67. Sorrow

Rune

I close my eyes, leaning into our mind link, the connection that has always been an open channel between the four of us. But now it feels like I’m throwing pebbles into a void, each one falling farther and farther without the familiar bounce back of his consciousness.

The link is stretched thin, fragile as spider silk, and I’m terrified that one more tug will snap it.

Opening my eyes, I see Cassian’s chest rise and fall in a slow rhythm, and the evidence of Reyna’s outburst marks his skin in cruel, scorched patterns. Despite the treatments and his Alpha blood working to heal him, the wounds look agonisingly raw. Whatever Reyna, or Pyrra, did to him, it was worse than any harm that’s come to me or anyone else we know.

Her powers singed Cassian’s insides to a degree I’ve never seen before—not even when I was at the receiving end of her accidental outbursts. The burns are deeper, the tissue damage extensive, the healing infuriatingly slow despite Cassian’s Alpha Blood.

The door ope