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But unfortunately, I did.

I buried my hands inside Arran’s palms, letting his larger hands entirely encircle mine before I spoke.

“When the nightwalker attacked me in the village, I felt the void. I knew I couldn’t defeat the nightwalker with my own two hands… and I think my power realized it.” I swallowed hard, shivering as I remembered it tearing at me, pulling my body apart. “I was going to go, whether I willed it or not. Just like at the joining.”

Those arms tightened even more. Until it almost hurt.

“Why didn’t you?” I heard the echo of his vow in his words—to always find me, no matter where I went. Or was taken.

I worked one of my hands free, reaching up to touch the flat stretch of skin between my breasts. “I felt you. Like a tether, pulling at the center of my chest.”

“The mating bond,” Cyara said, sucking in a breath. “Maybe that is part of it.”

The others stared at her. I stared at her.

I couldn’t say the words.

“Maybe your power only awakened at the Joining, because that is when the mating bond was solidified.” She was leaning forward now, speaking in earnest. Her confidence building. “You said you felt lost, out of control. Then Arran pulled you back. Tethered you to your realm, your world. Your power is tied to the bond.”

Everything in me was tied to the bond, I almost said.

Every breath I took. Every beat of my heart.

The male who held me knew it, had accepted it, loved me for and through it.

But I could hardly breathe.

I jerked out of his arms, straightening, ignoring the near-physical pain of the cold air rushing in between our bodies.

“So if Arthur had never died, Arran never would have come to Baylaur, I never would have fulfilled the Void Prophecy, and the nightwalkers would never have made it to Annwyn,” I said flippantly, rolling my shoulders and my eyes in unison.

“Unless Arthur was meant to die.”

Her voice was gravelly. It was the first time she’d spoken since waking.

The cost—the pain in her throat. Her hand floated up to stroke it, without realizing.

How long it would linger… if there were other costs to her huge expenditure of magic…

All of those questions paled in comparison to the words Lyrena had spoken.

I shoved to my feet.

“You have all lost your minds. We need to sleep.”

I had to get away, before I started screaming. Once I started, I might never be able to stop.

43

PARYS

It was late enough that even the librarians had given up waiting for him leave.

In the small reading room tucked off the staircase built right into the goldstone wall, it was easy to lose track of time. At least when he was out among the stacks, there was the several-stories-high wall of glass looking out on the Effren Valley to help mark the day’s progress. Tucked into that windowless room, though—nothing.

Nothing.

That was an apt description.