Crownfall

Rhydan

Three weeks ago, my heart stopped.

I know this because Saren has told me exactly how long it remained still, because Veyra remembers every second of it, and because I remember the moment before it happened with a clarity I would gladly carve out of my own skull if I could. Cassian’s hand. The heat. The impossible pressure of heartfire entering my body through a pathway that had never been meant to carry it. Then nothing.

No Zareth.

No Veyra.

No Void.

For one brief, endless moment, there had been absolutely fucking nothing.

Then I’d opened my eyes.

Now my heart beats thirty-one times a minute.

I count because Saren makes me. Once when I wake. Again after training. Again before I sleep. She gave me a small leather journal three days after we returned to Varyn and instructed me to record every change I noticed, apparently operating under the delusion that I would willingly spend the rest of my life documenting my own bodily functions for her professional enjoyment.

I stopped writing in it after the second day.

Veyra found it beneath a stack of reports and started doing it for me.

Which is why there is currently an open journal on the desk across the room in her handwriting.

Pulse: 31. Skin temperature: still annoyingly cold. Appetite: normal. Other appetite: he says manageable, which means absolutely nothing because he is a terrible patient.

I stare at the last sentence.

“Traitor,” I mutter.

Veyra doesn’t stir.

She’s asleep on her stomach beneath the blankets, one bare shoulder exposed to the cold air of the watchtower and dark hair scattered across my pillow. Dawn hasn’t reached the windows yet. The room is washed in the low amber light of the dying fire, and three weeks ago I wouldn’t have been able to make out much more than the shape of her from where I’m standing.

Now I can see every strand of her hair.

I can hear the slow passage of air through her lungs.

I can hear water moving through the old pipes somewhere inside the western wall. Boots striking stone two floors below. The scratch of something small inside the roof. Wind pushing through a crack around the northern window that I haven’t gotten around to repairing.

And Veyra’s heart.

I try not to listen to that one.

It’s difficult not to.

Her heartbeat is the loudest thing in the room.

Not because it’s actually louder than anything else, but because my body has learned it. Or perhaps the Bloodbound has. I don’t know where one ends and the other begins anymore. I can pick Veyra’s heartbeat out of a crowded dining hall. I learned that four days ago when she walked into breakfast while I had my back to the doors and I knew she was there before her presence warmed the bond between us.

Seventy beats a minute when she’s sleeping deeply.

A little faster when she dreams.

Considerably faster when she’s angry.

I’ve learned other variations too.

Those are the ones I try hardest not to think about.

My gaze drops to my hand.

The veins beneath the skin of my wrist look almost normal this morning. There’s only a faint darkness around two of them, like old ink trapped beneath pale skin. Saren says they’re more visible when I use my Gift, when the hunger is particularly bad, or when something below Varyn presses against the pathways that now seem determined to make themselves my problem.

She also says the discoloration might never disappear.

Neither will the black blood.

Neither will the pulse.

Neither will the cold.

Neither, apparently, will any of this.

I flex my fingers.

Nothing hurts.

That’s another problem.

Three days ago, Vale put a blade through my forearm during training.

Not accidentally.

I’d told him to.

He hadn’t enjoyed doing it. I hadn’t particularly enjoyed letting him, although the expression on Saren’s face when she discovered what we’d done had almost made the experiment worthwhile.

The blade went clean through.

By the time we’d walked from the eastern training yard to the healers’ quarters, the wound had closed.

An hour later, there wasn’t even a scar.

The body remembers itself, Veyra’s Restoration had told us.

Apparently mine remembers this.

Hollowed.

Nethren.

I still don’t know whether those words mean the same thing.

Cassian thinks they do.

Welcome home, Nethren.

I haven’t heard his voice since the night the Chain woke.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t heard anyone.

My eyes move toward the eastern wall.

Nothing.

Stone. Mortar. The narrow iron bracket beside the window. An old crack running from the ceiling almost halfway to the floor.

But beneath it—

There.

A pulse.

Not human. Not exactly.

Slow.

Distant.

Gone.

My jaw tightens.

It happens most often at night.

The first time, I thought someone was inside Varyn. I woke Rourke at two in the morning, dragged half of Third Flight from their beds and searched the eastern foundations until dawn.

We found no one.

The next night, there were three.

By the end of the week, I’d stopped trying to count.

They aren’t physically beneath Varyn.

They’re somewhere else.

Some of them are hundreds of miles away. I know that without knowing how I know it. The pathways beneath the continent don’t obey distance the way roads do. They fold across one another, intersecting and separating through old magic buried so deeply beneath Eryndor that most people have spent their entire lives walking above it without knowing it exists.

Now I can feel every fucking road.

And sometimes something on the other end feels me back.

I cross the room quietly and close the journal before Veyra wakes and decides to add another insulting observation. The leather cover makes almost no sound against the desk.

Behind me, the blankets move.

“You know I can feel you brooding from over here.”

Her voice is rough with sleep.

I look back.

Veyra hasn’t opened her eyes.

“I’m standing.”

“Men can brood standing up.”

“Useful discovery.”

One brown eye opens.

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No.”

“That sounded suspiciously like making fun of me.”

I lean against the desk. “Go back to sleep.”

Her other eye opens.

That ends any possibility of cooperation.

Veyra rolls onto her back, pulling the blankets higher over her chest as she looks toward the windows. “It’s not even morning.”

“Technically, it is.”

“Has the sun risen?”

“No.”

“Then you’re technically wrong.”

I almost smile.

Almost.

She notices anyway.

She always does.

Then her expression softens.

There it is.

The question she hasn’t asked yet.

Veyra has become very good at asking it without words.

How bad is it?

Three weeks ago, she would have crossed the room immediately.

Now she waits.

Not because she’s afraid of me.

That’s almost worse.

She waits because I asked her to.

After we returned to Varyn, Saren established rules for physical contact until we understood what heartfire had done to me. Veyra followed them even when I hated them. When I told her I wasn’t ready, she didn’t touch me. When I was ready, I went to her.

The rules have relaxed since then.

The uncertainty hasn’t.

“I’m fine,” I tell her.

Veyra watches me.

I can hear her heart change.

Not much.

Just enough.

“You know that’s becoming a very annoying answer.”

“It’s accurate.”

“That’s debatable.”

“Go back to sleep, Ashbourne.”

Her eyes narrow slightly. “You were nicer before you died.”

“That’s objectively untrue.”

This time she smiles, but it fades quickly.

I shouldn’t be relieved by that smile.

I am.

Three weeks of this, and I still look for proof that she sees me when she looks at me.

Not Cassian’s creation.

Not Nethren.

Not whatever the Crown will eventually call me when word reaches them.

Me.

Rhydan.

Veyra pushes herself upright against the headboard. The blanket slips from her shoulder again. My eyes follow the movement before I can stop them, and something low in my body responds.

That part, at least, is familiar.

The second response isn’t.

Warmth moves through the Bloodbound.

Her magic sits beneath it.

Living.

Bright.

Restoration has a particular feeling now that I know how to distinguish it. I couldn’t have described it before I was Hollowed. Now it exists at the edge of every interaction with her, a current beneath skin and bone.

My mouth goes dry.

I look away.

Immediately.

The reaction lasts less than a second.

It still happened.

“Rhydan.”

“I’m fine.”

“Don’t.”

My gaze returns to hers.

She’s awake now. Completely.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Something happened.”

I don’t answer.

Veyra studies me from across the room, and the warmth in the Bloodbound shifts. Concern. Not fear.

That should make it easier.

It doesn’t.

“Was it the Chain?”

“No.”

“Did you hear someone?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

I stare at her.

She waits.

I could lie.

Three weeks ago, I might have.

Before heartfire, before Cassian, before waking with black blood in my veins and hunger where hunger shouldn’t exist, I was very good at deciding what Veyra needed to know.

I’m trying not to be that man anymore.

“You.”

Her brows draw together. “Me?”

“Your Gift.”

Understanding moves slowly across her face.

She looks down at her hands.

“Did I do something?”

“No.” The answer comes immediately. “You didn’t do anything.”

“But you felt it.”

“Yes.”

“Like before?”

I consider the question.

“No.”

That makes her look at me again.

“Better or worse?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s comforting.”

“Veyra.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Silence settles between us.

I hate that she’s sitting six feet away and I can still tell exactly when her pulse accelerates.

“I could feel it,” I say eventually. “Not the way I feel you through the bond. Separately.”

“Restoration.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

My jaw tightens.

“And I wanted it.”

She goes still.

There it is.

The thing I’ve been waiting for.

Not fear exactly.

Something smaller.

Instinctive.

A moment of uncertainty before she controls it.

My body notices before my mind does.

Her heart accelerates.

Five beats.

Seven.

Nine.

Fuck.

I turn away.

“Rhydan.”

“I’m going downstairs.”

“Wait.”

I reach for the shirt hanging over the chair.

“Rhydan.”

Her feet touch the floor.

I stop.

Not because she told me to.

Because I hear her coming closer.

Every step.

Every breath.

Every beat of her heart.

My hands tighten around the shirt.

“Don’t come closer.”

She stops immediately.

That should make me feel better.

It doesn’t.

I close my eyes.

The fire snaps behind me.

“Tell me what you mean,” she says quietly.

“I don’t know what I mean.”

“You said you wanted my Gift.”

“Yes.”

“Did you want to hurt me?”

My eyes open.

“No.”

The answer is so immediate it nearly comes out as a growl.

Veyra doesn’t flinch.

“Then tell me what you wanted.”

“I don’t fucking know.”

That finally puts some edge into my voice.

I force it back down.

My hands are shaking.

Barely.

I stare at them.

That’s new.

Veyra sees it too.

“Okay,” she says.

Nothing else.

No reassurance she can’t possibly give me.

No promise that I would never hurt her.

Just okay.

I pull the shirt over my head.

“I’m going to train.”

“It’s barely five.”

“I know.”

“Vale won’t be there.”

“I don’t need Vale.”

Something shifts through the bond.

Disapproval.

“That’s not reassuring either.”

I look at her.

She’s standing beside the bed in one of my old shirts, bare legs disappearing beneath the hem, hair a mess from sleep. There is a faint crease along her cheek from my pillow.

Mine.

The thought comes with such fierce, immediate possession that another feeling follows it.

Hunger.

Not sexual.

Not entirely.

I hate that I can tell the difference now.

“Rhydan?”

I step backward.

Veyra sees it.

The hurt that crosses her face is small.

It lands harder than any blade Vale has put through me.

“I’m sorry.”

Her expression changes. “Don’t apologize for telling me.”

“I’m not.”

I pick up my boots.

“I’m apologizing because I don’t know what the fuck I am yet.”

Veyra’s face hardens.

“You know who you are.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It is to me.”

The words hit somewhere I can’t defend.

For several seconds, neither of us moves.

Then I cross the distance between us.

Slowly.

Veyra stays where she is.

I stop in front of her.

Close enough that I can feel her warmth without touching her.

Close enough that every altered instinct in my body becomes painfully aware of everything living about her.

Her pulse.

Her breath.

Her Gift.

Her.

I lift my hand.

Stop.

“Can I?”

Her eyes flick toward my fingers.

Then back to my face.

“Yes.”

I touch her cheek.

Warm.

So fucking warm.

Veyra leans into my palm.

The Bloodbound opens instinctively between us, and for one terrible second the hunger surges.

My body reaches.

Not my hand.

Something deeper.

Something inside the pathways Cassian changed.

I feel Restoration like light beneath water.

I want—

I pull my hand away.

Veyra inhales sharply.

I take two steps back.

The darkness around the dying fire moves with me.

Not the flames.

Their shadows.

They stretch across the floor toward my boots before slowly settling.

My stomach turns.

Veyra looks at them.

Then at me.

Neither of us says anything.

I put on my boots.

This time she doesn’t try to stop me.

Varyn is different before sunrise.

It used to be quiet.

It isn’t anymore.

The war college wakes long before its cadets do.

Patrols cross the courtyards beneath torchlight. Riders return from overnight reconnaissance with frost silvering their leathers. Dragons shift across the upper aeries, restless enough that the scrape of claws against stone carries down the mountain.

Three weeks ago, the Chain woke.

Since then, Varyn hasn’t slept properly.

Neither has Eryndor.

Reports arrive every day.

Dragons refusing commands they’ve followed for years.

Riders waking with headaches and blood beneath their noses.

Bonded pairs experiencing emotions that belong to neither of them.

One dragon in the western province abandoned his rider entirely and flew north.

Another attacked a restraint post after twenty-two years of military service.

Nobody knows yet whether those are isolated reactions to the Chain awakening or the beginning of something worse.

I know what I think.

Something beneath this continent has spent generations waiting to be turned on.

Now it’s awake.

And everybody wants to know who gets to hold the reins.

My boots strike the lower courtyard.

A group of first-years is already running perimeter drills under an instructor I don’t recognize. They pass me in formation.

Conversation dies.

It happens everywhere now.

People stare.

Some try not to.

Others don’t bother hiding it.

I hear the whisper after I’ve passed.

“Nethren.”

The boy says it quietly.

Quiet means something different to me now.

I stop.

Behind me, twelve pairs of boots stumble to a halt.

Their instructor curses.

I turn.

The cadet who spoke looks like he wants the mountain to open and swallow him.

I recognize him vaguely. First-year. Brown hair. Too thin through the shoulders. Probably seventeen or eighteen.

Everyone is looking at me.

I could embarrass him.

Could frighten him.

A month ago, I probably would have.

Instead I ask, “Do you know what that word means?”

The boy swallows.

“No, Commander.”

Neither do I.

“Then don’t use it like you do.”

“Yes, Commander.”

I turn away.

The instructor barks for them to keep moving.

Their boots resume.

I make it halfway across the courtyard before I hear another voice.

“Is it true his blood’s black?”

Someone whispers back, “Shut the fuck up.”

I keep walking.

That one, at least, I can answer.

Yes.

My blood is black.

My heart barely beats.

I can hear things no human should hear.

I can feel roads beneath the earth that no human should feel.

Sometimes darkness moves when I haven’t asked it to.

Sometimes violence feels good.

Sometimes Veyra’s magic makes me hungry.

And somewhere beneath all of it, across pathways I don’t understand, there are people with hearts as slow as mine.

For the first time since Cassian’s voice disappeared three weeks ago, one of them reaches back.

I stop so abruptly a rider nearly walks into me.

The courtyard vanishes.

Not literally.

Sound remains. Boots. Wings. Wind. Voices.

But underneath it—

something else.

Cold.

Distant.

Faint enough that I almost mistake it for the Chain itself.

Then a heartbeat.

Twenty-nine.

Pause.

Another.

Thirty.

Not mine.

I stare toward the eastern mountains.

The presence touches the pathway.

Not Cassian.

I know that immediately.

Cassian feels like pressure.

Ownership.

A hand closing around something he believes already belongs to him.

This is different.

Tentative.

Afraid.

For one impossible second, an emotion that isn’t mine brushes against the edge of my Gift.

Fear.

Then—

Can you hear me?

My blood turns colder than it already is.

The voice is gone before I can answer.

The pathway closes.

I stand in the middle of Varyn’s lower courtyard while the college moves around me, staring east.

Another Hollowed heartbeat echoes once beneath the mountain.

Then disappears.

Three weeks ago, Cassian welcomed me home.

For the first time, I wonder whether he was ever talking about a place.