The graves still smoked in Aria's memory as they broke camp. No one spoke. Not of the dead, not of the mutiny, not of the fire that had curled from her hand.
They moved like ghosts, hollow-eyed and brittle, trudging through the mud with Kael borne once again on the stretcher. His breaths were shallow, ragged whispers of what they once were, each one a thread that seemed ready to snap.
Aria kept her place beside him, her hand locked around his. The warmth was fading from his skin. Each time his chest stilled longer than it should, her own breath froze in her lungs until the next fragile rise soothed it.
The mark stirred in rhythm with his faltering heart. When he goes, I will remain. You are mine, little flame. Mine, when all else rots.
She pressed her lips to his hand, her tears hot against his cooling skin. "No," she mouthed fiercely. Not yet. Not ever.
But she had no voice to force the denial into the air. Silence wrapped her like a shroud.
