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“You could have died, Ataliia.” His voice was tight as he said the words, but I couldn’t tell if it was anger or fear he was trying to contain. “Do you understand that? If I had not been here, If I had not heard you . . .”

There was nothing I could say—I knew that. And though it wasn’t my intention, I wasn’t fully sure that I would have minded.

“I will make a tea that will flush the excess from your system. Now that you are conscious, you need to get into warm clothing to help the blood flow through your limbs at a regular pace,” he said, walking to the threshold between rooms.

He paused for a long moment, letting out a deep sigh as his fingers tightened around the edge of the door before looking back toward me. His eyes darkened to the deepest blue I had ever seen as they connected with mine.

“I know the pain you feel, Ataliia—how exquisite it can be. Know what it is like to need an escape from the memories that haunt you to your very core. The ache that consumes every part of you, until you would do anything just to make it stop, even for a moment. But if you stare into hell long enough, the devil will offer you his hand.” His voice was low, almost a whisper as it carried the weight of his own suffering toward me.

“This is not the way. You have to find the strength within yourself to face these demons, to work through the agony. Numbing yourself—taking this path—will only lead you to ruin.”

I stared at him, seeing the raw emotion in his eyes, the understanding born from experience.

At that moment, I knew. Knew he carried wounds as deep as my own, scars on his soul that no one else could see.

He held my gaze a moment longer before turning and disappearing into the other room.

I sat motionless in the now-tepid water, his words echoing in my mind like a griever’s melody. With shaking limbs, I slowly pulled myself from the tub, wrapping the towel around my dripping body. The fabric was soft against my chilled skin as I padded into the bedchamber.

In the adjacent room, I could hear Andrues moving about, preparing the tea as I let the towel drop to the floor. I pulled a heavy tunic over my head, the fabric caressing the back of my thighs as I turned to see Andrues standing in the open doorway with a steaming mug in his hands.

He paused, his eyes flickering over me before quickly averting his gaze and handing me the tonic.

“Drink it all,” he instructed, still not quite meeting my eyes. “It will taste bitter, but it will clear the toxins from your blood.”

I nodded, the heat seeping into my palms as I lifted it to my lips. The liquid scalded my tongue and I welcomed the sensation as I quickly drained it. Setting the empty vessel on the bedside table, I finally lifted my eyes back to Andrues.

“Thank you,” I said softly, my voice hoarse. I lifted my hand to my neck, as if I could soothe the vocal cords just underneath the surface.

Andrues took two frantic steps toward me, his hands raising quickly to cup my face and pull me toward him. His breath ghosted across my lips as his gaze held mine, intense and unwavering.

And for just a brief moment, I forgot how to breathe.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Ataliia,” he commanded in a whispered plea. The scent of him reignited my senses as it flowed from his skin and I leaned into it.

We stood there, staring back at each other in the silence as his thumbs brushed over the peak of my cheek bones.

His touch was gentle, almost possessive, as his fingers flexed against my skin.

Then he blinked, taking a step back and breaking the spell between us as a sharp, involuntary breath lodged itself in my throat from the loss of his warmth.

He took another step away from me and cleared his throat.

“You should rest, the tonic will make you tired. I will be nearby if you need anything at all,” he said, tearing his eyes from me as I took a half step forward.

“ Please —” I sucked in a ragged breath, forcing myself not to reach for him. “Don’t leave.” The words sounded desperate as they filled the charged air around us.

And they were— desperate .

I needed him.

I watched as his jaw pulled taut, color flaring in the depths of his eyes as he nodded.

Relief rushed through my body and I couldn’t tell if it was because I didn’t want to be alone, or if it was because I didn’t want to be without him .

Andrues slowly closed the distance between us, his hands running up the backs of my arms and resting just above my elbows. The heat of his touch permeated through the fabric of my tunic, grounding me.

His eyes searched mine, a silent question hanging in the air between us. I responded with a small nod, letting him know I was okay—that I would be okay.

He guided me to the bed, pulling back the covers as I crawled in. The sheets were cool against my flushed skin and I let out a shaky breath as I settled against the pillows. Andrues stood at the edge of the bed, hesitating for a moment before he lowered himself down beside me.

The mattress dipped under his weight and I could feel the heat radiating off his bare chest, so close yet still not touching.

We lay there in silence, both of us staring up at the ceiling, neither daring to move.

“Andrues,” I finally whispered, my voice barely audible in the stillness.

He turned his head to look at me, his eyes glinting in the dim moonlight.

“How do you know?” I asked, feeling him tense beside me, his breath catching in his throat.

He knew what I meant, knew the wounds that I was asking him to open for me. For a moment I thought he would refuse, thought I had overstepped an unspoken boundary between us.

But then he began to speak. His story spilling over his lips, his voice low and distant as if he were reliving the memories rather than recounting them.

“There is not much knowledge on how necromancers are conceived,” he started as I let myself settle in beside him.

“All we know is they are only born to Ammord, to those with pure Hanth blood, and are exceedingly rare. Most mothers who carry a necromancer in their wombs are killed before the baby is fully formed. The child sucks the life from its mother, feeding off of her to grow strong, unknowingly killing the very thing that brings them life. If a mother and child survive the pregnancy, and most do not, the child is then ripped from her arms and taken into solitary confinement until they can learn to control the Death Magic that runs in their veins. Few children survive this stage of their lives, but if they do, they are transported to a small island off the coast of Ammord called Camp Bane.” He paused for a long moment, studying the ceiling before letting out a long breath.

“My mother knew the moment she was with child that I would be a necromancer.

Knew the life I would be condemned to if she survived, and she did not want that for me.

Women who carry necromancers in their womb were forbidden to leave Ammord even before the war.

They did not have the choice to become travelers and were watched closely the entirety of their pregnancies by agents of the House of High.

So, my mother befriended a Yaldrin healer that was traveling to Ammord to sell goods and herbs.

She visited with them often, always reporting back to the House of High and telling them she was working with the healer to keep me strong.

And she was. They were helping keep her strong, but they were also helping her prepare to flee.

“Eventually they were able to get to Ithia and keep us both healthy the remainder of the pregnancy and through my birth. The Yaldrin took me and my mother in, giving us a home in a secluded village tucked between the peaks of the Elmmere Mountains. For a time we had peace, hidden from the reach of Ammord. I spent the first ten years of my childhood being taught by their healers in the ancient temples that littered those mountain peaks, learning to control my magic, learning that life and death go hand in hand—that death is not inherently bad. They taught me to respect death, to use the magic I was gifted as a way to heal instead of harm. On my eleventh birthday, a merchant from Ammord came into our village, and when they saw what I was—what magic I held—they fled back to the King and Queen of Ammord.” I watched the muscles across Andrues’s chest tighten as he closed his eyes, like he was trying to push the memory from his mind.

“It took only hours for Ammord’s House of High to find us.

For the Hanth soldiers to drag my mother from our house—to drag the Yaldrin woman that had helped raise me from their homes and temples, and slaughter them.

They had children of their own, children that were raised alongside me.

We were all forced to watch as they severed their heads.

They left the bodies to decay in those mountains and their heads spiked at the village’s entrance as a warning—a promise of the fate that befalls anyone who harbors a necromancer.

They ripped me from that village, and within hours, I was on a boat to Camp Bane.

“The things that I saw in that camp . . . the things I was forced to use my magic to do—it is burned into the very fabric of my soul. After fifteen years trapped on that island, I became death itself—the very essence of it. I did not care who I hurt; I did not care who I had to kill. I only cared about surviving. Only cared about what I had to do to rise through the ranks so that maybe one day, I would be trusted enough to become a Collector.”

Silence fell over us and I didn’t dare speak, didn’t dare breathe.

“Another four years passed before I could prove my loyalty ran deep enough to receive that title. Our unit was dispatched to Sethros only two weeks after I stepped into my new role. We had four days to gather the children and bring them back, and if we did not return, it was us who would be collected and thrown back into the camps to be rebroken. When we arrived in Sethros, the unit spent that first night in brothels and taverns reveling in the lust and debauchery of the city while I stayed at the tavern below our inn”—Andrues turned his head to face me and a small smile blossomed across his lips—“the very same inn you were able to lead us to all those months ago, and made a plan. While I was devising this plan, a fight broke out, and in the center of it was Landers.”

A grin broke onto his face, and the sight of it and the joy that it held—the warmth that flowed from it, made the ice around my heart crack.

“We were both so young, so angry at the world for the cards it had dealt us.

Neither one of us knew what to do with the rage that existed inside of our hearts.

That night, we shared our stories with each other, and we made a pact, an oath that we would make the realms suffer for what they had done to us, for what they had taken.

It was a friendship born from blood—born from pain and anger—and the first thing we did was destroy that island.

We freed those children and killed every last one of those men.

“We tormented the realms together for years, and if I am honest, we were no better than the men we despised—the men we had murdered. It wasn’t until we met Pri, that our violence finally stopped.

There is something about her, about being in her presence and the kindness she holds, that makes you want to be a better man.

And she did push us to be better, to do better.

She saw the darkness that plagued us and did not run from it.

“Neither Landers nor I had been back to Ithia since we were children. We both had so much shame, so much hurt that we did not know how to face. But she . . .” Andrues chuckled softly.

“She dragged us back there and made us face it.

Forced us to face the demons that consumed us.

I thought that village would hate me, that the families there would curse my name.

But when I walked back into those mountains, when I walked back into that village .

. . I was welcomed back with tears. They had been praying to the Gods to keep me alive, praying that I did not meet the same fate as our mothers.

They did not blame me. And knowing that, knowing that I was the only one putting that shame on my shoulders freed me from the prison the anger held me in.

“I made a vow at that moment to never again forget the woman that raised me—the mothers who gave up their lives so I could survive. I vowed to never again forget what they taught me, the good they instilled in me. I would never again be the harbinger of death, but use my magic for good. The Elders agreed to continue my training and I took in everything I could. I learned that Death Magic can do anything their healing magic can, because life and death can never truly be separated. You can never have one without the other.”

Andrues let out a long sigh before fully turning to face me, the bed shifting with the movement.

“I know what it is to break, to be broken to the point death seems easier than repair. To be so full of hate and shame that it feels as though your very life is a curse you are forced to endure. But you are not alone in your pain, Ataliia. You do not have to carry it alone.”

The words were full of sincerity as he said them across the small expanse between us.

He studied me, his eyes searching mine as his fingers reached out and gently traced the scar across my face. Something in that touch shifted, felt different than it ever had before and tears began to prick the corners of my eyes as his fingers lifted my chin up to meet his gaze.

“If I must reach into hell and pull you from the hands of the devil, I will do it. If I must crawl into that bottomless pit just to sit with you, so you are not alone with your demons, I will burn with you in hellfire until you are ready to come back to the light.”

My breath caught in my throat as he spoke the words and the last of the walls I had built silently shattered.

Tears streamed freely now as his thumb caressed my cheek and wiped them from my skin.

“Will you . . . will you hold me?” I whispered the question, and before it had a second to linger between us, his hands were dragging me into his chest. His arms wrapped around my body as his lips brushed against my ear.

“Sleep, Ataliia.”