I STUMBLED PAST KANE, OUT INTO THE MERCILESS RAIN. MY BURNS SINGED
against the wet cotton of my shirt.
Please be all right, please be all right.
“Arwen!” Kane called after me, but I could hardly hear him over the sloshing of my shoes.
I flung the canvas of Fedrik’s tent open.
Mari and Griffin were sitting on either side of him. I went still. Fedrik looked like a corpse.
His usual radiance had been replaced with a ghoulish, gray pallor and he was sweating, despite the wind and chill of the tropical storm.
And his leg.
His poor, ruined leg. Someone—my guess was Griffin—had done as much as they could, wrapping the pulverized thing in bandages and a tourniquet, but it was not enough. Based on the blotchy plum and dull blue under his skin, he was bleeding internally, and even if we could get him to an infirmary, he would likely lose the leg below the knee. I needed my lighte to heal him tonight if he had any shot of keeping the limb.
“It’s fine,” Fedrik croaked before I could speak. “Not as bad as it looks.” “No, it is,” I cautioned. “It’s actually far worse than it looks. You’re just
very handsome.”
A tiny bit of that exceptional Fedrik glow inched its way back into his eyes. But not enough. Not nearly enough.
“You’re here,” he said. “That’s what’s important.”
My stomach sank. “No, no, no,” I muttered. My lighte was coming back too slowly. “I can’t—” How could I explain? “I can’t heal very well right now.”
“No.” Fedrik laughed—a dry, rattling sound. “I meant only . . . you’re alive.”
Kane slipped into the now very crowded tent behind me. His woodsy scent was amplified by the rain, and it assaulted my nostrils. I whirled on him, wincing at the pinching from my burns, and slammed a fist into his chest.
“How could you not have told me when I first woke?” I seethed. “And after all that you said about being less—”
Fedrik interrupted my tirade. “I asked him not to.” “Begged, actually,” Kane amended.
I spun to Fedrik. “Why?”
“Kane said when he found you, you were in rough shape and needed to rest.” Fedrik’s eyes met mine, pain sweeping across his face. But not for himself . . . for me. “It’s just a leg,” he said, more buoyantly. “I do have two, you know.”
“Oh, stop.” It almost came out like a sob. “You have made a life of exploring. Climbing, hiking—” I shook my head. “Of course, you can do all that with one leg, but . . .”
“He can’t do it at all if he’s dead,” Mari muttered. “Mari!” I snipped at her.
Fedrik stiffened a little.
“She’s just being theatrical,” Griffin reassured Fedrik. “I’ve seen worse on the battlefield.”
Griffin was lying, and if I could tell, Fedrik could, too.
They hadn’t taken him into town. I had to believe that wasn’t just to avoid the prying eyes of enemy soldiers. They had been waiting for me. To fix him. And I had returned without my lighte. I was sure it was the only reason Kane had kept me in the dark—he knew there was nothing I could do.
Well, even if I had no lighte to use, I was still a healer. I could still help.
I crouched to sit beside Fedrik. “I’m going to try to set your leg. I need two long, sturdy branches, and as many bandages as we have,” I said to Mari. “And if you can conjure ice, that would help as well.”
“I’m on it.” She stood and maneuvered past us.
“This won’t be pleasant,” I warned him, wincing as I shifted around. I could actually have used some ice as well.
“Distract me,” he said, holding my eyes with his. “Start by telling me that isn’t your blood on your shirt.”
“Not all of it,” I said drily as I began to clear space to work.
“Wen,” Fedrik soothed. “What happened to you after we escaped the cavern?”
“Some pirates offered to help me return to Frog Eye. But they were ambushed and killed in front of me by Amber soldiers. They took me . . .” I swallowed. “And hurt me. An old friend did, actually.”
“Halden?” Griffin’s low growl rattled the tent around us.
I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to see the rage on my behalf. “Yes.” I felt Fedrik’s shin, assessing the damage.
“How did you get away?” Fedrik asked through gritted teeth.
“I got very lucky. Kane found me outside the Amber encampment.”
“Right.” Fedrik fidgeted. “Watching Mari cast that spell was . . . illuminating.”
I was aware of both Griffin and Kane shifting around me. What was I missing? Griffin’s words cut through my confusion. “Why’d the Amber boy hurt you?”
“What, and not just kill her?” Mari asked, returning with my supplies. “Holy Stones, Commander, have you no tact?”
“That’s not what I meant,” Griffin grumbled, but his downcast eyes told me otherwise. Maybe Griffin was an even worse liar than I was.
The tent had grown too crowded for its size. Mari knelt in the corner beside me as I leaned over Fedrik, whose pallet bisected the floor. Griffin sat on the other side of him, his considerable frame cramped alongside Fedrik’s many packs. Kane stood at the entrance, hunched to accommodate
the sloped canvas. I wasn’t sure if he preferred to stand or if there was just nowhere left to sit. The hearth in the corner fought to stay alive.
“He wanted to know where the blade was. If we had it.” But I had thought it was strange, too. If I was dead, per the prophecy, there would be no one left who could kill Lazarus. Why didn’t Halden take me out when he had the chance? “If I said we had it, they would have come after you all. But I couldn’t tell them we didn’t and lose any leverage we might need.” I swallowed bile at the memory. “So I just . . . let him.”
The sound of screeching, twisting metal shook me from my work. I whirled to see Kane’s hand around a mangled mug.
Fedrik’s eyes widened. “Quite the grip you have there, King.” “Why don’t you go get some air,” I said to Kane pointedly.
His response punched through clenched teeth. “Plenty of air right where I am, thanks.”
I huffed at him and turned to place the long branches Mari had found along Fedrik’s leg, aligning the bones as close as I could to where they should have been. From what I could feel, his shinbone was cracked down the center and needed to be worked back in line with his knee and ankle. The swelling was tough to feel around, but at least that was a clean—or cleaner—break. The smaller one, his fibula, was practically shattered. Not much to do there but wrap it tightly with bindings around the branch and support the jutting bits back in the right direction.
Though Fedrik had to be in great pain, he hardly showed it, aside from the beads of sweat he couldn’t help but loose onto his tunic, and the occasional slow inhale or grunt.
The more I elevated the limb, and the tighter I bandaged it, the more the swelling went down.
My heart rate had lowered, my thoughts flowing in a slower, more even pace. I had missed healing. Had missed helping people, with or without my lighte. When Fedrik grimaced at a tight yank of the dressing, I recalled how I was supposed to be distracting him.
“Halden did say one thing that stuck with me. That the seer had a daughter. He said they’re the only two Fae to ever have visions such as
these. I know the seer died decades ago, but could her daughter still be alive?”
Silence enveloped the tent. “What is it?” I asked.
“I can’t believe they tracked her down,” Griffin murmured.
“And for nothing,” Kane mused. “Esme never inherited her mother’s gift.”
Esme?
“Why would Gareth’s army think that she did?” Griffin asked.
“I’m not sure,” Kane said. “We’ll have to pay her a visit, won’t we?”
“Yes. The blade isn’t here and I’ve never sweat so much in my life,” Griffin said, wringing out his shirt and exposing a sliver of cut abdomen.
“Go where?” Mari asked, though she sounded distracted.
My lighte tingled at my fingertips once more, regenerating faster the more I used it, as Dagan had once told me it would. With Fedrik’s leg reset, I snuck my hand under his bandages and fused his bones back together with careful precision. His leg would be able to bear weight by morning, and might even function fully by the next day. It would look like a miracle.
“To Crag’s Hollow,” Kane said.
Finished with Fedrik’s leg, I climbed over Mari to sit in the corner, wiping dampness from my brow that had gathered while I worked. “Back to the Onyx Kingdom?” I remembered Crag’s Hollow from a map in the Shadowhold apothecary. It was a coastal town outside of Willowridge.
Kane ran a hand through his damp hair. “It’s worth a shot.” “How do you know the seer’s daughter?” I asked.
“I doubt she remembers either of us. Griffin and I helped her escape Lumera when she was young. After her mother was killed during the rebellion, we brought her here to Evendell and helped her set up a new life.”
“Unguarded?”
“I never thought they’d come for her, all these years later. There was no reason to.”
“We’ll find out why they think she has her mother’s visions,” Griffin said. “It’s the only thread we have to follow.” My heart chilled with the unspoken words: Since the blade wasn’t in Reaper’s Cavern, and we have no other leads.
“Maybe the seer had another daughter? Or a son?” Mari suggested. “And Halden was mistaken?”
“Only women Fae are born with the ability,” Kane said. “And the seer only had one daughter. If Halden knows about Esme, there must be a reason she’s valuable to them.”
“If she’s still alive,” Griffin added.
Silence swallowed us whole once more.
“I hate to burst everyone’s bubble, but I don’t know if Arwen or I will be in any shape to travel tomorrow.”
I bit my lip and cut a sidelong glance at Fedrik. “I just need to brew some potions overnight. I have a feeling we’ll both be healthier come morning.” I had already slipped my hand underneath my own shirt, wincing at the burns as my palm pressed against them, cupping my breast to heal the blisters there and lacing together the skin of my palm, still shredded from the treasure room door.
“You’re the healer, but I don’t think this”—he grimaced, gesturing to his leg—“can be fixed with a potion of any kind.”
I wanted to tell him the truth. It was the right thing to do. But when Fedrik looked at me, he didn’t see the weak, naive girl from Abbington or the full-blooded Fae fated to save the continent. He didn’t see a child who had been beaten or a fearful, anxiety-riddled coward or a woman with a year—if that—left to live.
He only saw me. “Trust me,” I said.
His eyes held mine with nothing but avid affection as he took my hand. “I do.”
His skin was smooth and soft, so different from Kane’s calloused fingers. I looked down to see his tan hand dwarf mine. He smelled warm and soothing, like figs and bergamot.
“I’ve got to piss,” Kane huffed.
My face and neck burned, and I pulled my hand from Fedrik’s.
Griffin shifted awkwardly in his corner before standing. “And I’ve got to gather the . . .” He scratched his jaw. “Leaves. Got to gather the leaves.” Griffin left almost as fast as Kane had.
I cut a glance at Mari, and tried to say don’t you dare with my eyes. “And I’m going to leave.” Mari stood. “Because this is awkward.” She slipped out of the tent, leaving just Fedrik and me.
An involuntary laugh slipped out of me, but my pulse was racing. The sensation felt more like anxiety than lust, but didn’t it make sense to be jittery? After all the adrenaline, and fear, and—
“Hey,” Fedrik said, taking my hand in his once more. “I’m sorry. About what you went through today.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“May I?” he asked, gesturing toward my stomach.
I nodded stiffly and he let go of my hand to lift my shirt, ever so slightly.
“Bastards,” he hissed when he saw my healing burns. Fedrik looked back up at me, his eyes simmering.
“I’m all right,” I said, and meant it.
“I’m not,” he retorted, his breathing uneven. His blue eyes had regained some of their vivid color, and it was as if two boundless oceans were staring back at me. When I remained silent, he lowered my shirt.
“I’m glad he was there. To help you.” “Me, too,” I confessed.
“I know it was more than just a kiss . . . with him.”
I knew this would come out eventually. I sighed up at the apex of the tent. The rain had softened now, and was barely pattering above us.
“It was extremely complicated,” I said, thinking of my conversation with Kane before we entered the caves this morning. How sometimes I had a tendency to see things in black-and-white.
Fedrik’s brows knitted inward. “You must know . . .” He pressed his lips into a line as if debating his next words. “You must know he’s madly in love with you, right?”
I felt my eyes go wide. It wasn’t that I hadn’t had the thought. I just hadn’t expected Fedrik to be the one to say it.
I had hoped as much, once. Wanted it to be true more than I wanted my heart to beat. But the energy between us, the jealousy and possessiveness, the constant poking, taunting, the push and pull—it wasn’t what I imagined love to look like. And truthfully, he had needed me to serve a purpose. That was what drew him to me. My life—my death, rather—was what he had always been after. Somewhere along the way he had become attracted to me, and then—
“No.” I shook my head. “He’s not.” “Wen—”
“I’m like a plaything to him. A game. And he doesn’t like to lose.” I bit my lip. “Or have other people play with his toys.”
Fedrik’s eyes glowed with heat. “Are you implying I want to play with you?”
Had I not seen the clear desire written across his face I would have flushed with embarrassment. But lately the only tonic to my misery was being bold. “Don’t you?”
Fedrik laughed, a little guilty. “I don’t wish to interfere somewhere I am not wanted.”
Did I?
Want him?
Not really.
I liked Fedrik immensely. He was sophisticated and kind, worldly and easygoing. And he offered me something nobody else in my life could: the ability to see myself through the eyes of someone who didn’t know my fate. I had grown so much in the past few months I felt like stretched-out skin— so worn from the changes I’d been through that I wore them across me in long pale streaks.
Fedrik made me feel supple and new.
But still . . . No. Try as I might, I didn’t want him. Not wholly and thoroughly the way I always wanted Kane. Not even in the childlike way I
had wanted Halden—longing for what he could be one day rather than what he was.
But before I found the right way to say all of that—if there was a right way to say any of it—he gave me the slightest catlike twitch of a smile, mistaking my silence for affirmation, and leaned in to brush his mouth against mine.
