"' I need the phone number for the Aerianan Palace.'

'I'm an assistant, not a miracle worker.'

'You're both. It's why I hired you.'"

—Conversation between Commander Jackson Leonger and his assistant Avery, Sarian Palace, Sarias

Rubble. The warehouse was nothing but rubble. By the time he reached it, the wind had died, and the sky was clear. Wylan skid the vehicle to a stop and bolted.

Bits and pieces of roofing, metal, wood, and piles of concrete rested where a warehouse once stood.

Wylan rushed directly to it. His heart pounded in his chest, his veins nothing but a mixture of adrenaline and icy fear. This wasn't destruction, this was devastation.

His mind whispered the potential reality to him. But he refused to listen. Not Iris. It wouldn't be Iris. Not after all they went through. Not after all he'd done to keep her safe.

Not before he could tell her what she was to him.

"Iris!" Wylan called out. The sun started to set, but he'd use whatever daylight he had left. Searching. "Iris!"

He stepped over concrete, slid on metal beams. Pushing right into the wreckage.

"Agent! Agent Garrick!"

Wylan turned, only now remembering the other agents who'd jumped into the car with him.

"Agent, we need to call in a search and rescue team," the dark-skinned agent who'd rode passenger told him. John. "If anyone's still alive in there, we need the tools to dig them out."

"Call Kit Garrick. Tell her to send everything she has immediately." Wylan told him. "Iris is in there. We'll spread out and find her in the meantime."

When he found her, he'd do whatever he needed to get her out. Whatever it took.

"Iris!" Wylan called out, stepping over mounds of concrete and rubble. Fear and anxiety swallowed him whole, piling heavier and heavier with every carefully placed step he took.

"Iris!"

She had to be alive. She had to. Someone like Iris didn't just die. Not like this. Her ability would have protected her.

Right?

But as the seconds turned to minutes, and the minutes turned to an hour. As the rescue team arrived and agents swarmed the area, as they blocked off the road and barricaded the rubble, as the paramedics arrived on standby, the remains of the warehouse stayed quiet.

It took so long. It took so long. Each piece of concrete and debris had to be carefully removed, calculated, and gently relocated.

And with each piece, Wylan knew. She was in here. Somewhere.

And his Destined needed him.

"Iris!"

Wylan worked through the wreckage, pulling pieces of rubble, sliding across mud and water. He could use the water if he needed to. But what good would it do? What use would pushing and pulling water do in this situation other than potentially displacing more of the rubble?

No. His ability would not help him here.

"Iris!"

Please, he begged the Stars. Please.

"We've got a body!"

Wylan's entire frame went ice cold.

"Male," they told him. "Maybe early forties."

Both relief and agony swallowed him whole. It wasn't her.

Wylan broke away from the team and searched the spot around him. They were dead in the middle of the impacted area now. Right where what would have been the middle of the warehouse space.

His eyes roamed the spot. Searching.

There. A hand beneath a pile of concrete and roof material.

Wylan rushed over, pulling off the debris in his way, despite the fact that his hands ached. Ignoring the way his skin cried out.

He lifted the final piece.

And came face to face with a gun.

Without thinking, Wylan gripped the wrist and twisted. The gun clattered and slid down the nearby concrete and metal.

A man sneered at him, half-pinned under metal and concrete. Dark red pooled in the area around him, smearing the concrete in some parts. A metal beam had crushed him.

He would not live to see another day. One way or another.

"Where's Iris?" He barked.

The man coughed, blood a small stream down his chin. When he smiled, red outlined his teeth. "You can tell the Circle I finished my mission," the man said.

The hairs on the back of Wylan's neck stood up. He thought about picking up the gun, turning it around, and shooting this man in the face.

But he was already dying. He would be dead in minutes.

And Wylan wanted his death to be an agony.

"You're not worth a second of my time." He curled his lip at the man. "Enjoy your death."

Then he turned and continued his search. With each step, he fought the screaming urge to turn back around and kill the man.

Iris was his focus.

She had to be in this area. She had to be.

Wylan sent another prayer up to the Stars. And another he sent into himself, hoping somehow it would find the Destined bond.

Wasn't that the whole point of the damn bond in the first place? Something that would connect her to him? So why wasn't it helping him find her? Why wasn't the bond screaming at him to do some—

His feet stopped.

Just stopped.

Wylan glanced down.

There, among another pile of concrete and metal, was a gloved hand.

"Iris!" Wylan scraped through the debris, pulling, yanking, throwing. "Over here!" He yelled to the rescue team.

She wasn't as deep in the debris as the man. As if, somehow, the wind and rubble had found a way to protect her.

But by the time they had her uncovered, Wylan's soul screamed.

She was unconscious, hands tied behind her back, strapped to a broken and bent piece of metal.

For as long as he lived, he would remember this moment. Of the stillness of her body. Of the bloodied, dusty, pale pallor of her skin. Of the way his heart and soul seemed to split and shatter as he tried to make sense of it all.

"Iris?" Wylan put two fingers on her neck, just under her jaw.

Please.

Silence.

Then... one slow beat.

Two.

"I've got a pulse!" He yelled at the others. Why were they taking so long?

"Iris?" Wylan never stopped pulling away debris, despite the way even his fingernails ached. Get the way clear, he ordered himself, so medical can get in.

Iris never moved. Gave no indication she was even alive. Only that pulse told him anything different.

He was too afraid to move her. Didn't want to cause any more damage. "Hold on, Iris," he told her. "Just keep hanging on."

They got her cut from the wreckage and up onto a stretcher. Back to the waiting ambulance.

As Wylan took a seat in the back of the idling vehicle, the paramedics worked over her. Just before the doors closed, John rushed over. "Wait!"

"We don't have time—" Wylan said.

John pushed a phone at him. "The Lieutenant wants an update on the way."

Wylan took the phone, nodded at John.

They closed the doors to the ambulance.

~

Reese Garrick frowned out the window, listening to his son on the other line. "Alright. Do what you can. Keep me updated. We'll send security to the hospital to meet you there."

His son said nothing in reply.

"Wylan," Reese said, "you've done everything you can up until this point. It's in the Stars' hands now."

In the background, Reese could still hear the paramedics in the ambulance calling out codes, stats, mixed with the sound of the siren. Wylan cleared his throat. "Understood. I'll keep you updated."

Reese hung up.

Outside the palace window, Reese watched a small group of staff laugh with each other as they walked through the rows of the palace garden.

Everything was normal out there. Peaceful. Because the chaos was all in here.

Reese sighed to himself, then headed back into the king's room.

King Demitri glanced up as he entered. Today, he'd been unable to get out of bed. When the doctor arrived for his morning check in, he'd advised them both that the king had little time left. If at all.

Afterward, he'd pulled Reese aside.

"We need to make the king comfortable," the doctor had told him. Each word added another stone to Reese's already heavy stomach. "His decline has been... sudden. We need to prepare for the worst."

This was it. All the king had done for the kingdom, all that he'd suffered through with the loss of his family, and he'd hardly make it into his fifties.

The Stars must be laughing at them all right now. At the way they clung to a life. At the desperation they all had to keep it.

Reese sat in the chair next to the king.

Despite the clear exhaustion pulling on him, Demitri gave Reese a partial smile. "The kingdom is heavy on Reese Garrick's shoulders today."

Reese still held his phone in his hand. And still had the doctor's words from this morning in his head. We need to prepare for the worst.

The king may not live much longer.

Today, he deserved to know the truth. Before it was too late.

Reese looked over at the king.

His expression had Demitri frowning. "Everything alright, Reese?"

He thought about dancing around it. The last thing he wanted was to upset Demitri and potentially speed up a decline in his condition.

But he also knew this man like a friend. And though he told him otherwise, Reese was not blind. Demitri still clutched at the thought of his missing family. Of seeing her before it was too late.

"We found her," Reese told Demitri. "We found Driana."