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My hair has mostly come free of my braid, and I nervously push it behind my ears. “What do I do first to take the poison back?”

Vador seems like the type of soldier who wouldn’t blink at having to set his own broken bone, but I swear he breaks out into a sweat at my question. He runs a hand over his graying mustache, then the sharp edge of his jaw. “Well . . . that’s an interesting question. To be honest, normally you use your relationship to . . . do that. But since you two are strangers and not in any condition to . . . get to know each other, I’m not exactly sure what to do.”

“A relationship?”

I repeat. I suppose I can see how having had a rapport with Tristan while he was trying to heal me would have helped. Then suddenly Vador’s embarrassment makes sense. Tristan asked me to open up to him. To feel him. Then he touched me with a certain level of intimacy until somehow a link was made between us. The process of building that connection is personal. Physical. There’s a reason it’s only done with your spouse. “How close of a relationship are we talking?”

Vador gestures vaguely at me. “The closer the better.”

“Just go, Vador,”

Tristan whispers.

Vador looks like that’s the best idea yet, and the door slams behind him as he leaves.

“Bleeding ash . . . this magic comes from intimacy.”

Tristan clenches his jaw. “It comes from having a connection. It’s a benediction of sorts . . . on your marriage. The closer we get, the . . . more it can do.”

And now I have additional questions.

“But we may have been the . . . first to not know each other and try to access it.”

Oh. “Then let’s repeat what we did last time.”

I climb on the bed and lie down beside him, since physical touch seems to be an important part. “Wait. So what was the singing all about?”

His eyes have slipped closed, and if not for his labored breathing, I’d think he was dead. He looks dead. The sun-kissed, golden hue of his skin has disappeared. He glistens with sweat. Impossibly, the dark circles under his eyes look worse. They seem to be spreading to his temples too. Urgently, I shake him. “Tristan, I don’t know the song.”

His eyelids crack open. He pauses to draw in some air. “It was just . . . a way to share a part of myself with you. To open up. My mother used to sing it.”

“So, I don’t have to sing?”

He shakes his head the barest amount.

“Good. Because I don’t sing. At all.”

My relief is momentary. But then what will I do?

There’s blood on him. On me. It’s flowing freely down his arm. I cover the wound with my hand and try not to think about what will happen if I can’t keep this man alive.

Open up to each other. Find a connection.

Unfortunately, my experience in connecting with anyone in this way is limited to my one kiss with Liam, which was only a little over a day ago. But there are other ways to connect, right? I could treat him like a patient. I place my free hand on his forehand to check his temperature. His skin is soft. A little damp.

Nothing happens.

My eyes close. I am a door that is wide open. So wide.

A choking sound comes from Tristan’s throat, sending terror surging up my spine. Perhaps I should just copy what Tristan did. I lean over so my face is above his, assuming the position he took when our roles were reversed. I grab his hand. “Tristan.”

I lower my lips to his ear, allowing our cheeks to touch. “I’m here. Do you feel me?”

With a tilt of my head, I drag my cheek down the side of his jaw. I focus on the heat of him. His life still thrumming to a fast beat in his veins. The way I desperately don’t want him to die. Not just because my survival may depend on his. But because he’s risked his life for mine. And I still don’t know why.

My stomach flips with the sensation of falling.

I jerk back a few inches. “That was it, wasn’t it?”

But Tristan doesn’t acknowledge me, which is really bad news. “Stay with me,”

I urge, as I drop back over him. Our cheeks touch again, but this time I bring a hand to his opposite cheek. “Please, please, please,”

I chant, holding him to me.

My breath catches as if the floor drops ten more feet. I’m falling, then suddenly I’m not, but everything inside me has shifted. Moved over. It’s as if room has been made for him. His emotions—frustration, fear, anger—spill across, resonating within me. I sense his exhaustion. His grief. His feelings are layered and complicated. Woven and intermingled. I go still as I’m met with something hotter that stirs heat in my gut. It’s heavy and heady and extremely pleasant to experience.

He’s feeling this? Right now?

As much as I have access to his inner sensations, he has access to mine—only instead of observing and exploring me like I am with him, he’s sleepy and unfocused. Because he’s about to die.

“Tristan,”

I say, shaking him. “You need to wake up. I don’t know—I don’t know what to do. Wait!”

My head snaps up. “What do I feel like to you?”

Isn’t that what he asked me when I was in his place? I move in closer. So close, my lips brush against his cheekbone. “Do you feel that?”

I ask, as I speak against his skin.

My lips tingle from touching him.

The floor drops another story.

I gasp, sensing his pain. It doesn’t touch me, but the heat of it rages like a house burning down, and intuitively I know all I’d have to do to save him is to reach for it.

And let the fire burning him turn on me.

“You don’t have to,” he rasps.

He must feel my hesitation. My revulsion. But can he blame me? I know how bad it’s going to get. “No. We’re doing this,”

I say, convincing myself as much as him.

I push my face into his neck, bracing. The rope, this new link between us, snaps tight.

Then I call for the flames wounding him. I see nothing, but I sense them stretching out between us. Reaching for me. Heat scalds me, then jumps to my mouth. My airway cuts off. Pain slides down my throat like razor blades. I gag. Twist in pain. It continues to spread, crawling across my ribs, out to my arms. Every heartbeat pushes it farther, betraying a new part of my body.

Despite all this, I’m also acutely aware of Tristan’s relief. His lungs expand. His limbs regain their strength and curl around me.

But ultimately, it’s not enough to distract me from the damage devouring me. Stop! I need it to stop. Our connection slips as I jerk away from him.

Tristan lifts a hand to my face. When he speaks, his voice sounds stronger. “Breathe.”

My eyes flutter closed as I fight for air. It helps if I focus on him. On his relief instead of my new reality: sickness and pain. But if I compare us, he remains worse off. There’s still so far to go.

“Just take a break.”

I appreciate the sentiment, but there’s no point dragging this out. I drop my cheek to his again and throw myself into it, inviting the pain to return. My skin splits as the wound on my lower back opens up again. I bite back a whimper. The arrow hole in my elbow arrives next.

“Stop,”

Tristan urges. His voice is stronger still. “That’s enough.”

Oh, please be true. I flop onto my back, so we’re lying side by side. My head turns, and I see his chest, rising and falling with a hardiness I feared I’d never see again. “Show me your elbow.”

He does. His wound has grown smaller but is still substantial. And bleeding. I lift mine and find it’s not even a quarter of the size of his. I blink rapidly to hold back the tears. “Just a little bit more.”

“It’s fine,”

he growls, staring at me. I can somehow feel his conviction, deep within my chest.

“No, it’s not,”

I say back. “The only way we both survive this is if we share the poison equally. Which means our wounds need to match in size. It’s our only guide.”

His disapproval is so thick it tastes metallic on my tongue, but he doesn’t object. “I really hate this,”

he says, then gives a humorless laugh.

“So much,” I agree.

His fingers slide over and grip mine in an act of solidarity. But his touch makes me hyperaware of him. Tingles race up my arm. To distract myself, I say the first thing that comes to mind. “You should really make Samuel switch from lollo sage to prickle posy.”

“Oh, yeah?”

He turns his head, his eyes staring at the side of my face.

“Immobilizes people. Paralyzes them in the right dose. Far less painful but with the same effect. The medicinal ingredient is in the sap of the stem, but the plant looks a bit like a horse’s tail, only it’s green.”

“I’ll pass that on,”

Tristan says. Then his thumb moves, a tiny stroke against my hand.

A cage of butterflies releases in my chest as my nerves ignite at his touch. Guilt quickly follows, slamming into me for reacting that way to him. It’s not right.

But then a devastating thought occurs. Did Tristan just feel my moment of attraction to him? “We should get this over with.”

He pulls himself up with effort. I meet the evergreen forest of his eyes, lined with a fringe of the blackest lashes. “Are you sure?”

I see now that his hair isn’t just light brown. It’s mixed with strands of gold that curl over his forehead and behind his ears. Around his neck. His lips still carry a hint of purple, but even with that and the dark circles remaining under his eyes, he’s the kind of beautiful I’ve never seen before. It scares me.

“We have to,”

I say. We need to do it right, so I don’t have to do this again.

The thought of taking on more poison is like bracing for a hammer to smash my toe. I don’t want to do it. Every part of me revolts. Because it’s not my toe. It’s my lungs. My kidneys. My vital organs.

“Let’s go,”

I say, closing my eyes and bracing myself.

I feel him lower his head, his heat glowing against the skin of my cheek. Then, impossibly soft, his lips brush my neck.

I inhale a shaky breath, and a fever that has nothing to do with poison rolls over me in a wave. Our link intensifies, laying more parts of ourselves bare. Something forbidden stirs in my blood.

Liam. I go still as his face flashes in my mind.

The guilt gives me the courage I need to finally call for more of the poison. It comes hard and fast, curdling my stomach with nausea. My heart stumbles.

Tristan jerks away. “Okay, that’s enough.”

Like a gate being shut, the flow of his suffering cuts off.

Oh, thank the burning stars. But even though it’s stopped, the poison is back and coursing through my veins. My breaths once again take work, and my skin burns and stings from being cut and split open. Even my shoulder hurts from where I stabbed him.

How did Tristan ever take so much from me before?

“Are you okay?”

he asks, lying down beside me once again.

“I don’t think either one of us is okay.”

“We should sleep. That will help.”

My eyes close. I’m halfway there. I just hope we both wake up.