"Huh?" It was the only pitiful sound I could manage to produce through the piercing, lancing pain that tore through my right arm like molten fire. The agony was so intense, so all-consuming, that coherent thought became nearly impossible. Why is this happening to me? What the hell is going on? What do you mean Arvid is hurt?
A million frantic questions appeared and disappeared in rapid succession like fireflies blinking in and out of existence, but the only thing I could actually focus on, the only sensation that mattered, was the excruciating pain radiating through my arm. It felt as though someone had taken a white-hot blade and was slowly, methodically slicing through flesh and bone.
"You weak, pathetic thing!" I heard Aiona yell frantically in my mind, her voice sharp with panic. "Our mate is hurt and you're only focusing selfishly on phantom pain! It's not even real—it's sympathetic! Get over it!" Her panic and fear were palpable, mixed liberally with rage at my perceived weakness.
"What you are feeling is exactly what your mate went through—his arm got slashed by a blade, that's why you feel the pain in your arm. Now focus!" she yelled again with desperate urgency.
Then, slowly, penetrating through the fog of pain, the terrible truth finally clicked into place with horrifying clarity. Arvid is hurt. Wounded. Bleeding. My mate is hurt somewhere out there. Who dared to lay violent hands on him? Who would dare?
"Arvid is hurt? Then what are you waiting for?" I yelled back at her frantically. "Let's do a temporary merge again immediately! Let's go and save him right now! Come on, Aiona!" This time it was me who was yelling desperately, roles reversed. But she paused for a long, agonizing second that felt like an eternity.
"We can't do that," she said finally, her voice carrying grave, terrible importance.
"What? What do you mean we can't?" I was rapidly becoming frustrated completely out of my mind. "We did it once successfully! We should be able to merge again—we already proved we can do it!" The injustice of it made me want to scream. What the hell was the use of having so much incredible power when you couldn't even use it to protect the one person you wanted to protect most in this world?
"That time, we were in direct danger," she explained with forced patience. "If we didn't merge immediately, that parasitic elf would have siphoned your whole life force out completely. So the cosmic law, the binding rules, allowed our merger. This time there's no direct threat to your life specifically, and we can't use magic freely unless Arvid wants or needs something from us. You know this already, don't you? You understand the conditions. Arvid right now doesn't wish for anything from us—he needs nothing, wants nothing. We can't help him." Her voice was heavy with frustrated helplessness.
"So what the hell am I supposed to do then?" I yelled, absolutely out of my mind with fear and rage. "How am I supposed to protect our mate, you overgrown serpent?"
There was a heavy, ominous silence. Then I heard it—a roar that shook my very soul. I had angered the prideful dragon, pushed her too far.
"YOU DISRESPECTFUL THING!" she growled in her ancient, inhuman voice that resonated through every fiber of my being. "I WANT TO PROTECT HIM TOO! IT'S NOT MY FAULT THAT YOU ARE SO WEAK AND LIMITED!"
Then, before I could process or respond, she said it—invoked something terrible and forbidden.
"FORBIDDEN MAGIC: SHARING BODY WITH BLOOD!"
The world itself stopped completely. Time froze. I felt sudden, sharp pain explode through the entirety of my body, as if my very soul was being violently ripped apart from my physical flesh. I was sucked out forcefully of my body with tremendous suction, and my body—now completely devoid of the two souls that had lived within it—fell down limply to the floor like an empty shell, a discarded puppet.
I didn't have time to wonder what was happening, to process the horror. A brilliant red thread that connected my soul's heart to somewhere far away in the distance just pulled with irresistible force. I simply let it pull me in, surrendering to the magic.
The transition was so quick it was disorienting. The next second when I opened eyes that weren't mine, the sword in my hand executed a quick, precise slash with practiced ease—and bright red blood gushed violently from the person standing in front of me. A severed head rolled down into the snow with a heavy thud, leaving a trail of crimson. I blinked in confusion and shock. Where am I? From whose eyes am I seeing the world? And I was now absolutely certain that I had a deep slash on my right arm—warm blood was seeping through the fabric and dripping onto the snow, leaving crimson flower patterns, and the pain was horrible, far more intense than anything I had felt before in my own distant body. The sword in my arm loosened its hold and fell to the ground because of the pain.
"Watch out, Your Majesty!" Someone yelled urgently from nearby. I looked instinctively to the right and my body sidestepped smoothly, barely missing an arrow that whistled past where my head had been. Then my arm moved on its own, reaching to the back and smoothly taking out an arrow and bow from the quiver at my waist. I aimed precisely toward the dense tree line—there was no visible sign of anyone being there, just shadows and branches. Then, barely perceptible, a single leaf moved unnaturally.
The arrow released with a snap. A body fell heavily from the concealed tree branch with a cry. A yelp of pain, then silence.
I blinked again, understanding finally settling over me.
I was inside Arvid's body, seeing through his eyes. But the body wasn't mine to control—I was just a mere spectator, a ghost riding along.
There were several more dead bodies scattered around, their blood soaking and staining the pristine white snow in gruesome patterns. All of the corpses wore identical black hooded assassin clothing designed for stealth. There were a few imperial soldiers who had been injured as well in the ambush. Most of them bore arrow wounds, the distinctive shafts protruding from shoulders and legs.
Then another black-hooded figure came charging aggressively from the tree line, weapon drawn. The bow in my—in Arvid's—hand was thrown casually to the ground. He grabbed the sword handle lying near his feet with practiced ease, his fingers curling around the familiar grip. Then, even faster than I could register or figure out how he accomplished it, he just slashed the charging man's sword-bearing hand with one clean, economical sweep. The hand—from fingertips to wrist—fell to the blood-soaked ground still clutching the sword with a crisp, wet thud. The assassin screamed with everything in his lungs, the sound piercing and terrible. Then he lost his other hand in the very next second, Arvid moving with ruthless efficiency. Blood squirted violently out of both open wounds like macabre fountains, and I—Arvid—was sprayed liberally with the hot blood. My vision became stained bloody red, the world tinted crimson.
I—he—drove the sword point-first into the frozen ground where it stood upright, using it temporarily to free both hands.
Then my hand shot forward and met the screaming man's exposed throat, fingers closing around it. The hand applied steady, increasing pressure directly on his windpipe, cutting off air and sound.
"You're in such pain," the mouth moved, Arvid's voice saying words that were extremely cold and devoid of mercy. "Let me relieve you of your suffering." A chill ran through my spectral soul. I wasn't meant to witness this. Is this really my sweet, gentle Arvid?
But I didn't have to wonder much longer. Arvid simply applied more concentrated pressure to the man's throat and just crushed it completely with his bare hands, the cartilage crunching audibly. I closed my eyes instinctively, unable to watch. Then he let go of the body, letting it crumple.
Then he wiped his blood-stained hand on his trousers and deliberately turned to the left, where his general stood at attention.
"How many injured, Rohan?" he asked, his voice returning to normal command tones.
Before the general could formulate a reply, another desperate assassin darted out from the tree line, aiming a blade directly toward Rohan's unprotected back.
Arvid's arm grabbed the sword with lightning speed, whisked it up toward the sky in one fluid motion, and with one powerful, precise thrust sent it flying end-over-end toward the assassin. The blade pierced the man directly through his heart with devastating accuracy. The man—the body—fell backward into the snow, dead before he hit the ground.
"Arvid will be fine," I heard Aiona say quietly in my consciousness.
"Let's go back now," I told her urgently. "This feels deeply invasive, wrong. And I didn't want to see this side of him." It was another aspect of Arvid—a dark, violent side he hadn't shown me yet. And I didn't know what to think of it, how to reconcile this killer with the gentle man I knew.
"Coward," I heard Aiona say dismissively before I was abruptly pulled out of Arvid's body and consciousness, yanked back to my own body sprawled on the bed chamber floor of Gorei castle.
I gasped desperately as I opened my eyes to see Katherine's tear-stained face above me.
"Rhia—" she yelled, her voice breaking completely into wracking sobs.
"I thought you were dead! You weren't breathing!" She hugged me tightly, desperately.