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He closed his eyes, his world awash in white, and reached through the open door inside his mind.

It burned. It felt as if he’d thrust his hand inside a campfire, or dipped it in a cauldron of boiling water. He might have made a sound; might have even screamed. Magic screamed at magic; his skin shredded and peeled off; wind buffeted his face.

And then in a great, rolling lurch, the magic boiled through the gap he’d left, the entirety of the well filling his soul, burning him alive.

~*~

The dragon kept up a continuous stream of low, distressed sounds, little wheezes and rumbles that echoed Mattias’s own silent worry. Once Náli said the words in the old language, his face had gone slack, and his pretty blue eyes had filmed over pure white: that eerie, vacant mask he wore when he communed with the dead.

Valgrind licked at the shell of his ear, a move that would have earned an exclamation and a shove any other time. When Náli remained fixed and still, Valgrind turned and bleated at Mattias, tail tip thwapping his shoulder.

“I know,” Mattias murmured, gaze pinned to Náli’s vacant face. “I know, but–”

The bowl of blood and diamonds, rattling faintly, leaped and tipped over with a loud metallic clang. Blood spilled across the parchment, soaking into the old paper, obscuring the runes. The diamonds vibrated, jumping like insects, pinging together and rebounding off each other.

“Gods,” Danski swore, and reached for them.

Mattias flung an arm out to stop him. “Wait! Don’t touch them!” They were glowing, a white light that pulsed like a human heartbeat. There was a humming, a low buzz growing louder, swelling inside their circle.

“We should stop it,” Klemens said, tone shockingly savage. He shot a glare at Mattias. “Wake him up. This’ll kill him.”

“He wants to try,” Mattias said. The diamonds jumped between them. “Let’s wait a little–”

A scream ripped through the air.

Mattias whipped around, gripped by panic, and saw Náli with his head tipped back, tendons stark in his throat, mouth open in a pained rictus.

“Náli!”

A hand gripped his sleeve and held him back. “Did you not just hear yourself?” Klemens asked, shouting to be heard above Náli’s screeching. “Look at him.”

Mattias was looking, heart leaping out of his chest, stomach twisting into knots. Náli was shaking, hair shivering where it hung down his back, veins standing out along his temples, sightless, milky eyes wide as he screamed and screamed and–

And his hands were glowing.

Mattias blinked to be sure, but, yes, his palms were emitting a faint glow, one that swelled brighter as he watched.

“Don’t touch him,” Klemens said. “You have no idea what might happen.”

None of them did, but Mattias’s hands flexed on empty air, and his breath hitched, because it physically pained him to witness this. To hear the sharp, pained screams.

Screams that Valgrind echoed, head thrown back in imitation of Náli, his inhuman voice echoing in a high, batlike shriek off the ceiling above.

Darri clapped his hands over his ears.

Einrih swore.

“Náli,” Mattias tried again. He shrugged out of Klemens’ grip. Damn it. Damn it all, he was going to touch him, no matter what anyone said. He reached out again–

And Náli pitched violently forward and vomited blood.

“Náli.”

Náli gave a great, sucking gasp afterward and lifted his head, lips dripping crimson, eyes still the color of fresh milk. He said something low, and guttural, and wet in the old language that Mattias didn’t understand, then he lunged forward, quick as a blink, and slammed his blood-smeared mouth into Mattias’s.

~*~

Náli’s blood boiled, and his bones melted into foaming hot magma. It was too much magic, too powerful, too concentrated, and he was only one, not-large boy, slender as a willow and more bark than bite. If he’d been a big, strapping lad like the princes he might have been a worthy vessel, but no, he was him, and he was burning up from the inside out, shredding and crisping and dissolving. He tasted blood. Pain was the only sensation.