Then he exhaled, as long as he could manage. He let it all out, past the reflex, past the instinct to breathe again, and further still. He emptied himself until his ribs folded in on themselves and the ache in his lungs became sharp and urgent. Then he held that. The void. One. Two. Three. He held it against the pull in his chest and throat and jaw to breathe in again. Four. Five. Six. His ears filled with pressure. Seven. Eight. His vision frayed at the edges. Nine. His knees bent. Ten. About to collapse. Eleven. Eleven seconds. He held it for all of eleven seconds, and only when his chest began to claw at him like a drowning animal did he suck the air back in and let it flood his insides like fire.
He took just that one breath. No more.
Then he forced it all out again. Even harder this time. Out, all out, all the way out, until there is nothing left — HOLD.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four —
Yu gasped. The air tore in. It burned.
Five. And a half.
He was not good at this. But it helped. Suffocating helped. Cutting the breath meant cutting the panic. Starving himself of air drowned the inner screaming, even if only for seconds. Just long enough to think. Or not to.
Yu decided to do three more void breaths.
.
.
He held his breath, until even the innermost noises went still.
.
.
Not gone, but quiet.
.
Almost.
From there, he tried not to think.
Just to feel.
To listen to his gut, while his mind still struggled to get back to the surface.
Trust Harrow. Hate Fallem, said the gut.
The opposite, said his mind, which was back all too quickly.
Reason dictated the same as before. If there was something wrong, if the guild was compromised and the guards were imposters, then someone from Harrow’s party should have noticed. They were experienced. Nine travellers, all seasoned. They knew the guild, had they not said just that, when assuring Tria Yu would be in good hands? Had they not claimed to have stayed here before?
But then where did that gut feeling come from?
Wait. Hang on.
He got it wrong.
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