The pain of his Mental Bond unexpectedly snapping knocks Prince Aidyn to his knees. The pain of a second bond breaking only moments later consumes the prince, to the point that he doesn't even feel the punch of an arrow burying itself in his chest.
So great is Aidyn's agony, until a woman's blurred face appears above him, he forgets other people exist entirely.
But the woman… Aidyn knows her. She's a mage too. He works with her. They're members of a Team Bond.
She leans down, pressing so close to Aidyn that their noses almost touch. Even so, her voice doesn't reach him. She has to shake him by the shoulders for the words to register.
"Stay with us, Your Highness!"
"Noelle," he mumbles. That's her name.
Why is she being so formal? Noelle hasn't called him by one of his titles since they were sixteen. He asked her not to the first day of classes. She's a Memorizer, so she never forgets.
Another voice, a calmer one, reaches his ears. "Pull the arrow out so his Healing Bond can close the wound."
Aidyn's fear spikes, carving a narrow window of clarity through the thickening, pain-induced haze.
That voice belongs to Brehanna, and she doesn't sound worried enough. She doesn't know he won't heal. Not this time.
Aidyn knocks away the hand that reaches towards the weapon protruding from his chest.
"Leave it!" he groans through gritted teeth.
Unfortunately, that's all he gets out before the haze closes in again. The most important part of his warning, the part about not having a Healing Bond anymore, escapes as a barely audible whisper.
It's okay though. Brehanna hears him. She's an Amplifier, so she can increase the strength of all her senses. It's very practical, just like she is.
Disoriented, Aidyn tries to hold on to the conversation that follows, but he only grasps bits and pieces. The main thing he catches is a rising level of panic in all the voices.
"We have to get him out of here!"
That's Emmett, their jokester of an Illusion Mage. He rarely sounds as serious as he does now.
"Not until we stabilize him, or he'll bleed out!"
Aidyn recognizes that voice too. Ellyse. She's a Connector, but no one except a Bondsmyth can put broken bonds back together.
There are more voices and more words, but he sinks deeper and deeper into the haze.
More shaking follows.
Aidyn surfaces to find Noelle leaning over him again, and catches the end of a shouted sentence.
"—Love Bond, now!"
Love Bond.
Those words yank Aidyn out of the depths and into the present. He forces a single word out as loud as he can in response.
"NO."
Noelle's face disappears and another teammate, Taryon, replaces her.
"We have to, Aidyn. We're in the middle of nowhere. Even if we use your magic to move fast, there still aren't any Healer Mages close enough."
It's so hard to form the words, but Aidyn fights to get them out. "Another way. Please."
He puts as much desperation as he can into his voice. Taryon will feel it. He's an Emotion Mage.
Taryon's expression softens in understanding, but he shakes his head. "A Soul Bond is your only option at this point, and since those don't work by themselves, you're going to have to form the full Love Bond."
"No… saving those…"
"I know, Aidyn, and I'm sorry, but you WILL die if we don't do this."
Dying from an arrow? How very un-Embermoorian of him.
The pain tries to pull him under again, but he manages to stay afloat long enough to ask a critical question.
"With who?"
Noelle's face reappears. "With me, Your Highness." She looks as horrified as Aidyn feels, but keeps talking. "I'm the only one with available Emotion and Soul Bonds. But don't worry! I know how to safely combine them into the Love Bond structure since I've done it before. Trust me, it will keep you alive long enough to find help."
While Noelle starts structuring a Love Bond with her magic, weaving the complex bond pattern around her hand, Aidyn drags out ragged breath after ragged breath. This can't be happening. This isn't how things are supposed to go! Aidyn wants to fall in love, for real, and then form a real Love Bond.
"But I don't love you!" The words tumble out of his mouth before he can hold them back. He's not even sure if they are the right ones. All he knows is this isn't what he wanted, and it's so hard to think with the haze pressing in on all sides.
"There are many types of love, Your Highness," Noelle says without looking at him. She keeps her eyes on her magic. "Friends, family, co-workers; all relationships include love. We don't need romance for the bond to activate."
The bond is almost complete now. All that's left is for him to add his magic. He doesn't have enough, but senses his teammates use their shared Strength Bond to give him the amount he needs.
Darkness pulls at the edges of his vision as Noelle shifts her gaze to him, grasping Aidyn's nearest hand with her magic-covered one. "I don't care if the only thing you love about me right now is my magic, or that we're teammates, or the fact that I can save you. Whatever love you can muster, no matter the motivation, I need you to pour it into this bond, and I need you to do it now."
Aidyn squeezes Noelle's fingers and lets loose a scream, a guttural battle cry of a sound that scatters his fear enough to make space for everything the bond needs. He funnels it all into the woven structure, watching with regathering dread as his magic automatically threads its way through the pattern.
Pressure builds as the bond creates an internal link between him and Noelle. It builds and builds in his heart, creating a vacuum that tugs him towards the center of himself, towards the place where his soul resides. Once their magic fully combines, the internal pressure explodes, and a foreign presence bursts open within him. As tidal waves of his heightened emotions rush into this newly opened space, something else shoots out of it.
Bright, and warm, and even more determined than his pain, the light of Noelle's soul wraps gently around the rapidly fading glow of his own.