Where ice-blue should’ve been, there was only black. Bleeding from pupil to sclera. His mouth opened wider and a garbled, guttural whisper slid from his throat. “The last light you follow will lead you into the deepest dark.”
The table jolted; cards scattered across the wood.
Aeryn flung himself backward from the table, knocking his chair over with a crack. He backed into the far wall, panting—his body trembling as he gripped his skull and sank to the ground.
“GET OUT,” he gasped.
I rushed to him. He didn’t seem to see me. Hayat circled behind, hands raised.
“Don’t touch him,” I warned, kneeling low. “Aeryn—hey. Listen to me.”
He thrashed once, then stilled—eyes wide, breath rattling. I touched his arm gently. The blackness receded, slowly, like ink pulling back into the bottle. And then?—
He crumpled.
Not collapsed. Just… folded in on himself. Head bowed. Body shaking. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t look at me.”
I reached for him again. He flinched. “Don’t, Aurelia. Please. I can’t.”
I sat beside him. The firelight brushed his hair, turning the black to copper at the edges. His hands were trembling, the knuckles white from holding on to something I couldn’t see.
We didn’t speak for a long time. The only sound was the hiss of the hearth and the sea pressing faintly against the cliffs beyond the walls.
When he finally spoke, his voice sounded small, like it had to crawl its way out of him. “I’m losing pieces of myself every day,” he whispered. “I feel it—like something gutting me slowly.”
I watched his profile in the flicker of the fire, the way his jaw trembled, the way his chest rose too fast. My throat burned with everything I couldn’t say. “I’m trying,” he said, barely audible. “But gods, I’m so tired. I just… I just want it to stop.”
His eyes drifted to the fire, unfocused, the way they did when his mind went somewhere I couldn’t follow. His hand flexed once against his knee, then stilled.
I didn’t need him to say it. I could feel the wish in the air between us, quiet and terrible—not a wish to live, only to stop hurting.
“No.” My voice was fierce. Immediate.
“You don’t understand,” he whispered, tapping his head. “IfI stay, it spreads. Whatever’s inside me—it’s not just hurting me. It’s watching you. Through me. I always feel it.”
I stared, horror blooming in my chest.
“You ever wonder what the point is?” His voice was flat. But his hands shook.
“I wake up,” he continued, “and I count the things I don’t want to do. Breathe. Eat. Smile. Pretend.”
My throat closed.
His voice cracked. “Do you know what it’s like… to live just so someone else doesn’t die from losing you?”
He looked at me. No spark. No anger. Just a tired boy in a world too heavy. “I’m not strong like you. I’m not brave. I’m just surviving, and most days, I don’t even want that.”
I tried to speak. “Aeryn?—”
“No.” He stood. “I don’t want to be here most days, Aurelia. And the only reason I am… is you. I stay for you. And that’s not fair.”
I rose slowly. My voice was soft. Steady. “Then let it be unfair.”
His eyes fixed on the floor. His mouth opened, then closed again, the words trapped somewhere between his chest and his throat. He didn’t need to say them. I already knew.
The way his shoulders caved, the tremor in his jaw—it was all there. He didn’t want to be here. He just didn’t know how to leave without breaking me too.
I stepped toward him, the space between us filled with everything we couldn’t say. “Then let it be unfair,” I whispered.