In the hallway, Gaven tightens his grip on me. “How bad?” he asks, rushing me down the half-lit hallway.

“Terrible. I don’t know why. I went to the well right before we left home. It shouldn’t be like this.”

Unless it’s beyond the well’s healing. Or, worse, corruption from the well itself—my body reminding me I’m so full of poison that I’m rotting from the inside out.

“How long do we have?” Gaven loops an arm around my waist when we get to the stairs and practically hauls me up the two flights.

“Seconds.”

Several servants gawk as we rush by, but I don’t bother to smile or act fine. Let them all think I’m a drunk. It’s better than them thinking that I’m weak.

I stumble down the dark hallway. With the throbbing in my head, I don’t mind the dim light, but my blurred and haloed vision casts a strange glow in the hall, like we’re walking through a sea of ghosts.

Just breathe, Harlow. Just breathe.

I’ve lost all sense of time and reason. It’s just me and the searing ache splitting my brain down the center. This is it. I have fought and fought, but this time I’m done.

This time, the agony will win. This time, I will die.

The pain is a liar. But right now, I believe it.

I know this perilous feeling—the tipping point between wanting to survive and being afraid to.

Aidia’s haunting whispers echo through my mind. “Some people have something extra driving them, Low. You’re a survivor.”

I don’t feel like one now.

Finally, we get to the door of my room. Gaven rips it open, nearly dropping me in the process. I’m too overcome with the blinding ache to chide him. I just want something cool on my head.

He kicks the door closed behind us with a grunt and clicks the lock into place.

“Washroom floor,” I rasp.

Gaven hauls me into the adjoining room and lowers me beside the tub.

I gesture toward the door that leads to Henry’s room. “Lock him out. He can’t know about this before the wedding.”

Before Gaven can close the washroom door that leads to Henry’s room, Kyrin trots in. Gaven freezes, but I just groan. If the wolf wants to rip my throat out, at least it will end my misery.

Instead, Kyrin whines and nudges my hand with his nose.

“Go away,” I groan, drawing my hand back.

The wolf whines again.

I try to force some sort of authority into my voice. “I said go away. Go back in his room.”

I wince and open my eyes to see Kyrin take two steps toward the wrong door—the one that leads to my room.

“Do you want me to…” Gaven’s voice trails off when he doesn’t have a solution to offer.

“Just lock the door to Henry’s room. One beast at a time,” I say, rolling onto my side and hugging my roiling stomach.

Gaven shuts the door. The faucet turns on, and a moment later, he places a cool washcloth on my forehead.

“Thank you,” I whisper. My breaths are shallow. The floor is cool under my clammy cheek. Sweat beads on the back of my neck.

Gaven’s voice cuts through the pounding rush of my heartbeat in my ears. “I’ll be outside your room.”

His boots click on the floor as he walks away.

“Gaven,” I whisper. “Don’t leave yet.”

Even with my eyes closed, I can sense him there, torn between staying and going. Since Gaven’s only power is borrowed, his aura is the white of those who don’t have a magic blessing granted by the Divine.

Gaven has seen the moments before the pain descends, but he’s always been banished before it consumes me. Either way, he’s not warm. He’s always maintained a strong boundary between guard and caretaker. I doubt he will change that now, but I can barely care.

My dress sticks to my clammy skin. I am nothing but agony and I can’t stand to feel it alone.

Kyrin lets out a huff of disapproval from the threshold to my room.

A moment later, the light shifts behind my eyes. Gaven sighs and sits beside me. I reach out, and he takes my hand.

“I miss Aidy,” I whisper.

I sound so pathetic. A thirty-year-old woman who wants her sister because she’s lonely and in pain. When I’m hurting, all of the things I’ve been shoving away can get to me. I’m mortified by my profound weakness, by the fact that someone other than my sister is seeing it.

Gaven squeezes my hand. “I know,” he says after a long moment.

We stay like that for a long time, with him acting like this is a normal request, and me breathing through the wretched agony.

OceanofPDF.com

20HENRY

Three Divine-damn days. That’s how long Harlow has been hiding in her room. That’s how long I’ve been locked out of my own washroom. That’s how long she’s hogged Kyrin.

It’s childish to be jealous that my wolf is so loyal to her. I want him protecting her around the fort since she is as reckless as she is curious. But Ky has never warmed to anyone except me. He’s even surly toward Bryce and Carter. Yet he won’t leave Harlow’s side.

It makes me even more curious what she’s doing in there, because despite what her bodyguard has said repeatedly, I’m not buying that she’s cloistered herself to pray to the Divine.

The cold morning air stings my cheeks as I run through the hunt grounds behind the estate. The staccato beat of Carter and Bryce’s familiar gaits behind me is soothing, as is their bickering. But every time I settle into a rhythm, my mind wanders back to Harlow, her eyes fever-bright as she rushed out of the dinner.

I know she wasn’t drunk. I need to know what scared her off.

A haunting mist threads around the trees and over the trail ahead of us. It’s not particularly nice weather for a run—cold enough to burn the lungs, damp enough to make everything chafe. But ever since we were forced to spend the first two years after the wall fell mostly underground, I’m too happy for the freedom of it to complain.

I’ve run this path so many times, the steep mountain face to my right, the forest and fort to my left. The coating of dry pine needles on the trail keeps the ground from being too muddy and fills the air with their earthy scent. It smells like home.

The new moon and our wedding are tomorrow, and Harlow has to be ready. I’m torn between dread and excitement. She has managed herself well so far, but she’ll be out of her element tomorrow. She’ll need me to guide her through our customs, and that puts her at a disadvantage. It forces her to be the one thing she absolutely refuses to be with me—vulnerable. I know I can get under her skin, and I’m more determined than ever.

“I can tell you need a good tumble by how fast you’re running,” Bryce shouts from a few yards behind me. “You only have this much energy when you’re miserable.”

I push the pace faster, charging the last half-mile to the mountain escape tunnel. Finally, I stand tall and lift my arms, sucking in air as I check the foliage covering the tunnel opening.

The branches and vine net that hide the door are in place. Anyone else would miss the secret door, but we are trained to know these escape routes in the dark, by touch alone. These tunnels saved us ten years ago. They still save us.

I’m not particularly devout. Holly’s death and my own brushes with the veil made certain of that. But three of the youngest children in our community being blessed by the Divine of Fortune with the ability to make plants grow in the glow of sunstones allowed us to create a full farming system inside the mountain tunnels. That, combined with our miraculous survival, inspired devotion in many people in our community. They think if we ask, the Divine will provide.

I’m not so sure. If the Divine are so eager to be at our beck and call, where were they the night the fort fell?

A hand claps down on my shoulder. I spin, slapping it away.

Carter immediately lifts his hands, readying for a fight. “Oh, is that how it is today?”