Page 30 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

H ands were fluttering over her when Lilac began to slip into consciousness. She couldn’t see anything, couldn’t tell if her eyes were open, but the hands… She knew they were Garin’s by the slow, steady breathing above her. She could feel them, but barely.

It was everything else she felt. Pain—excruciating agony—spread down her back, up her neck, and into her pounding skull.

She could barely move her arms; she twitched a finger, or at least she thought she did.

There was a loud exhale of relief above her.

A hand lifted hers, cradled it, but a chest-shattering moan came from her mouth at the ripple of fire that it sent into her shoulder.

“Garin, don’t touch her,” Adelaide snarled, her voice trembling and broken. “Don’t—” She trailed off, gasping. “I found him. Your driver.”

Then, the witch was silent. There were no discernible sounds coming from Giles or even Emrys.

“You hit the girl instead.” It was an unfamiliar, echoing female voice she heard now, off in the distance, cold and laced with blame.

“I shot him eventually,” a second voice replied. She was clipped, aggressive. Younger. It was the one she’d heard shout earlier, the horseback archer .

“He wasn’t even your target,” Adelaide shot from nearby. There were footsteps.

New fingers, soft and smaller, gingerly palpated her collarbone—then her sides, and the pain there was so great it caused Lilac to inhale sharply.

She couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move to swat those hands away.

Her gasps turned into sobs, breaths feeling much too shallow.

Each time her ribs expanded and contracted, a jolt of agony ripped through her.

Adelaide cussed, backing away.

The first voice spoke again, low and apologetic. “I don’t understand. Our scout is never wrong.”

“Well, it was,” said Adelaide. “She’s not just a girl . She’s our queen.”

There was a moment of silence. “She tells no lies,” said the first voice to her counterpart. “Is she yours, blood drinker?”

“Yes—n-no.” His hands lifted off of her. “She is my charge.”

“A vampire and the mortal queen,” the second voice mused, growing closer.

Lilac tried to move, to sit up, to see. She felt herself blinking—at least she thought she was—but all she saw was darkness.

“Stay away.” Garin’s response was pure warning, his voice inhuman. “You’ve done enough.”

The shuffling slowed as it neared. “She is suffering from her injuries,” said the second voice. “We have nothing on our cart that will heal her momentarily, but you can simply offer her the kiss of death. She will be renewed.”

“No.” His answer was curt, leaving no room for protest. “She’s awake. She can hear us, I can tell by her pulse. But she won’t open her eyes. What is wrong with her?”

“My arrow was imbued with a spell that strips a person of all active glamors and illusory magic. It’s just a wound to her hand.”

“Do not speak the obvious to me , ” Garin snarled. “She is still partially glamored, and her body is pulsing with magic, but she won’t wake.”

Still glamored? What did he mean?

Adelaide interrupted them from near her head. “Her breathing is quick. Drink, then feed her your blood, Garin. It’ll heal her.”

“ No .”

No? Somehow his answer shocked her. His hesitation to turn her was understandable. She wasn’t sure it was something she would choose over death, either. But healing her? Why wouldn’t he do it?

Paralyzed, Lilac itched to move, to scream. Others would suffer without her; the Daemons and her kingdom needed her, but that wasn’t at the forefront of her concerns.

She was selfish. Angry. How dare life be ripped so violently from her fingertips. She had a kingdom to fix, a job to do. Everyone to prove wrong.

A vampire to bed again and again. His hand to hold, his mouth to kiss. She’d barely lived. She focused on the pain in his voice, on the fury and spite surging inside of her—anything was better than allowing herself to crumble under the stifling agony.

Save me, you bloodsucking asshole.

“The blood exchange alone would not save her,” drawled the second voice. “She’s not exactly dying. Her pulse is there, enough to buy you time to make a decision. You should be able to hear it, vampire.”

“Not exactly dying.” His words were venomous. “I can also hear the rattle in her chest. I refuse to believe there is nothing you magic folk can do.”

The first voice replied, “We don’t have magic folk where we’re from.

We are the Yao Guài . We reign over arcane ingredients and transport for Emperor Shizong and other influential parties, though the fugitive we seek is of personal interest. He is a most powerful warlock, eternal in his youth, golden hair.

Born of an incubus and a sorceress. We’ve tracked him across continents. ”

“And what do you want with him?” spat Garin.

“He owes us after paying with counterfeit coin.”

“That’s it?” Adelaide made a skeptical noise. “And you thought that drunk warlock was him?”

“We were traveling to the coast when my sparrowhawk began tracking him,” said the first voice, tinged in regret. “She led us to your carriage. She has never been mistaken.”

“Well, she was,” Garin said, his fingertips caressing Lilac’s arm, her shoulder.

A tingling numbness had set into her hands.

“This is a clear mistake. She’s not supposed to—” He took a deep breath, and by the shuddering sound Lilac knew there were tears.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen. There are potions, spells.

Ones that can heal her from the inside out. ”

“Of course there are,” the second voice interjected dryly. “And there are those who can heal with their hands. Bonemenders, such as Feiyan. But to stop any bleeding, you would need some sort of tonic or a talented Bloodsmith. Alas, I am only an archer.”

The first voice—Feiyan—interjected. “You are so much more than an archer, Na. Even if Xiu was mistaken, the warlock must be in this area, lurking in the forest somewhere. He is the only person I have known to have come back from death, over and over.”

“My sister is right,” agreed Na. “He might be able to heal her. If you paid his debt to us, he would be required to fix your queen. Or, if he cannot, he would fulfill any duty, however you see fit.”

“How much does he owe you?”

Adelaide made a sound of disgust before they could answer. “Don’t pay them! We don’t even know what he looks like or where he is?—”

“Here,” said Garin. A bag of coins clinked near Lilac’s head. “Is that enough?”

“It is plenty,” said Na.

“You chased him across continents for that ?” said Adelaide.

There was a warning edge to Na’s tone. “No one gets away with theft from the Midraal Market without paying. Not even death itself will erase a debt to us.” The bag of coin jingled as Na retrieved it. “But now his debt is paid in full, and he is released by…?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Adelaide’s answer was frosty.

“We simply must know who released the almighty Myrddin of his debt.”

There was an intake of breath from Adelaide at the warlock’s name. “ Myrddin? ”

“Trevelyan. Garin,” he bit reluctantly.

“ Trevelyan ,” Na crooned the name as if inhaling it, and the sound of it on her tongue jabbed a distant spike of jealousy in Lilac’s chest.

“You’re sure?” Feiyan sounded taken aback.

“Yes,” said Garin roughly. “To ensure something like this doesn’t happen a second time. So no one else falls victim to a carriage accident or worse over a ten-shilling vendetta.”

There was shuffling near her again, to her left. “May I?” Feiyan said .

Garin was silent but remained by her side as she approached.

Then, a light pressure upon Lilac’s abdomen. Two palms and a dull ache. They moved outward, reaching her ribs and causing her to wince.

“Well?”

“Her ribcage is shattered. Part of her spine as well. The type of spell I can do to mend her bones is not the same,” Feiyan said, her hands moving down Lilac’s abdomen, “as the tonic we’d give to stop her bleeding.

I don’t have one on me, but either way, those together will corrode her body.

Mortals are not meant to sustain such amounts of arcana. ”

Fear spread slowly like molasses through Lilac’s veins.

“And the warlock?” Garin asked, on the brink of hysteria.

“We don’t have time,” Adelaide said softly.

“She’s right. And that much magic in the queen’s body might kill her anyway, with how weak she is. Myrddin is powerful, but not specialized in medicine.”

“But,” added Na, sounding amused, “your vitae would heal her tissues and bleeding quickly, with almost no consequence at all.”

Garin’s laugh was scathing. “No consequence?”

Gentle hands brushed the hair off her forehead, smelling of anise and satsumas.

“Na is right. Sanguine magic is different, not as abrasive as general arcana. It deals specifically with the soft tissues of the body—the mind, vessels, and arteries of a mortal. It would not affect her bones, would not overwhelm her with magic. I can heal her spine and ribs, but it will do nothing for her internal injuries. Bone mending magic is hard enough on a healthy mortal body, with no other affliction. Your queen is hemorrhaging, vampire.”

“Yes, and this is your doing.”

Na made an angry sound of protest. “We pursued you as we tracked our warlock, but I shot the second arrow trying to help. There was a human man traveling on horseback ahead of you, coming from the opposite direction. It was he who was not paying attention.”

Garin and Adelaide were silent, and there was a sudden burst of warm wind—sunlight and breeze danced across her skin, warm and golden behind her closed eyelids.

Their mist—likely some sort of ward—had dissipated.

“See?” said Na. “He was on the wrong side of the path. He could have crashed into anyone. Just be thankful it was you and that no one else in your troupe was harmed.”