My trembling hand lifted to my face and my fingers came away covered red with blood. I stumbled. My feet carried me without conscious thought away from the threshold that emptied onto the balcony, where the rising dawn painted the sky.

I turned and staggered. My legs struggled to bear my weight.

That’s when I saw him.

The iron door was open. Impossibly bent, the metal hung from twisted hinges.

Aidon was on his knees before it, a hand clutched over his heart. And he was pale. So, deathly pale. His eyes lifted to mine, those silver orbs wide and shocked. As if he didn’t know me. As if he was seeing me for the first time.

His bloodless lips formed my name. But I couldn’t hear him. I couldn’t hear anything but my own panting breaths and the blood that rushed through my head like a pounding drum.

The world shifted. It canted sickenly to the side.

Too much, I’d delved too deeply, cast too widely. My knees gave out and I was falling. Molten silver eyes held me, the shock there deepening to pain and fury and fear.

His eyes were the last I saw before the dawn faded to impenetrable night.