Soren
Purple light flashed.
A jagged streak of violet tore through the black.
Soren's lungs burned.
Huff. Huff. Huff.
The air was too thick. He couldn't breathe.
He tried to lift his hand. It felt like it was buried under a mountain of iron.
He couldn't move. He couldn't scream.
'Help me, he thought. 'Someone help... me.'
The violet light pulsed.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The river was rising. The icy water touched his chin.
He was slipping.
The light flared. It was blinding, angry, violet.
Snap!
Soren's eyes flew open.
He bolted upright, a choked gasp tearing from his throat. He cried out as white-hot pain shot through his chest.
"Easy! Easy, stay down!"
A hand pressed against his shoulder. It wasn't the heavy, calloused hand of a dockworker. It was small. Warm.
Soren flailed, his vision a blur of amber shadows and flickering candles. He tried to scramble backward, but his limbs were leaden. He hit the floorboards with a thud, the wool blankets tangling around his legs.
"Don't touch me!" he rasped. His voice sounded like grinding stones.
"We're not going to hurt you," a second voice said. Older. Calmer.
Soren pressed his back against the side of a heavy wooden cabinet. He was shaking so hard his teeth rattled. He looked down at his waist.
Empty.
His hands flew to his belt, clawing at the leather.
"My light," he choked out, his eyes darting around the room in a panic. "Where is it? Where's my heart?"
"You left it behind, son," the older woman said. She was standing by a stove, holding a steaming mug.
Soren's gaze shifted. Beside her stood a girl.
She was kneeling on the rug he had just occupied. Her hair was messy, and a dark, angry bruise covered one side of her face.
She was holding a roll of bandages, her eyes wide with a mix of shock and something that looked horribly like pity.
Recognition hit him like a physical blow.
The girl from the gardens. The girl with the red powder.
Soren stopped breathing. He looked at the jars of herbs lining the walls. He looked at the lemon-yellow lanterns hanging from the ceiling.
"You," he whispered, his back hitting the cabinet harder.
Eira took a cautious step forward, holding her hands out as if she were approaching a wounded animal. "You're in the apothecary. You collapsed on the porch. You're lucky Mrs. Gable heard you, or you would have been a block of ice by sunrise."
Soren didn't hear her. He was looking at her belt.
"I have to go," Soren said, trying to push himself up. His knees buckled immediately.
"You can't even stand," the younger girl said, her voice softening. She reached out to catch his arm, but he flinched away so violently that he nearly knocked over a display of glass vials.
"Don't touch me," he repeated, his breath coming in those same ragged hitches from the nightmare. Huff. Huff. Huff. "You don't understand. If the Wardens find me here... if they see..."
"See what?" she asked, her brow furrowing. She glanced at his empty belt, then back at his pale, sweating face. "That you're sick? That you're cold?"
Soren shut his mouth. He looked at the girl's kind face, then at the bruise he knew Boris had given her. She was a healer. She lived in a world where lights were yellow, and hearts were whole.
If she knew what colour his heart really was, she'd be calling the guards to protect the Mid-Tier from the "sickness" he brought with him.
"Nothing," he whispered, clutching his chest. "Just... just let me go. I don't belong here."
The older woman stepped forward, setting the mug down on a low table. "You aren't going anywhere until that rattle is out of your chest, boy. Sit. Drink. The Wardens aren't coming into this shop tonight. Not while I'm holding the key."