Rhy’s quiet “sure” and “all right” and “as you wish” had given way to silence and shallow breaths.
How many As Hasaris had Kell said? The words had once more become a low chant on his lips, in his head, in his heartbeat, but Rhy was not healing. How long until the magic worked? It had to work. Fear clawed its way up Kell’s throat. He should have looked at Astrid’s weapon. Should have paid attention to the metal and the markings on it. Had she done something to block his magic? Why wasn’t it working?
“Stay with me,” he murmured. Rhy had stopped moving. His eyes were closed, and the strain had gone out of his jaw.
“Kell,” Lila said softly. “I think it’s too late.”
“No,” he said, gripping the cot. “It’s not. The magic just needs time. You don’t understand how it works.”
“Kell.”
“It just needs time.” Kell pressed both hands to his brother’s chest and stifled a cry. It neither rose nor fell. He couldn’t feel a heartbeat underneath the ribs. “I can’t …” he said, gasping as if he, too, were starved of air. “I can’t …” Kell’s voice wavered as his fingers tangled in his brother’s bloody shirt. “I can’t give up.”
“It’s over,” said Lila. “There’s nothing you can do.”
But that wasn’t true. There was still something. All the warmth went out of Kell’s body. But so did the hesitation, and the confusion, and the fear. He knew what to do. Knew what he had to do. “Give me the stone,” he said.
“No.”
“Lila, give me the bloody stone before it’s too late.”
“It’s already too late. He’s—”
“He’s not dead!” snapped Kell. He held out a stained and shaking hand. “Give it to me.”
Lila’s hand went to her pocket and hovered there. “There’s a reason I’m holding it, Kell,” she said.
“Dammit, Lila. Please.”
She let out a shaky breath and withdrew the stone. He ripped it from her fingers, ignoring the pulse of power up his arm as he turned back to Rhy’s body.
“You told me yourself, nothing good comes out of this,” said Lila as Kell set the stone over Rhy’s unbeating heart and pressed his palm down on top of it. “I know you’re upset, but you can’t think that this …”
But he couldn’t hear her. Her voice dissolved, along with everything else, as Kell focused on the magic coursing in his veins.
Save him, he ordered the stone.
Power sang through his blood, and smoke poured out from under his fingers. It snaked up his arm and around Rhy’s ribs, turning to blackened rope as it tangled around them. Tying them together. Binding them. But Rhy still lay there, unmoving.
My life is his life, thought Kell. His life is mine. Bind it to mine and bring him back.
He could feel the magic, hungry and wanting, pushing against him, trying to tap in to his body, his power, his life force. And this time, he let it in.
As soon as he did, the black rope tightened, and Kell’s heart lurched in his chest. It skipped a beat, and Rhy’s heart caught it, thudding once beneath Kell’s touch. For an instant, all he felt was relief, joy.
Then, pain.
Like being torn apart, one nerve at a time. Kell screamed as he doubled forward over the prince, but he didn’t let go. Rhy’s back arched under his hand, the dark coils of magic cinching around them. The pain only worsened, carved itself in burning strokes over Kell’s skin, his heart, his life.
“Kell!” Lila’s voice broke through the fog, and he saw her rushing forward a step and then two, already reaching out to stop him, to pull him free of the spell. Stop, he thought. He didn’t say it, didn’t raise a finger, but the magic was in his head and it heard his will. It rushed through him and the smoke rushed out and slammed Lila backward. She hit the stone wall hard and crumpled to the floor.
Something in Kell stirred, distant and hushed. Wrong, it whispered. This is … But then another wave of pain sent him reeling. Power pounded through his veins, and his head came to rest against his brother’s ribs as the pain tore through him, skin and muscle, bone and soul.
Rhy gasped, and so did Kell, his heart skipping once more in his chest.
And then it stopped.
II
The room went deathly still.
Kell’s hand slipped from Rhy’s ribs, and his body tumbled from the cot to the stone floor with a sickening thud. Lila’s ears were still ringing from the force