Upon waking, a gaping hole fills Aidyn's awareness. He has felt his brother's consciousness alongside his own for every waking moment of the last two decades. Without their Mental Bond, however, Erron isn't there anymore. Now there is only emptiness.
Not only is his brother gone, but so is the warmth that must have previously radiated from his Healing Bond. He was born with that bond. Everyone is. The entire Embermoorian population is connected through their Healing Bonds. Without it, he is cold and alone.
Aidyn bolts up and fights against hands that try to hold him back.
"Lay down, Your Highness!"
He fights harder.
"You need to try to remain calm!"
But Aidyn can't remain calm. His head and heart feel too empty without his missing bonds, and somehow also too full of everything else. He needs to find his brother! He needs to figure out what happened! He needs to remember how he got here, wherever "here" is—but he can't! He can't remember. He can't think straight. There are too many people crowded around him, too many thoughts and fears collecting, and too much pain pressing in all around him. He has to fight, has to break free!
Then, just as it seems as if he's about to explode from the internally building pressure, it starts to release.
Aidyn squeezes his eyes shut, tracking the sudden shift he senses within himself. His panic and pain aren't disappearing. No. They are still there, but the overwhelming pressure of them lessens with each breath. He traces the sensation to his remaining bonds and his blood runs cold.
"I have a Love Bond."
The words feel like stones falling out of his mouth, stones that crush him no matter how fast he tries to leap away.
"Yes," a familiar, steady voice answers him.
Aidyn flicks his eyes open. His mother, Queen Maryn of Embermoore, leans over the side of the bed. She grips his shoulders, helping a group of healers and royal guards wrestle him back into bed. Aidyn stops resisting when he notices tears glazing her eyes. She never cries.
"Do you remember what happened?" she asks softly, adjusting his blankets and pillows before sitting down. She has to pull the chair several paces closer. It must have gotten shoved aside in her attempts to help calm him.
"It's coming back to me," Aidyn whispers, eyeing the disheveled guards and healers with a twinge of guilt that gets lot in a wave of fresh panic. "But Erron!"
His mother grabs the hand he tries to use to sit up again and speaks quickly. "He's alive, Aidyn! He's alive."
Aidyn collapses with relief back into his pillows.
"The bond between the two of you was broken from the outside, not intentionally from within or unintentionally from death. You appear to be the primary target. Erron's Healing Bond remains intact and he wasn't physically injured either."
Aidyn takes a shuddering breath. He tries to speak, but no words come out.
"We are still in the process of gathering information and reports," his mother continues. "There were dozens of attacks on high ranking officials, all at the same time. So far, it seems breaking bonds was the purpose. No one died, thankfully, but many were made vulnerable."
Aidyn nods, feeling the gravity of the situation. The same thing happened three and a half years ago during The Battle. "Is it related to the Immortal War?"
"That has not been confirmed, but what else could it be?" His mother sighs wearily, showing another unusual display of emotion. "We will need reports from you about what happened, but that can wait. You need to rest."
"What about my team? Where are they?" Aidyn senses his Team Bond is still intact and undamaged, which means they are all at least still alive.
The weary expression on his mother's face disappears behind her usual mask of regal calm. "Guards escorted your colonels back to the capital where we will keep them… safe…until they are cleared for duty again."
In other words, that's her polite way of saying they're under house arrest for now.
"Your newest member, however, Noelle Allendale—"
"Mage Noelle Allendale," Aidyn corrects. As much as he hates his titles, Noelle loves hers.
His mother's eyes narrow. "She is currently being monitored and held for questioning in a nearby, but secure, location."
"Mother, she saved me."
"Prince Aidyn, she formed an unsanctioned bond with a member of the royal family."
"But—"
"And not just any bond, but the most personal one, one that can so easily be used against you, making it—"
"Mother!"
"—a matter of national security."
"I was dying!"
"YES, YOU WERE," his mother yells, momentarily losing all semblance of calm. "You were dying, Aidyn, as a result of a coordinated and premeditated attack, and we don't know who was a part of it yet!"
The fear that smashes through his mother's normally rigidly dignified demeanor softens him.
"Mother…" he repeats. The thing is, right now, the woman sitting next to him is not just his Mother. In this moment, she is also The Queen.
"Aidyn, we have to figure out what happened, and like it or not, your team is involved. As witnesses at the very least."
"I understand that, and I also know Noelle didn't do anything except save my life."
"Be that as it may, there are consequences to every action. The consequence of this one is that she must be proven innocent beyond any hint of a doubt before we can risk releasing her." Some of the hardness in his mother's voice dissolves. "Not that distance will keep you from seeing her, I'm sure. Your father loves telling me all about the 'mental construct' she shares with you and your team."
Aidyn gives her a feeble grin. "And here I thought he never reads my reports."
A smile that looks more mischievous than profession slips through his mother's Queenly mask. "Only when they are interesting."
Aidyn squeezes her hand, wishing, like always, that she'd remove that mask more often.
"We weren't expecting you to wake up so quickly," she says, softening her tone again. "How is the pain? The healers immediately took care of everything physical at the transport location."
Aidyn rubs his chest where the arrow pierced him, but it's as if that wound never existed. "How did we end up getting here? I don't remember anything after our bond activated…"
He trails off and shudders as flashes of memory remind him of Noelle's soul wrapping around his own.
Noelle doesn't like physical contact. She and Aidyn have exchanged only a handful of hugs the entire time they've known each other, and now their souls have literally touched. She held his life—his whole being—against hers, and used her own life force to sustain his. Considering how incredibly uncomfortable that makes him feel, he can only imagine how much she dislikes this whole situation.
Sparing him the discomfort of explaining his awkward pause, Aidyn's mother carries on with the facts.
"When Mage Taryon shared your location via Mil-Net, the army found a Transport Mage who had visited a small village about ten miles from you. That's as close as anyone could get. Your team used your magic to get to the village as quickly as possible, then everyone transported here, to the Army Headquarters hospital."
Aidyn nods but stops abruptly when the motion makes his throbbing head spin. His chest wound may no longer hurt, but the bond breaks are excruciating. Magical in nature, it's a bizarre pain. Besides his head, there isn't one place that hurts. The pain is everywhere and nowhere. Everything magical within him feels out of place and mixed up. Nothing fits the way it's supposed to anymore, and the jumbled pieces feel both sharp and fluid at the same time, like everything slips through his fingers when he tries to grab it, but it still manages to cut him.
Aidyn tries to relax but still feels too agitated. He shivers and doesn't refuse the extra blanket a healer wraps around his shoulders.
"It will take time to heal." His mother holds his hand tighter. "Do not rush yourself. We are all here for you. I plan on splitting my time between Navy Headquarters and here while your father attends an emergency Mortal Alliance conference in Seleone. All of our allies are concerned about this attack on us and have offered their support. Your sisters and their spouses are managing day-to-day affairs from the capital, as well as preparing everything so you and Erron can both recover long-term with us at the palace."
"My life is here, Mother. I'm not leaving."
She stands without acknowledging his statement. "I've been Summoned to brief the mages assigned to investigate your team. We need to start collecting their memories. A command unit has been set up downstairs, so I won't be far if you need anything."
A tiny bit of Aidyn's tension eases as she strokes his hair before leaving, like she used to when he was young. So much has changed in such a short time, but the small gesture reminds him that not all is lost. He's still alive. He still has his family. He still has his team.
Even though he's only been awake for a quarter of an hour, Aidyn's eyelids droop. He shifts to find a more comfortable position. He pauses, however, when the squad of royal guards doesn't follow his mother out the door. In that instant, recognition finally clicks in his addled brain. He's friends with a couple of the guards! They were in the squads assigned to him throughout his university years.
"Jonnsonn! Mackelvy! I haven't seen you two in ages. What are you doing here?" His greeting comes out much more strained and weary than intended, but they don't comment on it.
Jonnsonn, the more senior of the two, smiles but doesn't bow. He obviously remembers Aidyn's decades old instructions. "We're leading your new squad of personal guards, Aidyn."
As much as it warms his heart that Jonnsonn also doesn't use titles or honorifics, the guard's news is less than thrilling.
"I don't need—"
"Yes, you do," Jonnsonn says in a stern, unperturbed tone. "Until your Healing Bond reforms, having an escort of guards that include mages with healing abilities, like Mackelvy here"—he places a hand on the GuardMage's shoulder—"is absolutely reasonable."
Aidyn rubs his throbbing temples. Broken Healing Bond or not, he doesn't need an entire squad of guards. He's thirty-two, for Realm's Sake! Unfortunately, he's too exhausted to reason with them right now. Maybe after a nap…