Howls, grinding teeth, and the echoes of wind and spitting acid bind with the laborious pounding of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of footfalls.

Ran pants, pushing her legs faster, the two wolves loping beside us with tongues lolling and eyes wide. A fresh breath of air bursts before us… but I feel the hot breath of death on my neck.

“DUCK!” I shout, wrapping my arms around Ran’s neck and burying my face into her mane.

Silver plasters himself behind me, a low groan coming from his lips as the heat hits even though Ran tried to dodge, nearly throwing us. I lever myself and Silver back upright. Someone screams… and I realize it’s me and maybe Nika. But I can’t be sure as the impact hits.

I feel it… but Silver takes the brunt. Silver's arms remain tight around my waist, but I feel him trembling even as I hold tightly to Ran, clenching my abs to keep us upright and on as Ran falters and begins running. Again.

Another low moan and my heart breaks. I glance back over my shoulder, putting my hands on his that are wrapped firmly about my waist. “Silver?” I whisper, my lips numb with fear. Adrenaline spikes through me. I almost end it then and there, almost cut the lines at the source, killing them all, and not risk anymore lives. It would be so very simple—

Silver spins his hand around and grabs my wrist. “Don’t,” he whispers, a low and guttural groan as much as a word.

He’s hurt. He’s… hurt. Ran skids around a corner, nearly throwing us off… and I grab ahold of her mane with both hands… and I feel a mind brush against mine. The Witch.

But she can't penetrate any of our minds with the Opes sending waves of warmth through me, making my Gift unlimited. So I tighten my grip on the Orb, knowing if I lose it, we may all be lost. I glance back, seeing the mass of creatures right behind us and—the Witch riding the shoulders of a creature with talons like an eagle, the body of a wolf, and the smashed head of a pig.

Logic doesn’t connect with reason as I feel the tightness of his muscles. And the way he clenched my wrist… he’s always so gentle but this… this will leave marks. When I think that he releases me as if burned. But I have a feeling he’s fighting to stay conscious. And this is Silver we’re talking about.

I glance back. His face is white, his eyes clenched shut, and the edges of his face… along his cheek right next to his ears is red and peeling, as if burnt.

I grit my teeth, struggling to hold steady, but the thought of my Silver in pain… I slam the door on the thought. On the emotions. And place them in a box. I hold tight to Silver’s arms as he sways behind me, his head dropping to my back.

Arin falters behind me... he slips to the side, and I frantically grab his arm, but the next moment I have to grab her mane again or risk falling. Ran crowhops, throwing Arin into me. I brace my forearms against her mane, grabbing hold of her with one hand. I hope it's enough. I can't risk... the Opes. But Arin can't die. I can try to slip the Opes into a pocket of my cloak... that may work. But as soon as I release it, I'll have the cold black of indifference.

I'll just have to risk it.

I know what I’ve gotta do if we’re both to make it through this alive.

Silver moans behind me, his voice softer than before and holding an edge I don’t like.

Ran—

Sis, I know. I’ll watch out for you both, just hold ON, she grunts, dodging another stream of fire and crow-hopping to right me and Arin when we slip to the side.

That's when I realize... my cloak is burnt and torn from the battles. I have no pouch on that side, no way to carry the Opes. All fairies are ahead, my bodice is too tight for it to fit. I try cramming it down, but it pops back up and almost flies shoots off into the caverns.

I can’t hold to it and to Arin. After everything I did to protect it, it comes down to letting Arin die or losing it? A tear falls from my eye, lost in the wind brushing past my cheeks. And I drop the Opes.

I squeeze my eyes shut, a blast of regret and fear rushing through me... I grab ahold of Ran's mane with one hand and hold Arin's forearms that are clenched around my waist with the other. Cold blasts through my veins, an indifference so bold my fingers turn blue and my heart grows sluggish in my chest and washes away the regret of something terrible I just did.

What was I doing? Something was important. Ran sends a blast of warmth through the Bond... and I grasp the last dangling threads of sanity.

I close my eyes.

I touch Arin’s thread. Something I have been avoiding for a very long time. I respect him. And I… it feels like a breech of privacy if I were to reach for it any other time. But right now, he needs me. And I can finally admit… I need him.

I need his humor. I need the warmth of his arms which feels like coming home after being adrift. I need the way his smile lights up his eyes and turns them silver even when he’s Arin. I need the comfort he brings just by being… him.

I can’t lose him.

I submerge myself in his thread and pull.

He gasps behind me, the wall he has in his mind spasming and then giving altogether. I try to keep from diving into the deep end of his emotion and merely pull the pain so he doesn’t go into shock or pass out… but both come in equal measure.

When I pull physical pain, the emotion tags along for the ride.

A startled half-scream escapes my tightly pursed lips and I lean my head into Ran’s mane, clutching at her fur with white-knuckled fingers. Ran yelps when fire crashes into the wall beside us, but she pushes forward, the rolling beat of her legs the only real thing keeping me in the present.

His emotions… they are so very raw. I can’t exactly pinpoint all they are, but I sense the betrayal he feels from his father, the brokenness of his past mistakes and how each killing has weighed on his soul.

The sorrow from a loss, the fear of losing… me. The fear grows until it eclipses me, shakes me to my core, overwhelms any physical pain until I tremble with its intensity. In the depths of his soul, his one goal is to protect me. To keep me from harm. But he doesn’t know how to protect me from myself.

A strangled mewl escapes me before I clamp my lips shut and focus on the physical, pushing back the emotions through strength of will.

Push, pull, and there. Enough that I feel him relax against my back with a deep sigh. Tears trail my face, tears I didn’t even realize had fallen. It burns. It hurts. I clench my teeth. The pain… it’s indescribable. To some extent a numbness comes over him… but the rest he bears with a stoicism I can’t even fathom—but I feel him slipping. I feel his soul slowly seep from him with each trail of warm blood blazing a trail down his back to pool in Ran’s fur. See his thread slowly grow from the blazing blue and silver colors… to a shimmery, almost indistinct haze.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

I can feel the breath on Arin’s burned and blistered back. I turn my head, a tear dripping and crystalizing on my cheek when I see a large black creature with claws as long as Ran’s saber teeth, the Witch on his back. A wide grin stretches across her face beneath her white hood. His mouth, lathered with white and yellow drool, turns in a rictus of a smile while his red beady eyes squint in happiness. He reaches out with a claw, a hand’s breadth, and then a hair’s—

That’s when I feel it.

A tiny strand of—something familiar. Something… hopeful.

Something I’d never thought I’d feel again.

“Papa?” I whisper through white lips, numbness beginning to coat my soul but not easing the pain of my back—or is it Arin’s? I can’t tell where one of us begins and the other ends. Not anymore.

A soul simmers, and then… and then something whistles beside my ear and the creature’s head snaps back, light fading from one eye, arrow lodged fletching deep in the other eye. He tumbles and the Witch screams, tumbling from his back and being trampled by the creatures behind them.

Ran pants with exertion beneath me, and I worry for her and her pups, but not more than I worry for the man leaning against me, head lolling on his shoulders, arms tight around my waist as if it’s the only thing holding him up.

I glance behind us… and I see a polearm reach out and cut the legs out from underneath one of the creatures in the lead. It causes an avalanche of creatures, giving us a blessed few seconds to escape. A head poked out behind the ax. Dark hair. Fair complexion. Jill’s friend and Darshius’ son, Lycus.

I glance forward, and there, in all its glory, is the wonderful golden glow of sunlight with the pattering of rain creating a rainbow at the entrance. The sign of the King. It happens so very rarely it’s seen as a blessing when it rains and the sun still shines. Ran finds a strength I didn’t know she had and increases her pace, lunging forward as I hold on for all I’m worth.

The two wolves and their riders cross the barrier, someone yelling something about hold, and other gibberish that sounds like mage speak, and I feel a flare of power, a connection between many, and then… we pass the barrier into warm sunlight and cool splatters.

Screams emerge from the cave mouth, but I don’t take heed of the death behind me as Arin slips from behind me. He hits the ground with a dull thud.

Ran falters, her legs trembling and lungs heaving, as she, too, collapses to her front knees.

I stumble off, going to Arin’s side, seeing his face. My heart stops. He’s pale as death. His face is slack. But then his eyes pop open, and they meet mine with a tenderness I… how can he show such gentle love even with all I have put him through?

I hold tightly to my Gift... and I know when I release it, I'll be ice cold, inside and out. But I can't pass out. Not yet. Arin needs me.

He reaches out a hand, but he stops with a wince, and I feel the answering pain in my back as if my skin had torn.

It spurs me back into motion from where I’d frozen. I slide to my knees, gently cradling his hand, my entire soul clinging to his for all I’m worth.

“Please don’t leave me, Silver,” I whisper, my tongue feeling numb in my mouth. “I need you.”

His mouth turns into a semblance of his usual smirk before it's overtaken with a grimace as he shuts his eyes and grits his teeth against the waves of pain. “I… must wait… for my prize—”

A snort-laugh which throws snot all over his tunic and makes a string dangle from my nose escapes me. I wipe my nose, clinging to his hand just as I cling to his soul.

“Give… it back,” he whispers. And I feel him trying to tug the pain back into himself.

I lean forward, planting a kiss to his lips. It’s awkward, it’s weird, and it takes all kinds of weird angles to reach his lips, but it does what I want when he stops trying to pull the pain back and instead opens fevered blue and silver flecked eyes and stares at me with a parted mouth. I feel the love he has for me in that moment. The gentleness, the protectiveness, and the want for all the things that are good to come to me, even if that costs him everything.

“Let me do this, Mau Cor. It’s time I took care of you while you’re hurt,” I whisper. I should look at his back, start bandaging, call someone over—

His hand tightens on mine. “Don’t,” he whispers.

My heart gallops in my chest and I feel him slipping. I use my thread to pad the innermost parts of his soul, to stop the fraying and unraveling with the barest hint of my own.

Something touches my back.

I spin in a crouch, knife at the man’s throat before he can blink while I keep my other hand tightly clenched in Arin’s.

The knife slips from my cold fingers. My teeth chatter in shock. My entire being… freezes. I stop breathing for a split second in time.

His blue, red-rimmed eyes crinkle in a gentle, sad smile. “My little cub,” he whispers, as if the words are a prayer uttered so many times he can’t quite believe it to be real. And then I remember the arrow in the behemoth’s eye—very few could have made that shot. He saved us.

He’s alive.

“Papa?” I whisper. I thought I had imagined it. Imagined the welcoming strand. Imagined the feel of the broken but mighty soul.

But no. He was the one who shot that arrow that took the Witches mount down. He saved us.

And all I wanna do is fall into his warm arms as I had so longed to do for years upon years… but first—

“Help,” I whisper, my legs crumbling, as I nearly collapse on top of Arin.

Papa catches me, his arms warm just as I remembered, and then he sees something which makes him go rigid behind me.

“The prince is down!” Papa yells, his voice a commanding baritone that makes me wish to jump up and obey. It's soothing to know someone else can take charge for a while. I can just keep hold of Arin.

Voices buzz around us, but they remain indistinct except for tiny words.

“How… still alive?”

“Seal the open—”

“Not much skin here—”

“Easy, little one, I have him. You can let go,” Papa whispers in my ear. I shake my head emphatically. “They need to work on him, honey.”

“No!” someone says. Is that Queen Ambrose? “Separate them, he surely dies.”

Papa stops tugging at my hand.

“How?” he whispers, throat hoarse.

“She bonded him. She’s the only thing holding him here.”

I feel the trembling of Papa’s fingers, even as he rubs tiny circles on my back. “Bonded?”

“She created a bond of necessity. But now… she holds him here by a thread,” Queen Ambrose’s voice is soft and gentle, but Papa—

“My daughter bonded herself to the Crown Prince?” he hisses. Part of me thinks he’d prefer to let the prince die than allow me to continue to keep my bond.

How… how does Papa know Arin? I thought he was a simple palace guard or something. But he knew who Arin was on sight, even though Arin is coated in blood, gore, sweat, and dirt.

Papa’s fingers dig into my back and I tense slightly. He immediately eases, unclenching his fingers, and rubs gentle circles again. “Sorry, little cub. I’m here. Papa’s here,” he whispers.

“Warn her, this is going to sting,” Queen Ambrose says. “I’m going to use her thread to put a healing balm over both of them and take off the pain, but we’re going to need to take skin to cover the burns and then expedite healing. I’d prefer to do this anywhere but here… but there is no time.”

“Do it,” I whisper through clenched teeth.

The next minutes or hours are nothing short of agony. Queen Ambrose uses Ran, my old bond with Natasha’s Spark Rose, and my bond with Arin to encourage his skin to take the grafts and heal. But it’s painful. It’s why Ran and Rose always healed me while I slept. I wish I could sleep through this, but no. I have to stay here. For Arin. For the country. But mostly for myself. I can’t lose him. Just the thought brings an unbearable stab to my chest that is worse than any physical pain I’ve ever known—including the grafting and healing process.

When it’s finally done, Arin stills, breathing shallowly, but the pain is drastically less.

“Did the… plan work?” are the first words from his mouth.

I release a pent-up laugh-sigh, pushing his lank and wet hair from his damp with sweat forehead, planting a kiss there. “Yes, you idiot, wonderful prince. It worked.” I knew enough of that from the small snippets of conversation the knights had while keeping guard duty around the fairies and their prince.

He relaxes, opening his eyes to peer up at me with tired and dilated eyes. “I love you, Mau Cor. But give me back the pain.”

I choke on my words. “Heck no,” I say, a bit too emphatically.

He chuckles, tired, worn, but it’s there. And it makes me smile. “I can handle pain, Mau Cor. Give it back before you… pass out.”

“I’m not the fainting type, idiot. But you, on the other hand…” I suggest, wriggling my eyebrows.

He raises a single brow.

“If you wish him to heal properly, he must bear his own pain. It is safe to Gift back now,” Queen Ambrose says. I lift my eyes to look at her, trying to focus, but she's all blurry. She wipes her bloody hands on a leaf, her glimmering eyes weary but soft. “He’ll live, but he must bear his own pain. It is good to help others with their burdens for a time, but you must be careful not to bear another’s burden’s or else you risk taking their healing, their growth, and their triumph.”

I stare into her eyes, feeling like her words are deep and meaningful, but not entirely catching the gist. But I nod, trusting her judgement, even as my heart quails.

“Give it back easily, or else you risk sending him into shock. Slowly, gently, but surely.”

I nod again, looking down, seeing Arin’s eyes are gentle but stern. “Give it back, Mau Cor.”

I bite my lip. I nod once more, not able to get words past my parched and aching throat. I gently stop pulling, one tiny bit at a time. When I get halfway there, Arin grunts. I open my eyes, seeing his tightly shut, and am tempted to pull again.

“Don’t… you dare,” he hisses.

I sigh, and continue.

When it’s finally released… Everything stops. My emotions. My feelings. My mind goes blank and I remember nothing more.