First came the fire that filled my veins. A raging inferno that consumed all of my scattered thoughts piece by piece, as the fragments of my mind struggled to return to my body from the rats. I wanted to scream out in pain as each fracture recombined, but the sounds became trapped. As if my voice didn’t exist in this space that was somehow in between.

Then came the cold. An ice that moved through me from head to toe, only offering a moment of reprieve before it became its own torture. Then a numbness began to form in my head, a peaceful kind of nothingness that took away all my sensations. It was familiar and soothing as it traveled down my neck and into my chest and limbs.

It dragged me under into a deep unconsciousness where I couldn’t feel the fire or the cold. But the longer I spent there, the closer I came to dreaming until visions of gore plagued my mind. The screams of sailors, and the silence that followed after. And the rats, so many rats covered in matted fur tinged in red. Blood.

I couldn’t run from them.

“Do good?” Apollo’s bloody paws clawed up to my shoulder, his hollow eyes growing until they were large enough to swallow me whole.

“—No!” I shot upright with a gasp. My hands flailed as I desperately tried to claw my way out of the depths of the void.

Firm hands gripped my shoulders. “Breathe, just breathe. You’re fine.”

I blinked furiously against the dark, blind to anything but the void that threatened to consume me, but I did as the voice, Leander, instructed. I breathed in and out in a familiar pattern. Every muscle hurt, like I’d been jostled around for days and ground up into pieces before being put back together.

“I’m going to let go of you now. ” His voice was soft as he removed his hands. “Try not to make any sudden movements.”

It took longer than it should have to realize that the darkness was a product of the time, not the nightmare or blindness. The quiet sounds of distant crickets mixed with the rustling of the breeze as thick foliage obscured the stars. Memories of how we got off of the ship didn’t exist, and as I looked up into the dark sky, all I could make out was that we were in some kind of woods. I squinted against the dim light, seeing a little bit better than I usually did in the dark, though I couldn’t explain why.

“How are you feeling?” Leander asked.

“I’m fine.” My voice felt like it harbored gravel in my throat. It was painfully dry, and my head pounded as if a smith had used it as an anvil. I gripped my head against it, not realizing that I had begun to sway.

Leander moved closer to help steady me by the shoulder. “I said to be careful.”

“I was being careful.” I said hoarsely.

“No, you were being stubborn. I know that you’re not fine.” He shook his head, letting go to kneel across from me. “How do you really feel?”

“Like I’ve been run over by a carriage. Twice.” Every muscle and every joint hurt to move.

He gestured to my left hand. “And that?”

“I can’t tell where one pain stops and another begins.” I shivered against the night air, ignoring his question. “Why didn’t you start a fire?” The humidity felt like summer, but somehow its warmth hadn’t found me. My skin felt slick and cold, and my clothes were uncomfortably stuck to me, making me itch.

Leander leaned against a tree trunk, dead grass crunching underneath as he shifted his weight. “We can’t risk a fire tonight.” He stated, pulling an apple from a sack at his side, and tossing it to me.

I fumbled the catch, so the apple rolled into the dirt. “Thanks.” I picked it up and wiped off the debris with my hand. The juice helped my throat just a bit.

Dark bruises punctuated the space beneath Leander’s eyes. He looked as awful as I felt. In a way, it made him more real than he had been in days. We hadn’t really spoken since the storm. Here he was again being patient and kind as he looked after me.

I chewed slowly, watching him. In my gut, my intuition still wanted to trust him. Everything about him called to my curiosity. A pull between us that I couldn’t explain, but existed regardless. How much of Leander was curated, and how much of him was real?

I devoured the apple, stem, and all before I’d even realized it.

“You put on quite the show before passing out.” He said, watching me carefully. “Would you like to tell me about the rats?”

“What about rats?” I stiffened, but there was no feigning ignorance. He’d been on the deck, he’d seen what I’d done. And while I knew what had happened, it felt far away. Like I’d merely witnessed the events through the eyes of another.

The carnage I’d wrought was enough to turn my stomach against the apple I’d just eaten, but it wasn’t enough to make me regret the deaths.

“Did it start the day you found that rat in your trunk?” Leander reached a hand out to grab my right wrist. I didn’t stop him as he shoved the sleeve up to my elbow, displaying the bruised remnants of the bites that still marred my skin. I knew from his expression that he saw them even in the dark. That he’d already known they were there.

I didn’t answer. As if there was some hope that he hadn’t already figured everything out. That he wouldn’t be compelled to share what he’d learned with my father. I looked away.

“You’re clearly disinclined to share your secrets with me.” Leander sounded exhausted, almost sad. “So, I will tell you what I know to be true, and save us both the agony of dancing in circles.”

I felt my anxiety rise. My nails dug into my palm without meaning too, a nervous habit I’d always had, but my left hand spasmed with pain as the nerves pinched from the motion.

“Were you bitten that day or shortly after?” Leander eyed the twitch. His brow furrowed as if the motion alone answered another unsaid question.

“That day,” I confessed. “I almost told you. Perhaps if you hadn’t found my panic so amusing, I might have.”

“Gods Daelyn, you should have told me that it bit you. No wonder you were asking about diseases.” His fists gripped the dead vegetation at his sides, as if he were drawing strength from what little life remained. “I can’t believe that you have a Bloodbinding. This changes everything.”

I glared at him. “Oh does it? Has my value changed so drastically at the knowledge? Do you think that the Duke of Blood will accept me now?” I scoffed. “I had no intention of sharing what I could do, least of all with you. I won’t let you take me back to Astalia, I’ll fight you every step of the way if you try.”

“I have no doubt that you would.” He replied stiffly. “We found the bodies of the men who broke down your door, and I watched as you unleashed your beasts. I have no intention of joining their fate. Though you are in no condition to do much of anything right now. The rats are not with you, and neither is the Eidolon, is he?” His voice took on a clipped edge at the last part. “Bound the Eidolon, did you?”

“Caspian is never far.” I gritted my teeth, remembering my parting comment and wishing that I hadn’t said anything at all while in that trance-like state. “I freed him from my father, and he’ll free me from you too if I command it.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The laugh that escaped Leander was cold and humorless. “You may have freed him from your father, but you did not command Caspian to return to you. He won’t risk your servitude. I doubt you’ll ever see the beast again.”

“I don’t want his servitude. I just... wanted to know if I could, and I did.” And I was proud of the knowledge, at the ability I’d shown to do so. “Knowing that he’s free of my father is enough for me, even if he never returns.”

“It doesn’t matter what you want, the fact remains that you bound him against his knowledge, against his will.” Leander’s anger was surprisingly vehement. “If you wanted to free him, then free him from yourself as well.”

The threads of connection were weak, and I could barely sense them once they left my body. The rats were stretched thin, and the Eidolon’s presence had vanished as soon as he’d disappeared from my cell, suggesting that he had not reclaimed his physical form yet. But the idea of not feeling them at all... Even if I knew how to sever the connections, I didn’t want to be without them. I didn’t want to be alone or powerless again.

“I needn’t explain myself to you, just as I needn’t listen to your judgement about what I do with my power.” I snapped. “I saved the crew. I fought off the pirates—”

“The amount of power you wielded would have killed you if I hadn’t intervened.” Leander interrupted. “If I hadn’t been able to replenish your magic in time, it would have continued to consume your essence. I can’t even recall the last time I’ve been tasked to try.”

My mouth snapped shut as I swallowed my surprise. I remembered the pain and the heat, the numbness that had swept over me to banish them. The familiarity of it... it had been his magic. “I didn’t ask you to save me.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose in a motion I was associating as a habit. “And I didn’t desire to see you dead. This wouldn’t have happened if you had told me that you were Bloodbound. I could have taught you how to properly channel your essence, how much or how little to give.”

“I don’t need your training. The Bloodbinding knows what it wants, it guides me when I need it.” I snapped.

Leander glared. “You are a fool to let the binding guide you, and you can’t even comprehend how dangerous that is.” He stopped himself, barely restraining his shouts. He took in a few deep breaths to calm himself before continuing. “All bindings are alive, and they desire consumption. They don’t care if they kill their mage in the process.”

I didn’t like being corrected like a child, least of all by someone hardly my senior. I hated to feel as though I was in his debt. I despised how he knew more than me, that what I thought I’d known was wrong. It wasn’t my fault that my father had stopped any form of instruction when it had become clear that I couldn’t channel.

“Your essence can be replenished on its own with rest and time, but it is by no means limitless. It took me hours to stabilize you, and even longer to pay the price it exacted. Do you understand?” I could feel the weight of his exhaustion as his anger began to subside.

My magic was silent inside of me, and the fact that it had nearly killed me—I bit hard on my inner cheek to keep from crying out in frustration and wounded pride. “Yes, I understand.”

His tone softened another degree. “What you did, while I am grateful for the lives you saved, was done recklessly. You demonstrated a power that empires have fought over. No one has ever done what you did today, but it cannot happen again. The empire cannot know what you are capable of. No one can know the truth of what happened on the Caerus. You have no magic, no binding. Whatever happened was not you.”

I felt as if I’d just been slapped. “I've spent my whole life wishing that I had come into the Bloodbinding. I shouldn't have to keep it hidden. You would deprive me of the one protection I have, while dragging me off to wed a monster?”

“No, I’m not.” Leander argued, leaning forward into the tiny space we shared. “But, empires rise and fall with the introduction of the new and unique. A quiet life away from court would be an easier one than that spent as a weapon or pawn. Your Bloodbinding is a mutation to Mallius’s gift. It’s too dangerous to let anyone know what you’re capable of. The emperor would send you to the front—”

“Of course you would think so, it’s not your life!” I shouted, shoving him away from me. “I don’t want to hide what I am, I’m finally someone worth being—”

Leander’s hand clamped over my mouth, covering my shouts as he hissed. “We were close enough to the coast that word of your gift has likely already reached the emperor, which means that they are already looking for us. I don’t have the energy to fight against seasoned soldiers, or to continue arguing with you too. So do us both a favor, and stop shouting so that we are not caught.”

My cheeks heated as my muffled protests were swallowed by his palm. Even if I had little reason to trust him, I had no desire to be brought before the emperor. If my father despised the man, then he was surely just as awful if not more so.

I stopped struggling.

We were painfully close as the skin of his palm pressed against my lips, nearly nose to nose with only his hand separating us. He realized in the same breath as I did, just how close. Close, and charged by our frustrations. My skin heated anew under his hand, and I was suddenly finding it very hard not to think about his skin pressed tightly against my lips.

Even so, I glared up at him in defiance. Leander was bound to my father, he couldn’t be trusted. But as I glared into his golden eyes, I didn’t find my father’s cruel intentions. I found a frustration and curiosity as potent as my own. I wondered if he thought about the lips that touched his skin.

He lowered his hand slowly, but didn’t move away, and my heart continued to race. Suddenly I felt much more afraid of what wasn’t being said than what had been. There was an attraction that I’d been ignoring, and it terrified me.

The silence gave way to a distant sound that I wouldn’t have heard otherwise. Leander’s head turned sharply towards the road as he heard it too. It was the sound of hoofbeats pounding against gravel.

His hand was suddenly on my shoulder as he guided me down to the ground while his other hand drew his rapier.

He’s in no condition to fight.

I tried to pull him down with me, but he remained in a stubborn crouch at my side.

“Over there!” A voice shouted from the road.

The sounds of someone dismounting prickled my skin, I couldn’t make them out through the thicket without lifting my head further. A horse’s whinny nearly made me jump. It came from the woods, not the road. Their steps paused at the sound.

“That’s their horse. They must be close.” Another voice said. “Spread out and find them!”

“Come out in the name of the emperor!” A third man demanded, accompanied by the sound of a sword being unsheathed.

“Not a word of your magic.” Leander hissed at me before slowly rising to his feet. He brushed off my grip as if it were a reed to step out of the thicket and into the open. “Well if it’s the emperor who calls, then I suppose I shall answer.”

I watched him approach them with mounting panic. Seven men quickly surrounded him. Even if he wasn’t exhausted, he stood no match against seven soldiers. “What business do you have with me?” Leander asked, masking his exhaustion well.

The men eyed him. “Where have you come from?”

“Ribnica.” The lie fell smoothly from his lips. “I’m traveling north to return home. It’s been far too long since I’ve last set foot there.”

“Are you traveling alone, sir?” I couldn’t make out which of them spoke.

“If I had another with me I would have opted for a room at an inn.” Leander said, earning a chuckle from the soldiers as he reached into his breast pocket and removed a document. “Here, proof of my identity if you care to examine it.” He held it out to the captain of the squad, keeping his posture forcibly relaxed while the men took it and skimmed the lines under the lantern’s glow.

“We’re searching for a man and woman seen leaving Port Kearru. You wouldn’t happen to have seen anyone along your journey would you, My Lord?” He passed the document back to Leander.

“I can’t say that I noticed any suspicious looking travelers, no.” Leander’s sword remained carefully concealed at his side, and I watched the wandering gazes of the rest of the soldiers as they scanned the tree line, I crouched lower to the ground.

A hand shot out to grab me roughly by the ankle. It dragged me out of the thicket, as I flailed. “Found the witch!”

I kicked and shrieked as I was forced to my feet and moved towards the road. “Unhand me!”

“If you insist.” The man shoved me out of the protection of the woods.

I stumbled forward, nearly falling to the gravel before being caught by Leander’s protective arm. “How dare you!” I righted myself and whirled around on the man. Anger that I hadn’t felt this hot since leaving Covosna bubbled to the surface. “My father is the Duke of Astalia!”

Leander grabbed my arm and pulled me to his side. “My charge is no witch, let us go.”

“You’ve already lied to us once tonight, Lord Leander. Forgive us if we don’t quite believe you.” The captain responded. “You’re both wanted for questioning in regards to the attack of the Caerus.”

Sweat along Leander’s temples glinted in the flames, the tick in his jaw betraying his frustration. He moved his arm out from his side, subtly readying his stance.

Gods, is he going to try and fight them all?!

I gripped his sword arm, and stepped in front of him to block his path. Nobility or not, to attack the emperor’s soldiers would only condemn us further.

“Step aside, Daelyn.” He growled.

Even if I didn’t understand what I felt towards Leander, or why I felt it, I couldn’t risk him being hurt. I’d lost Alexia and my home. I had no one else. It was stupid to care what happened to Leander, stupid to continue letting my emotions cloud my judgement.

But I did care, and I had no means with which to protect us outside of my tongue and my heritage.

I was still the daughter of a duke.

Ignoring Leander’s request, I lifted my hands towards the captain in surrender. “We’ll go with you.”