Crashes and thumps from the search above reverberated down through the floor. Ard’s pleas met with a gruff, “We know they’re here!”

Jonas sat with his back against the wall, staring off into space, like he wasn’t really there. Llew crouched before him. “Jonas?”

He didn’t respond, not a flicker of an eyelid, nothing. Not even to the muffled thuds above.

“Jonas?” She leaned closer, putting herself in his line of sight, if he was seeing anything at all. “Where’s he gone?” She looked to Hisham for help. “What’s he doing?”

Hisham shrugged. “Never seen him go out like that before.”

More thumps from above and a wail from Merrid. Llew wanted to go up there, make sure their friends and saviors weren’t paying too high a price for their shelter, but there was little she and Hisham could do against thirty-odd troops. What they needed was Jonas not to sit down here locked away in his own head.

“Jonas. What are you doing? Why are we even down here? Merrid and Ard need us. They need you.”

Jonas shook his head, his eyes losing focus again.

“What—?” Llew gripped his shoulder. “What are you doing? You can’t just do that, whatever it is. You’ve got to save them.”

“Can’t.” His eyes glazed.

“Why not?”

Hisham peered at Jonas. “Braph’s done somethin’, but I don’t know what.”

“Jonas?” Llew shook his shoulder.

His focus returned and he turned to her slowly. “Who am I?”

“What? You’re Jonas. Jonas of Quaver. A lieutenant in the Quaven army. The … Great Syakaran?” She added the last at his continued incomprehension. Even she was having her doubts.

Jonas laughed, a hollow, empty sound. Then he laughed louder, almost angrily. He stopped abruptly. “Who am I, then, if not Syakaran?”

What did he mean? He couldn’t stop being Syakaran. He must have still been Karan, because he hadn’t healed from her touch when she’d held his hand. And yet, Braph had fought and defeated him. One-armed, merely Karan, Braph.

“How?” she asked, but Jonas was laughing to himself, once again lost in his own world. She turned to Hisham, “How?”

He shrugged and shook his head.

There was silence from above. The troops must have left the farmhouse. What would they do now? What would Braph do now? Did Braph know? Of course, he knew. He’d known since he and Jonas fought.

Jonas stopped laughing. “Everythin’s been gettin’ harder. Every day. Standin’ up in the mornin’.” He looked pained to admit it. “Cuttin’ the bacon. Trainin’ you. It all feels like … work.”

“Jonas …” Llew didn’t know what to say, and she sure didn’t want him to be saying what it sounded like he was saying.

“I think … I think I’m still stronger than you, but I guess that’s normal, me bein’ a man, and all, but …” He scratched his forehead and dragged his thumb and fingertips along his stubbly jaw. “I think that’s the problem. I’m— my strength is … normal.”

She couldn’t be hearing what she was hearing. The very idea of Jonas being less than Jonas simply couldn’t take shape in her mind. Especially not now. Not with Aris still to fight. And Braph. How could this happen? “Is this because you healed me?”

“I don’t know. I’ve healed you before, and I always got better.”

“But I was nearly dead this time.”

“I know.” He said it so calmly, he must have been through all this in his own mind already.

“When did you notice?” The room was trying to spin around her. She blinked, trying to hold everything together.

“It’s been comin’ on a little stronger each day since …”

“Since you healed me.”

He nodded.

“Oh, gods.” Blood rushed to Llew’s head, her cheeks flushed and pressure built up behind her eyes. She stood and stumbled back, trying to take a full breath before she fainted. “I broke you.”

“We don’t know that, Llew.” Hisham gripped her arm. “Calm down, I don’t need both o’ you goin’ cuckoo on me, now, you hear?”

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Llew nodded, still catching her breath. She had broken Jonas and a band of Turhmos troops were sweeping across Ard and Merrid’s farm right now looking for them, or were simply talking to Braph, discussing the finer points of their surrender, and Hisham didn’t need them going cuckoo. Ha ha! If ever there was a time, now seemed to be it.

Still silent above. What did that mean? Had Braph led them astray? It was hard to believe, but was it impossible he really was on their side?

Jonas still stared into the distance. She would find no answers there.

“I broke him.” She threw her hands in the air, turning away from the men to stalk into the depths of the bunker. “We’re under-powered anyway, and I went and broke the only person with even a remote chance of stopping Aris.”

The bunker filled with a strange whine and Llew spun back to see Jonas trying to crush his own head with his hands, his palms pressing into his eye sockets, his fingers curling into his hair so hard his knuckles were white. The whine turned to a growl through his teeth, then he was on his feet, looking for something. He found it in one of the beds, which he overturned in one smooth move, his temper providing him the strength he’d apparently lost. He upended a set of shelves, sending dried food flying and Llew and Hisham scrambling.

“Jonas.” She tried to grab his arm before he struck the wall, missed, and caught it on its back-thrust. She dragged him back, maybe saving his other fist the consequences of another impact. He roared, tried to wrench her full-bodied grip from his arm, only succeeding in over-balancing them both. They hit the ground hard, his shoulder sinking into her chest.

Her ears didn’t just ring, they screeched. She couldn’t breathe. Jonas pushed up off her, rounded on her, gripped her shirt shoulders, yanked her to sit, yelling at her, livid. She couldn’t hear him.

“Calm down,” she wheezed. Her broken words, little more than a muffled sound reverberating through her skull, served only to anger him more and send her into a breathless coughing fit.

Calm down?! She read his lips, his spittle hitting her cheeks as he crouched before her. A little bit landed in her eye, stinging. His face red. Eyes crazed. Gripping her shoulder, he shook her, rattling her teeth.

She coughed, struggled for half a breath, and coughed again.

“… not like you! I can’t pretend it’s all gonna work out. All I am and all I’ve ever been was my strength, my speed and now I got nothin’. Nothin’. Worse than nothin’!” He flexed a bloodied fist in front of her face. “If I weren’t Karan, you could fix me, but I am, so you can’t.” He stopped for a moment, as if the words he’d spoken were news to him, too. His breath hissed between his teeth, growing more rapid until he let fly the fist to strike the ground beside her. He growled in rage again, leaning right in so his nose nearly touched hers. His breath was hot. “… and Aris would sooner kill me than tell me how to deal with any of this, how to fix this. And Braph’ll bleed you, if Aris don’t kill you first, and you’ll have no one to save you. You got no one to save you, Llew.” His brows scrunched up in sadness and pity.

“I don’t need you to save me. I just need you to be here.”

Jonas lost all expression, but he was more there than he had been since they’d brought him down into the bunker. His eyes searched hers for meaning.

“Hi,” Llew said, smiling. On a whim, she gripped both sides of his face and pulled him to her, kissing him with a fierceness she was more used to being on the receiving end of. He toppled, his hands catching the ground either side of her, their kiss pushing her back. She didn’t let go, even tasted him with her tongue.

Hisham cleared his throat. Good thing, too, because Llew had forgotten he was there for a moment. And, of course there were the soldiers outside. Which meant they could be dead very soon.

“I love you,” she whispered, still clasping Jonas’s face. She didn’t think. She just said it. And it really was like falling, but with a soft place to land.

“Now you tell me?” His eyes searched hers.

“Seems as good a time as any.”

“There could be better,” Hisham said.

Heavy footfalls sounded above, too close to merely be passing by.

Hisham crouched, pulled a knife from his vest, and slid it across the floor to Llew, getting to his feet again as the doors opened.

He sent a couple of quick arrows up. Llew and Jonas scrambled to their feet, keeping to the shadows. Shouts and curses came from above along with an answering arrow, which struck empty ground.

They waited in silence. Llew wished Merrid and Ard had managed to come down with them. She wished even harder that they’d got away.

Another arrow swooped in, angled to miss the concrete pad in favor of the mud floor farther in. Hisham responded swiftly and was rewarded with a grunted curse and the shoves and bellows of other soldiers scurrying to recover the injured bowman.

“We just want the girl,” came a voice from above.

“I’m afraid she don’t return your attentions.” Hisham flashed a grin at them and moved through the shadows so his position couldn’t be pinpointed from his speech. For good measure, too, because an arrow flew through the trapdoor, striking close to where his feet had been. He returned the shot while the Turhmos archer still leaned over the opening and again his aim was true. The archer fell, his top half dipping in through the opening. While the Turhmos patrol reclaimed their man, Hisham reclaimed his arrow, eliciting a deafening cry.

The stand-off continued for some time. Hisham guarded the small opening alone, firing an arrow when the opportunity presented itself, or taking up the sword when someone grew ambitious. Jonas and Llew offered their own knife- or sword-arms, but for the most part one was sufficient. Still, they were but three against thirty, if Llew’s earlier observation had been accurate. As difficult as it was for the Turhmos soldiers to strike them, neither could they make a significant dent in those numbers.

A lull washed through those gathered above. Llew shared looks with Hisham and Jonas. Were they going to be offered terms? Llew wouldn’t be going without a fight. There was nothing they could be offered, except a truce in dealing with Aris, a plan to replant Ajnais, and the freedom of all Aenuks. She had doubts about her leverage for any of these demands. Still, she would make them.

“It’s time to give up, I’m afraid.” A chillingly familiar voice oozed through the opening. The trapdoor darkened.

Hisham got down on his knees, drew and fired an arrow straight up. It disappeared in silence.

A leather shoe reached down and found leverage on the first step. Its partner eased onto the second, the long, leather coat hanging down behind them.

Hisham took up his sword and took a swing at Braph’s legs. None of them would mourn his mobility. The blade bounced a hair’s breadth from striking him. Hisham stumbled back, thrown off balance.

Llew felt the blood leave her face. “He’s got Aenuk blood.”

Braph jumped to the ground and swept around to face them, his new device displayed to its full thanks to his modified jacket sleeve. Slotted in place: a glass vile of blood. “I do.”