He can’t be alive. There’s too much black blood, too much angry, blistered skin showing under the ripped and shredded fabric of his clothes, too many links of chain wound round him. An unblemished palm lies facing up on the arm of the chair, its whiteness a horrifying contrast to everything else.
He shudders and his head lists back. One eye opens, a glassy chip in the midst of the matted hair and clotting cuts. The ley line settles back in me, murmuring over and over, Ours.
“Roark,” I say again, because there’s nothing else to say.
He laughs.
“Dammit, Roark!”
Locks are clipped in place throughout the lengths of chain. Livid red marks—raw burns—glow over his pale skin where the iron touches him. He hisses every time I jostle them in my futile attempts to get him free, which only makes my hands shake more.
It isn’t until I try to shift the length of chain biting into his neck that I’m close enough to hear what he’s whispering over and over.
“You’re not real...not real...”
My hand clamps around the back of his neck, my fingers buried in his hair. It’s wet. Sweat. Blood. I’m not sure.
I drag him forward until our foreheads butt against each other, hating that I’m probably hurting him where his skin’s bruised and cut open. But I keep him there, pressed against my skin until he’s forced to open his eyes and look at me.
“I. Am. Real,” I growl, emphasizing each word by tightening my grip.
“Can’t be,” he gasps.
I kiss him, pushing a trace of the ley line into that contact. His breath catches and when I pull back, tears slip down his cheeks, cutting pale purple lines along their way.
“I’m real,” I repeat. “I found you. And we’re leaving now. Understand?”
The nod’s too loose, like his neck can’t support his head any longer. I pull my hand away and peer over his shoulder. A mass of chains awaits.
There isn’t time to search for
a key or a tool to help me get these off him. I don’t know where his captors are, but I doubt they’ll leave him alone for long.
“Do you trust me?” I ask.
Again, a nod that makes my stomach flip from its weakness.
I kneel at the back of his chair and take a tight grip on the largest cluster of chains. I press them together between my hands and close my eyes. The cable of power deep in the earth waits patiently for me. I reach out and snag a tendril of it.
In my head, I weave the flaming wire around the links of Roark’s chains. In and out, in and out, over and over until the iron glows with power.
“Finn?”
Damn, I’ve never heard his voice so reedy. My gut churns and I swallow down bile when I notice I’m kneeling beside a puddle of blood.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, refocusing on the chains. A deep breath and I tug on the ley line. It’s more than happy to oblige.
Pure, clean fire licks up through my design, hottest where my hands press the chains against each other. The metal begins to glow, a soft reddening that gains strength.
Roark makes a pained moan as the iron heats. Something in my chest cracks in response and the ley line reacts, pushing a wave of living fire into me, into my hands, trying to help me so his pain stops faster.
The chain links melt, transform to a bright white, vaporizing where I touch them, even as the other links nearer to his flesh stop heating. Cutting off the ley line’s power is harder than I’d expected, like running a sprint and trying not to act winded afterward. The remaining lengths clink with the music of surrender as they drop from Roark to the ground.
His head tips back and his lips part in a silent groan.
I stand and reach for him. “Come on.”
He doesn’t fight me when I tuck his arm over my shoulders and try to get him to stand. Instead, he slips bonelessly in my grasp. The shift of his weight leaves me clutching for a better hold. Eventually, I keep his arm over my shoulder with my right hand and pin his hip against mine with my left arm wrapped around his waist. We’re almost to the door when he comes to enough to try to help me.