn’t have sufficient skill with the light to heal
