I have to live. I have to find you again, Laira.

He summoned Laira in his memory: her large green eyes, her mouth trembling with a hesitant smile, her warm body wrapped in his arms, the courage and strength of her soul, the love and pride in her wings and golden scales.

For you I will keep fighting. Always. If you are alive, Laira, I will find you. If you are fallen, I will burn down the world in revenge.

"Jeid!"

He raised his head. Bryn came running toward him from the depths. The red-haired woman stared at him with wide eyes.

"I'm all right, Bryn," he managed to rasp.

She reached him, knelt, and examined his wounds. "You are not! By the stars." She looked over her shoulder. "We need a druid! The king is hu—"

"Bryn!" Jeid grabbed her arm. "They cannot know I'm hurt. They must think their king is strong. Do you understand?"

Her brown eyes dampened, but she tightened her lips and nodded. She drew a granite dagger from her boot and sliced off strips from her cloak. Her fingers steady and her lips pursed, she bound his wounds as best she could.

When her work was done, Jeid sat down and leaned against the wall. He knew he should be walking along the tunnels, comforting the others, showing them his strength, assuring them of survival. But he felt too weak to rise, too hopeless to fight. Byrn, silently understanding, sat at his side and leaned her head against his shoulder. She stroked his chest, passing her hand up and down his fur tunic.

"I'm here for you, my king," she whispered, her breath soft against him. "Should you need me for anything—if only to whisper of your pain, to feel my warmth, to know that I love you—I'm here. I will always fight for King Aeternum of Requiem."

He turned his head toward Bryn and found her face near his; their lips were only an inch or two apart. Her warm brown eyes stared into his, full of love for her king, full of warmth, comfort. She caressed his cheek and whispered softly, "I'm always here for you."

Jeid looked away. His jaw clenched and his belly felt tight. "Bryn, we cannot survive here. All our food is gone. The rivulet of water in the lower tunnel has all but run dry. How much longer can we survive on worms and beetles and whatever else we find in the darkness?" He looked back at her. "Dorvin wants us to fly out, to face the sphinxes head-on, to die in a great battle. We are fewer than a hundred, and they cover the sky. We can choose between a slow death in darkness and a hot death in fire and blood. And I don't know what to choose."