Theron knew, even as the plea left his mouth, that his father would not listen. He knew it with the cold certainty of a son who had seen too much of his father's cruelty to mistake him for mercy.
And still he said it. Because there was nothing else left to do. Because even if his voice vanished into that blinding wall of light and changed nothing at all, he could not stand there in silence while Aveline was led away from him.
His hands curled into fists against the dreamscape beneath him.
He had found her.
He had reached her.
And now she was slipping out of his grasp again.
The thought settled into him with a terrible stillness.
Is this it?
Is he going to lose her?
On the other side of the barrier, the King's hands faltered for a brief moment. He heard his son's plea, and for one thin, dangerous instant, it unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.
