8. Chapter

Zade

The crystal glass was cold in my hand, the deep red wine inside it still as a mountain lake. I stood beside the fireplace staring into the flames, but I did not see them. All I saw was that defiant pair of green eyes that had poisoned me with hatred barely an hour ago.

"She has to learn," I muttered to myself and took a sip of the wine. "She needs to understand that the streets do not rule here. I am the law here."

But the wine tasted like ash in my mouth.

A strange tension vibrated in the air, something I could not shake off. It felt like the silence before a storm, when the birds go quiet and the earth begins to tremble beneath the surface.

Then Noctis's scream exploded inside my mind.

It was not anger.

It was not hunger.

The sound was a long metallic cry that tore through my nerves and dropped me to one knee. My hand trembled and the crystal glass slipped from my fingers. It shattered on the marble floor and the red wine splashed across my boots and white shirt like fresh blood.

"Zade!" the dragon's voice thundered desperately inside my skull. "The light... it is fading! The little flesh... she is dying!"

"What are you talking about, Noctis?" I snarled, my heart slamming so hard against my ribs that my breath caught.

"The darkness!" Noctis's mind twisted wildly. "It is choking her! I feel the walls... I feel her terror... and now... now I feel nothing! Zade, the bond is thinning! You are killing her!"

For a moment my heart stopped.

Her claustrophobia.

I had thought she was just a hysterical little thief trying to save her skin. I thought she had been acting so I would release her.

But the dragon bond did not lie.

Noctis felt her soul, and what he felt was pure unfiltered terror.

I spun around and ran from the room.

I did not call the guards. I did not care who might see me racing through the halls half dressed with wine stains across my shirt like blood. Only one image burned in my mind.

Her face gripping the bars and begging.

"Anything... just not the dark."

Her words echoed through my head and for the first time in my life the icy grip of guilt tightened around my throat.

I stormed down the stairs. My lungs burned but I did not slow. I rushed through the damp corridors, past the prison guard who flattened himself against the wall in shock. I tore open the iron door and burst into the cell corridor.

"Little girl!" I shouted.

Only my own voice answered.

The torch in my hand flickered wildly as I reached the last cell. I looked through the bars and my stomach twisted.

She lay on the ground.

A small pale shape against the black stone floor. Her hair spread around her like the broken wing of an angel. She did not move.

She was not visibly breathing.

"Open it!" I roared to the guard behind me who fumbled with the keys in trembling hands.

I snatched them away and turned the lock myself.

The cell door creaked open. I rushed inside and dropped to the floor beside her. Carefully I lifted her into my arms.

She was cold.

Colder than ice.

Her skin was pale as moonlight and when the torchlight fell across her face I saw the blood.

A dark red stream flowed from her forehead just above her brow, running down across her face and over the old scar beneath her eye.

She had struck her head against the stone.

"Little girl..." My voice broke.

I touched her neck. Her pulse was so faint I could barely feel it. Like the final dying heartbeat of a small bird.

"Do not you dare die. Do you hear me? I did not give you permission."

I lifted her.

She weighed almost nothing, as if she were made of shadow instead of flesh. Her head fell back helplessly against my shoulder.

"Save her," Noctis growled deep in my mind and I felt the dragon's immense sorrow. "If she dies something inside me dies as well."

I ran through the corridors carrying her back toward my chambers. The guards stared in confusion but one look from me was enough to make them drop their eyes.

I kicked open the door to my room and laid her not on the small narrow bed but on my own.

The silk sheets immediately soaked through with her blood.

"Water! And the healer! Now!" I shouted toward the hallway.

I sat beside the bed and pressed a clean cloth against her forehead trying to stop the bleeding. The hand that had killed countless enemies without trembling now shook.

As I looked at her lifeless face the anger that had driven me earlier vanished completely.

Something else replaced it.

A dark suffocating realization.

I had tortured her.

Not with steel but with her deepest fear.

And she had chosen death instead, collapsing into the darkness just to escape it.

"I am sorry," I whispered.

I barely believed the word myself. I had never said it to anyone in my life.

I lifted one of her limp hands and brought it to my lips. Despite the dirt and blood her skin still carried a faint sweet scent.

"Wake up, little girl. I swear I will never lock you away again. Just come back."

The dragon bond suddenly tightened.

A small weak pulse came from the girl.

Not words.

Only an image.

A white light in the distance.

Noctis began pushing deep burning energy through me and into her. My body heated as I felt my magic and the dragon's fire flowing through my fingertips into her skin.

The girl trembled.

A soft painful moan escaped her throat.

Her eyelids moved.

"I am here," I whispered, leaning closer to her without releasing her hand.

"I am here, little girl. Do not be afraid. There is no more darkness."

I waited for her to open her eyes.

And although I knew the first thing she would probably do was curse me to hell, in that moment there was nothing I wanted more than to see that deadly green fire in her gaze again.