I bit my lip. He’d be laid up for weeks. Healing faster than a mortal, but not without suffering.
“I’ll return to him. I’m going to end this.” Kenrik stood.
“No!” I climbed to my feet and tugged his arm.
He clapped his hand over my mouth. “Shh!”
At the end of the street, people turned to look down the alley. Kenrik yanked me in the opposite direction, into the dark, toward the city’s wall. We were still a few streets away from the city’s main gate.
“First I’m taking you out of the city,” he said. “Then I’m coming back.”
I pushed him against a wall as tears filled my eyes. “You can’t. As soon as you go near him, he’d know. You’d never escape.”
“I don’t care.”
“I care. Promise me you won’t go back.”
“Niawen, don’t make me promise,” he said.
“Kenrik, please.”
He searched my face. I knew what was going on in his brain. I knew how it felt being bound to someone you didn’t want to be bound to. Kenrik hated it. I didn’t need light to tell me.
Drat. I was as good as mortal. I couldn’t feel emotions at all.
“I can’t lose you,” I said. “I love you.”
“Like a brother,” he growled.
“Yes, like a brother. Like my own flesh and blood. Like my dragon.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“It is,” I said. “This love is all we have left. If you gave me time—”
“I’m not waiting on a dream. That’s my dream, Niawen. It’s over. It’s done. When night falls, we’ll sneak out, and we’ll separate. I’ll draw Caedryn away. He’ll think you’re with me. But you keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep your child safe.”
“He’ll read your mind. He’ll know I’m not with you.”
Kenrik swore. “How do I keep him from doing that?”
“You have to block him.”
“How?”
“You tell the light what to do.” I dragged my hands down my face. “This is deranged. You have my light. Why’d I do this to you?”
“Don’t worry about it. What’s done is done.”
“You’ll hate me forever.”
“I could never hate you,” he said. “Is there anything else about the light I should know? I thought humans couldn’t harness it.”
“I know. I know. They aren’t supposed to be able to. It’s not the same as when I healed your mother. I gave you the light from my core. It’s different.”
“All right. All right.” Kenrik paced the small space. His biceps looked as if they were going to split open as he flexed and unflexed them. They seemed to throb with power. With my energy.
What did I do to him?
I touched his arm, and he stilled. “Tell the light what to do. With your mind. That’s all I have time to say.”
Footsteps carried to us. Caedryn’s men were hunting us.
“We have to go,” Kenrik said. “You keep moving until you’re far away. Do you understand?”
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“Swear it.”
I whimpered. I might have saved Kenrik’s life, but he was doing more than I could ever repay. “I swear.”
I fumbled with the stone on my neck. “You should take my dragon stone. Seren can fly you home. She might answer you. She hasn’t answered my cries. I fear I’ve destroyed our friendship. I’ve betrayed my bond as a guardian.”
“I’m not taking your stone. You call Seren. She’ll come to you. She can fly you far away.”
I shook my head. “Go to Gorlassar. Demand to speak with the High Emrys. She will know how to help you.” I lifted the stone from my neck and draped it around his. Before my hand pulled away from the stone, I said, I’m sorry, Seren.
“I thought you said mortals aren’t allowed in Gorlassar.”
“It’s your only hope! You must try. Fight your way in. Seren will help you. Besides, you carry all my light. You are so far from corrupted that you’re a shining star. You have proven your worth. You are nobler than any person, human or emrys, I’ve ever met.”
He pulled me into his arms. “Stars, Niawen, I love you. I will love you forever. Oh, damn it all!” His mouth fell on mine in a desperately hungry kiss.
I tasted heartbreak.
I returned Kenrik’s kiss with every wish that Deian would keep him safe.
SIXTY-EIGHT
Dark, high walls of bark entombed me. I was blind as I ran. I possessed no light to pierce the gloom.
I can’t see!
I had no one. No light to cast an orb. No bond. No dragon.
I was in the woods. A dreary forest. Enormous trees—gigantic trees—impossibly large walls of trees I couldn’t see an end to.
I was cold. I shivered violently.
I had no light! No light to warm myself.
How did mortals survive wrapped in cumbersome cloth? How did they fumble around with lanterns?
I’m not mortal. I’m not mortal.
I couldn’t be.
I stumbled. I fell. I ran out of breath.
My stomach turned. I vomited. I shoved snow into my mouth and washed the bile taste away.
I was scratched. My fingertips bled from scraping along the bark.
I had never bled for so long. I could smell the odor. Smell was the only sense that accosted me, that told me I was still alive.
My skin was numb. I couldn’t hear anything through the thick of the trees. They reached hundreds of feet into the air and obscured the sky and the moon. No stars to tell me my bright star—Kenrik—was safe.
Why’d I give you my light?
I was sure he was cursing my existence.
I had no idea how long I ran. The snow was my only sustenance. I didn’t even know how it reached the forest floor in this hell without melting.
After my heels became so blistered I was forced to crawl, I stopped. I curled against a
