Kingdom of Ash

these long days on the ship practicing how he
might fight—whether by horseback or with a
cane or from his wheeled chair—during the
times when Yrene’s power became drained
enough that the life-bond between them
stretched thin and the injury took over once
more.
His spine hadn’t healed, not truly. It never
would. It had been the cost of saving his life
after a Valg princess had taken him to death’s
threshold. Yet it did not feel like a cost too
steeply paid.
It had never been a burden—the chair, the
injury. It would not be now.
But the other part of that bargain with the
goddess who had guided Yrene her entire life,
who had brought her to Antica’s shores and
now back to their own continent ... that part
scared the hell out of him.
If he died, Yrene went as well.