Page 59 of Warlord’s Plaything

59

XYRON

T here is nothing.

No pain.

No sound.

No body.

Just emptiness.

I drift in it, weightless, untethered, caught between something and nothing.

I should feel afraid.

But I don’t.

There is no fear here.

No war.

No burdens.

No pain.

Just peace.

I let myself fall into it.

A whisper cuts through the void.

My name.

Soft at first.

Then sharper.

Then desperate.

Then—

Screaming.

I know that voice.

It is fire and steel.

It is war and storm.

It is Hira.

And she is begging me to wake up.

Something pulls at me.

A thread of warmth.

A flicker of something more.

Not the cold of this place.

Not the weightless oblivion of the void.

But a tether.

Something tied to my ribs, to my soul.

Her.

Come back.

Come back to me, you bastard.

You don’t get to leave me.

You don’t get to fucking die.

A warmth spreads through the nothingness, curling around the edges of my consciousness.

And suddenly?—

I feel pain.

A deep ache, blooming in my chest.

My body, heavy and battered, calling me back.

I feel my fingers.

I feel the air, thick and cold against my skin.

I feel her hands, gripping my face, pressing against me like she can force me to stay.

And I know?—

I cannot leave her.

Not now.

Not after everything.

Not when she is still here, still fighting, still breathing.

I promised.

And I keep my promises.

I gasp. A ragged, broken sound, pulling in air that tastes like blood and dust.

Hira jerks back, eyes wide, breath catching in her throat.

Her face, Gods, her face is streaked with dirt, with blood, with the raw devastation of someone who was ready to lose everything. And now, she gazes at me like I am the only thing in this gods-damned world that matters.

"Xyron?"

Her voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it.

Disbelieving.

Fragile.

Like she is afraid to hope.

I swallow, my throat raw, my chest burning.

"You’re loud." I rasp. A half-smile, weak and sharp. "Even in death, you don’t shut up."

She laughs.

A sound that isn’t a laugh at all, but a broken, choking sob.

And then she is on me, gripping my armor, shoving her face against my neck, her body trembling as she breathes me in.

"You fucking bastard," she whispers. "You almost ? —"

Her voice shatters, and I feel the wetness against my skin. Tears. Hira is crying.

I almost ruined her. I almost left her.

And that thought… That thought destroys me.

I lift a shaking hand, threading my fingers into her tangled hair, pressing her closer. "I’m here."

It’s all I can say.