Page 26 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)

The mist stalker changes position again, moving around until it’s between me and the rest of the cavern, blocking the cool wind from reaching me with its body. As it moves, the light from the lantern falls over the restraints around Sacha’s wrists. The symbols carved into them glow faintly.

An idea forms. A crazy one. One that makes no sense or comes from any logical place. It’s pure desperation. A need to be able to say I’ve tried everything.

Checking over my shoulder, I scan the dimly lit cave to see where the rest of the fighters are.

Most are gathered near the entrance, speaking in hushed tones that don’t quite reach me.

With the mist stalker’s new position, I’m hidden in this recessed section of the cave, sheltered from their view.

Chewing on my lip, I strip out of my outer layers, hands shaking, while I question what I’m doing.

What I’m about to try feels private, intimate in ways I can’t articulate, and yet something deeper than conscious thought drives me forward. But this feels like crossing a boundary, offering something I can’t take back.

If the others saw me now, what would they think? That I’m desperate, pathetic, clinging to a dying man?

Once I’m down to my underwear, common sense reasserts itself.

What am I doing?

I’m acutely aware of the vulnerability of being almost naked in a cave full of people, of what I’m about to do.

Before I can change my mind, I slide beneath the rough blankets covering him.

He’s naked except for the bandages wrapped around the worst wounds, most of which need changing again.

The contrast between us is stark and heartbreaking.

My skin is unmarked except for the faint lines of light tracing my veins.

His is a roadmap of torture, a testament to how far the Authority will go to break someone they fear.

His skin is ice-cold against mine when I stretch out beside him, shocking after the burning fever of earlier. The dichotomy makes no sense. His body is at war with itself, unable to regulate even the most basic functions.

Light flares everywhere our skin makes contact, sudden and unnatural, throwing distorted shadows across the cave walls that writhe like living things, twisting and reaching.

“I’m here,” I whisper. I drape one arm across his chest, trying to avoid the worst wounds, but making contact with as much of his skin as possible.

The cold of him seeps into me immediately, bone-deep and frightening.

I don’t know why, but instinct is telling me that I need to achieve as much skin-to-skin contact as I can.

The silver current flows from me at every point of contact, spreading across the space between us to dance over his chest, his arms, his face. Where it touches, his muscles seem to ease slightly, although his breathing remains shallow, and his skin is cold as death.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.” I shift slightly, resting my head against his shoulder, the only place on his body that isn’t covered in wounds, my eyes on the weak flutter of his pulse at the hollow of his throat.

“I don’t understand any of this. But something connects us. It has since the beginning.”

I close my eyes and concentrate on the sensation of the power flowing through me.

Instead of containing it as I’ve tried to do since it first manifested, I encourage it outward, toward him.

With each beat of my heart, I focus on sending back his familiar, imagining it traveling through me and back into him.

“Take it back.” My lips brush against his skin. “Whatever part of you has been with me, take it back. You need it more than I do.”

I’m shivering from the cold emanating from him, with the effort of trying to direct this power. Every muscle aches, every nerve ending fires with silver-bright pain. The mist stalker moves closer, making that strange sound again, its eyes fixated on something I can’t see.

Something moves against my hand, and I lift my head to see the restraints around his wrists vibrating, the symbols carved into their surface glowing brighter.

The metal grows warm against my skin where it touches, hot enough to be painful.

I should pull away, but something holds me in place.

That same instinct that made me lie beside him, that told me this was necessary.

“Sacha.” His name is both a plea and a command. I touch my forehead to his shoulder. “Please, come back to me.”

The silver light surrounding us pulses with increasing intensity, growing stronger, brighter , with each cycle. Each flare sheds another thread of darkness. The filaments gather around his still form, weaving through the light.

Each pulse tears something from me—not just light, but pieces of myself. Memory. Breath. Sensation. The boundaries between us blur until I can’t tell where I end and he begins.

Is this what dying feels like? This slow dissolution, this emptying out? Or is this what it means to truly give yourself to someone?

I’ve never belonged to anyone before. Never wanted to. But now, as my essence pours into him, I wonder if this is what self-sacrifice is, and what will remain of me when this is over.

Shadow and light. Darkness and brightness. His power and mine. Mingling in ways that shouldn’t be possible.

The restraints around his wrists crack, hairline fractures appearing in metal that wouldn’t yield to our strongest tools. The symbols etched into their surface begin to flicker erratically.

The shadows grow stronger, separating further from the stream of silver, flowing across Sacha’s body like water seeking its level.

They concentrate around his worst wounds in his side, on his chest, the brands, the raw flesh of his back.

Where they touch, the angry red of infection seems to recede slightly, the dark lines of blood poisoning fading at their edges.

Not healing, not yet, but fighting back against the death that was claiming him.

I watch in stunned wonder as the shadows multiply, growing more substantial with each pulse of light. No longer wisps, now they braid into structure, winding tight around the manacles binding his wrists.

One of them shatters with a loud crack, chunks of metal scattering across the ground. The symbols flare once more, then fade to nothing. The shadows rush toward his newly freed wrist, wrapping around it like a living bandage.

And then his fingers twitch against mine, and my breath stalls. It’s the first voluntary movement I’ve seen since we rescued him.

“Sacha?” Hope blooms painfully in my chest. “That’s it. Come back.”

The second restraint cracks but doesn’t break completely. Shadows gather around it, pressing against the weakened metal with increasing pressure. His breathing changes. It’s still shallow, still labored, but more regular.

The restraint finally gives way, metal splitting along fault lines created by those strange shadows. The moment it breaks, something changes in Sacha. His body relaxes infinitesimally, his chest rising in a steadier rhythm, and a deep sigh escapes him.

“Sacha?” I lift my head to study his face.

One eyelid flutters, but his eye doesn’t open. The shallow rise and fall of his chest becomes more regular, more normal. The deathly chill of his skin begins to recede, warmth returning wherever the shadows spread.

My entire body is shaking, three days of unrelenting fear crashing over me in waves.

I press my face against his shoulder, careful to avoid his wounds, and let tears fall freely.

His skin is warm again. He no longer sounds like every breath will be his last. The broken restraints lie scattered in twisted shards around us, utterly destroyed.

“Don’t you dare die on me now!” My voice wobbles, and I thread my fingers gently between his. “Not when I just found you.”

Shadows coil over his skin, following the black lines creeping outward from the sword wound in his side. Where the shadows touch, the dead flesh turns from black to the pink of healing, pushing away the death that was claiming him minutes ago.

I curve my body around his, light and shadow pulsing out of me in waves, syncing to my heartbeat. To his . Something has changed between us. Something irreversible. I can feel his pain as if it were my own, and I can sense the shadows working through his broken body.

The mist stalker settles at our feet, its huge head resting on the edge of the blankets.

Its eyes reflect the silver pouring from me, creating twin pools of mercurial brightness in the cave.

For the first time since it formed, the creature seems to be at peace, as though some purpose has been fulfilled.

And then Sacha’s eye flutters open, the one that isn’t swollen shut, revealing a sliver of awareness beneath the bruised lid. Recognition flickers there, followed by confusion, then understanding.

“Ellie.” My name is barely audible, rough, raspy, more breath than voice, but unmistakable.

My heart stutters, then restarts with painful force. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.”

His eye closes again almost immediately, the effort of remaining conscious too much for his damaged body. But his fingers tighten fractionally around mine. The smallest movement.

“I thought I’d lost you.” My voice breaks on a sob. “I thought they’d taken you from me.”

The words feel inadequate for the chasm that had opened inside me at River Crossing, watching him fall.

It wasn’t just grief, it was vertigo, the sensation of the ground disappearing beneath my feet.

Without him, what am I in this world? A stranger with inexplicable powers, hunted by people I don’t understand, fighting for a cause that isn’t mine.

He’s the only thing that makes any of this make sense. The only reason I have to stay.

The shadows weave around us now, passing through silver light in shapes that grow more complex, more beautiful with each cycle.

They flow through him, around him, between us, connecting us with bonds that transcend the physical.

Where they touch my skin, I feel an echo of him—his determination, his pain, his fierce will to survive.

And I wonder if he feels me too, if the silver carries my hope, my fear, my refusal to let him go.

I press my lips to his forehead, tasting salt and copper and something else. Something that speaks of power and potential, of futures not yet written. My body moves closer to his, my warmth seeping into his cold skin, his shadows wrapping around me like a cocoon.

For the first time since arriving in the desert, since entering the tower, since that first flicker of strange power ignited beneath my skin, I’m not afraid of what I might become.

The Authority might hate it, this force that runs through both of us, but lying here, feeling life return to Sacha’s body, I finally understand the truth.

This is what I was meant to find. This connection. This man. This cause. I came to Meridian a stranger, but I’ll fight for it as though I was born here.

For him. For us.

For whatever we’re becoming.