“You need watching,” he murmured, his hands trailing down my back, willing me to stay with him—here, in bed with the twisted sheets and the familiar heat of his skin, not in the hellscape of my mind where my body attempted to step off towers with neither my cognizance nor my permission.

“Will you watch me?” I had never been so afraid before. Not even when Aenah or Usij controlled my thoughts, not when facing down daeva. There was no outside influence to blame, only a traitorous heartsglass that tainted the rest of me with secret plagues. Kalen had given me the best of him, but the best of me lay in pieces. Hardly a fair trade.

I’m no different than Illara. I’m no different.

But the words froze in my throat, refusing to give the thoughts a voice. I was selfish and frightened, and did not want to let him go.

Kalen pressed his lips against mine, and I held on for dear life. “Always.”

No other dreams haunted me for the rest of the night.

• • •

“Hold still,” Kalen told me the next morning as he wove Calm on me.

Given the power asha had at their disposal, it was easy to overlook the passive runes. I often did, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I could hear my old fighting instructor, Lady Hami, berating me.

I closed my eyes as he centered the rune around my heartsglass, working it into complicated weaves so the effects would last longer. Almost immediately, I felt lighter, stress leaching out of my pores. The rune didn’t mean freedom from all my burdens, but the load grew more tolerable.

I was a reluctant recipient. Calm took strength away from its caster, though Kalen, true to form, showed no signs of exhaustion. “Only for now,” I told him. “You can’t do this all the time.”

“I’ll pace myself. How are you feeling?”

“A lot better than last night.” Bathed in the sanity of daylight, it felt like my emotions had been organized into neat catalogs, tucked away into the bookcases of my mind. “Kalen, why didn’t your or Likh’s runes work on me last night? Was it something I did?”

Kalen frowned. “Dark asha aren’t generally able to deflect runes without raising some protection to take the blow. Althy can check you over once we return, and I’m sure Mykaela can figure out something.”

“I’m scared. Mykaela never had this problem.”

He sighed. “There’re a few things you can do that Mykaela can’t, Tea. And I suspect that might be one of the reasons for your differences.”

It hit me then, what he was trying to say. “Is it the azi? You think my connection with the azi is making me crazy?”