A contracted healer saves the notorious captain of the continent's most powerful mercenary company and binds their lives in the process. Hunted across the desert by a traitor in their own ranks, they must confront how many times she can save him before the forbidden bond becomes permanent.
To pay for my sick sibling's medicine, I signed a three-month contract with the strongest mercenary company on the continent, the Ashen Hand.
My patient was Captain Kylen, the only mage who could wield fire, water, and wind, and a notorious flirt who never kept a lover for long. The contract gave me one task: bring him back alive from the western desert.
On the first night of the crossing, he lay bleeding across my lap.
During the day's attack, Kylen had used all three forms of magic at once to save his people. The price was lodged in his side: Black Glass. Not a blade wound, but a forbidden poison that was hardening his three magic cores and killing him from within.
"You could at least look at your patient's face."
I held out my hand to a man who was still smiling as he died.
"With deep healing, your wounds will pass into me. If the bond remains, pain and raw emotion will cross between us. Every treatment after this one will make it harder to separate."
"So you're telling me the first time is already dangerous."
"Are you frightened now?"
"I'm wondering how many times you'll be able to touch me."
I took his hand. The instant pale green light joined our wrists, the poison tore through my side. Burning magic, terror sharp enough to taste like iron, and a hollow ache beneath his ribs struck me all at once.
Kylen stopped smiling.
"How much of that did you feel?"
"Pain. Fear. Nothing that tells me why you smile."
My sibling's dry cough and the creditor's seal on the apothecary door flashed through my mind. Fear tightened my chest. Kylen flinched when an echo of it crossed the bond, but he had not seen what I had.
"I can sever the bond before sunrise. But the poison and the wound will return to you."
"And if you don't?"
"The bond will remain. Another deep healing will make it stronger."
The warning bell rang outside the tent. A second bell answered from the eastern watch, then fell silent. Kylen's smile vanished.
He pushed himself upright and listened.
"That is not a raider's signal," he said. "It is the call used when someone inside the perimeter opens a gate."
His fingers closed around mine, the new bond beating hard between our palms.
"The person who sold our camp is still here."