River's pulse through the connection, the frequency that carried her pain and her grief and her fury, was fading. The way a candle fades when the wax runs out. The way a voice fades when the breath behind it is gone.
"No."
The word left Lucian's mouth at a whisper.
He killed the soldier in front of him. Mechanical. The motion was reflex, his body completing an action his mind had abandoned three seconds ago.
The matebond flickered again. Weaker.
Dark magic. On the other end of the connection. Fin could feel it through the echo, a cold, corrupt pulse that had wrapped around River's signal like a fist closing around a flame.
General Willow had reached her.
The math collapsed. The gate. The line. The tactical necessity of holding stone so a prince could reach a field. All of it dissolved in the face of a matebond transmitting the murder of his mate in real time.
Lucian surged forward. Toward the eastern gate's exit. Toward the field. Toward her.
He made it four steps.
