To Bleed a Crystal Bloom by Sarah A. Parker

I’m trapped.

Flames spit and shadows churn, moving in wild jerks that cleave the air with ease.

Striking. Slashing.

I cover my ears with clawed hands, my body a ball of bunched muscle and protruding tendons threatening to snap.

Will I unravel, then? Will my skin split as my body ceases to hold together?

Will everything spill?

A cold seed is pitted inside me, turning my organs solid. My heart is heavier, weighted by the sludge of a pulse I resent. What happens when it can no longer push blood through my veins? Will a strike land? Will the beasts chew on me, just like they chewed on them?

Death is gripping my insides with hands so cold they burn, but there’s a comfort in it. A safety that feels eternal.

Don’t let me go.

The scene shifts, the ground falls away, and I’m perched on the edge of a chasm, looking into a well of darkness that echoes with muted screams, making me want to crack open and weep.

Something grabs me, jerking back and forth, threatening to toss me over—

Jolting awake, I stare into brown, overburdened eyes while warm hands cradle my face, adding fuel to the roaring well of flame inside my chest.

Baze pets me with smoothing strokes that fail to tamp the pressure filling my skull. The scream pouring from my throat rips with the force of a withdrawing blade—sharp like the talon stuffed in the back of my drawer of jars.

Rhordyn’s presence crams the space full, pushing all the air from the room and leaving nothing for my lungs to grab.

Nothing for them to shove.

I gasp, wrestling for shards of breath ...

“Leave, Baze.” Rhordyn’s thundering voice battles my unbridled pulse, every beat a bolt of wood shot at my bulging brain.

Deadly.

Destructive.

Baze’s sudden absence allows more space for him to fill.

Less air for me to breathe.

Rhordyn’s rifling through the bottles atop my bedside table, cursing as cork after cork is popped. “Is this all you have left?”

His sharp words gouge my temples, and I groan, wishing he’d judge me with his inside voice.

“Orlaith, where is the rest of it?”

My legs churn, bunching the blanket at my feet. “That’s all there is ...”

“Fuck.”

The atmosphere seems to squirm, trying to wriggle free from the crushing maw of his outrage.

My body is an inferno, every surge of blood shooting through my veins another lashing of liquid fire. I pull at my clothes, attempting to shred them, desperate for cool air to blot my sizzling skin.

If I rip, will flames spill out? Will my tower turn to ash?

The bed dips, and something cold slides beneath my knees, something else banding around my waist and gripping tight. I’m eased into a sitting position, perched against the glacial plains of Rhordyn’s body—a winter sea that lugs me into its icy pall.

I’m lava in his grip. There is no sizzling sound, but I feel it in my blood.

We rock, smooth and docile, so at odds with my fire.

Another cork pops, and the sound almost splits me down the middle.

The pain—

“I know. I need you to tip your head and open your mouth.”

No.

If I do that, my brain will bulge and burst.

A warm wetness dribbles from my nose, sluices over my mouth, and drips off my chin.

“I won’t ask again, Milaje. Now.”

The depthless command has my lips parting; a weak, pathetic sound gushing out with the motion. But I don’t have the power to tip my head.

He does it for me with a firm hand clamped around my jaw. A cool liquid splashes my tongue, and I choke it back.

“One more.”

When the next drop lands, my tousled mind unravels enough for me to register the cold eddy swelling inside me, tempering the fire in my veins.

My treasured ease. My release from this ... this angry, swollen thing that’s trapped inside a layer of too-tight skin.

I leave my tongue out, waiting for more.

“Enough.”

It’s so far from enough.

I need to drink until this volcanic hand no longer has my heart in its fiery fist. Until my brain no longer feels like it’s stuffed into a tiny space where it doesn’t belong.

I pop my eyes open, snatch the bottle, and tilt—mouth open, tongue lolling.

Nothing lands.

It’s empty.

I toss it to the side, hear it shatter. Hands bunched against my ears, I wait for the pain to ease; for me to feel less like blown glass ready to burst.

“I’ll send for more caspun,” he says, blotting my chin, my lips, my nose. Pressing his frosty hand across my forehead.

I lean into his touch like it’s the only thing tethering me to this world.

“It could take a few weeks to get here. You should have told me.”

“You’re never here ...”

He makes a sound akin to a rumbling thunder storm, molding my body so I’m curled to the side in a comfortable position that offers no content.

I’m still broken. Still splitting at the seams.

Still trapped on the edge of a cliff, trying to see past the endless sea of darkness at my feet.

I know I have to jump, but I have no idea what’s down there. No idea what I’ll see.

What I won’t be able to unsee.

“And you’re taking too much at once. Is that why you’ve been relying on the Exothryl?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, figuring my silence is answer enough.

He growls, the sound a tangible flutter against my skin. “I’ll be rationing you from now on.”

I open my mouth, but he pins it shut with the stamp of his hand. “Don’t argue with me on this. You will lose. I’ve obviously been far too complacent.”

Complacent? How about nonexistent. A shadow in a room. A specter that only shows when you least expect it to.

Like now.

Why is he here? He never climbs Stony Stem for any reason other than to receive my blood or confiscate my heart-popping narcotics.

I’m about to ask, but he tugs the wool blanket up and tucks it over me, then nails it down with a powerful arm wrapped over my body.

“You’re h-h-hugging me,” I chatter out, feeling as if I’ve been dropped into an icy lake with stones tied to my ankles.

Caspun may be effective, but it has its repercussions.

“Yes,” he grits out, like he had to force the word past the bars of his teeth.

I peep over my shoulder, throwing myself into wells of quicksilver lit by the gleam of a slow-dancing candle flame.

“Why?” I rasp, and I hate how pathetic my voice sounds.

Something dark slides over his face—a mask slipping down—and I know I’m getting nothing else from him.

He might as well be behind that door. Down in his den. Anywhere but here.

“Go to sleep, Orlaith.”

Sometimes his orders make my hackles rise. Other times they make me fold at the stem like a flower crushed by the weight of a gusty wind.

Tonight, I have no energy left in me to fight, and ... I don’t even think I want to.

He’s hugging me.