Page 22 of Fly to Fury (War of the Alliance #3)
Chapter
Thirteen
P ip dashed to the hangar doorway and halted there, frozen, as Merrik’s and Fieran’s aeroplanes soared closer, coming in for a landing.
Was Fieran all right? His voice had been weak, even as he’d protested he was fine, and Merrik’s tone had been sharply worried in a way she’d rarely heard from him.
Merrik’s aeroplane touched down with as much finesse as always. Fieran’s aeroplane wobbled, bobbing up and down for a moment as if Fieran couldn’t quite tell where the ground was.
Then Fieran’s wheels touched down, harder than he normally landed. Yet the wheel struts held, and the tail slammed to the ground, the tailskid digging into the earth to slow the aeroplane.
Someone halted next to Pip in the doorway, though she didn’t look to see who it was. Likely Mak, though he didn’t say anything.
Merrik’s aeroplane bumped across the ground, headed for the hangar and followed by Fieran’s. The two aeroplanes rolled to a halt about fifty feet away .
As soon as his aeroplane halted, Merrik was already levering himself out of his seat, leaping down even before the ground crew could reach the aeroplanes.
Pip would have taken a step, but the figure beside her dashed forward.
Not Mak. Nope, definitely not.
Instead, Prince Farrendel Laesornysh jogged onto the airfield, his swords strapped to his back, his silver-blond hair flowing over the hilts.
Fieran climbed out of his cockpit more slowly than usual, though he waved Merrik off, protesting that he was fine. As Fieran leapt to the ground, his knees buckled. Only his grip on the wing and Merrik grabbing him beneath the elbow kept him from falling.
Pip pressed a hand over her mouth, though she remained frozen. Was Fieran all right? What was wrong? Had he simply used too much magic or was it something else?
Prince Farrendel broke into a run, reaching Fieran’s side as Fieran struggled back upright. The elf prince swept a glance over Fieran, as if searching for injuries. Despite the distance, his words carried. “Fieran, sason.”
“I’m fine, Dacha. Just tired.” Fieran, crazy elf that he was, smiled, his weary voice holding a trace of a laugh. “It was just a lot of magic.”
“It was, but you should not be at the limit of your power.” Prince Farrendel took one of Fieran’s arms over his shoulder while Merrik took the other.
“I’m fine. Really. I’ve had this before after using a lot of power. I’ll be fine after a moment.” Fieran staggered slightly. He likely would have fallen if he hadn’t been propped up by both his dacha and Merrik.
“You have never mentioned this before. Are you in pain?” Prince Farrendel’s mouth pressed into a tighter, harder line.
“No. No pain. Just tired.” Fieran shook his head, then squeezed his eyes shut as if the motion had made him dizzy.
“Regardless, we will be taking you straight to a healer.” Prince Farrendel’s tone left no room for argument, and Fieran shut his mouth.
The elven healer currently on duty at the hangar brushed past Pip and hurried to Fieran. As he pressed a hand to Fieran’s forehead—fingers glowing green with healing magic—the healer asked, “Where is he injured?”
“I’m not injured. I’m fine.” Fieran made an effort to straighten, leaning less heavily on Merrik and his dacha.
“It seems to be something with his magic.” Prince Farrendel tightened his grip on Fieran, as if he wasn’t about to release him to stand on his own.
The elven healer nodded and withdrew his hand. “I do not sense anything wrong, but it would be best to consult with one of the senior healers at the hospital.”
Fieran heaved a sigh—was that an eyeroll?—but didn’t protest again as Merrik and Prince Farrendel started walking again.
As they approached the hangar, Pip remained rooted to the spot, her heart squeezing even more painfully in her chest.
Fieran lifted his gaze, and his grin returned. “Did you see, Pip? The wires worked great.”
She wanted to shake him. If she’d known he’d do something crazy like that, she never would have rigged up the wires on the squadron’s aeroplanes.
Prince Farrendel’s gaze swung to her too, and her muscles locked. Opening her mouth, she tried to find a reply. All she managed was a squeaky wheeze .
“You remember Pip, don’t you? I introduced her on our first day here.” Fieran waved to her with the hand hooked over his dacha’s shoulder. “She’s the chief mechanic for my squadron. Her iron magic seems to really take to my magic, and I’ve practiced magic with her holding a shield for me.”
“Are you the one who has been holding the shield over this hangar during the recent battles?” Prince Farrendel’s regard settled more firmly on her, his silver-blue eyes studying her.
All she could manage was a stilted nod, her heart beating so hard in her chest it might just bruise her ribs.
“Actually, she should join us sometime for a morning practice.” Fieran’s grin was far too mischievous.
She widened her eyes at him. Was he trying to give her a heart attack? There was no way she could practice her magic with the Prince Farrendel Laesornysh.
Prince Farrendel made a noncommittal sound before he swung that disconcerting gaze from her back to his son. “Distraction will not get you out of a trip to the healer.”
Fieran sighed and stepped forward again. He wasn’t leaning on Merrik and his dacha as heavily as he had been a moment ago. “Fine. Let’s go.”
As he, Merrik, and Prince Farrendel set off again, Pip braced herself against the hangar wall, her legs going weak. Whether it was worry for Fieran or because Prince Farrendel had spoken to her, she didn’t know. Probably a mix of both.
“Pip!” Lije skidded to a halt next to her as Merrik, Fieran, and Prince Farrendel disappeared out the door on the other side. “Is Fieran all right?”
“Do you know what’s wrong?” Stickyfingers crowded behind Lije. The two of them must have been the first of the flyboys to land after the air battle.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. But Fieran insists he’s fine, just tired.” Pip forced herself to straighten. It wouldn’t do any good if she panicked and caused the whole squadron to freak out. “His dacha and Merrik are taking him to the elven healers as a precaution, but he’s probably all right.”
Lije nodded, though the furrow remained across his brow. Beside him, Stickyfingers clasped and unclasped his hands behind his back, as if he wasn’t sure what to do.
Pip couldn’t blame them. A part of her wanted to run after Fieran and insist on being there. Perhaps hold his hand while the elf healer gave a verdict.
But that wasn’t her place. They didn’t have that kind of relationship.
No matter how much she wished they did.
Fieran sat on the wooden exam table, swinging his legs. His shirt was unbuttoned, and a senior elf healer pressed a hand over his heart. Green laced around the healer’s fingers, and the elf’s eyes had a distant look as he concentrated on what his magic was telling him about Fieran’s body.
Gripping the edge of the table, Fieran tried to ignore the squiggling feeling of the elven healing magic working its way through his body. His magic stirred at the intrusion of the foreign magic, and he had to concentrate to keep his magic locked tight deep inside him.
But the probing of the healing magic was a rather familiar sensation. He’d made many trips to a healer while growing up. Usually for doing something foolish and getting himself hurt.
Dacha paced along one side of the room where they’d been brought in the large hospital building to one side of headquarters. Most of the floors were large, open wards with curtains to divide the beds if privacy was needed. But there were a few rooms for examinations built into the first floor.
Merrik leaned against the wall next to the door, his arms crossed and his mouth pressed into a tight line.
The healer withdrew his hand and stepped back. “I do not sense anything wrong with you.”
“Are you sure? He is not at the limit of his magic, is he?” Dacha spun to face the healer, his tone sharp enough to make the healer take a step back.
While Fieran was an adult and didn’t need his dacha speaking for him at medical appointments, he kept his mouth shut. This examination was more to reassure his dacha than anything else.
“While my healing magic cannot interact directly with his magic in that manner, I do not sense any of the usual signs of dangerously drained magic.”
“Nothing else?” Dacha gestured to Fieran. “My dachasheni died of a disease where his magic destroyed his body. Fieran has been examined for that disease before, but is there a chance it could be that?”
“While I do not have the experience with that disease that some healers do, I do not believe it could be causing this. There would be clear signs of the damage of such an illness, especially at his age.” The healer tilted his head in Fieran’s direction.
“If the esteemed healer Taranath examined him and declared he did not have that particular disease, then I would not worry.”
Time to take some control of the conversation. He was the one being discussed, after all.
“Like I said, I’m just tired.” Fieran began buttoning his shirt.
Dacha swung his hard gaze to Fieran. “You have never experienced such weariness before in morning practices. ”
“I’ve never wielded magic in this much quantity during practices. There has always been a limit to the amount of magic I could release at one time without incinerating something we didn’t want incinerated.” Fieran shrugged and braced himself to hop off the table.
The healer cleared his throat. “While he is perfectly healthy, his body does show the typical signs of strain that one might expect to see after a physically demanding ordeal.”
“It’s because I’m half-human, isn’t it?” Fieran sighed, not looking at his dacha as he said it. That had been what he’d suspected ever since he’d first experienced this during the Battle over Bridgetown.
The healer hesitated for a moment before he gave the small, elven nod. “Yes. That would be my hypothesis.”
Dacha’s jaw worked. He never liked it when Fieran and his siblings were considered less than because of their human half. It treaded too closely to an insult to them and to Mama, and Dacha wouldn’t hear of it.
But Fieran felt the words as a punch to his core.
As always, he was too human to wield the full strength of the elven magic. Too human to grow proper long, elven hair. Too human to truly carry the legacy of warriors he inherited from his dacha.
At Bridgetown and Dar Goranth, Fieran had begun to feel like an elven warrior in his own right. He’d earned the title of Laesornysh—elvish for Death on the Wind —that his dacha had bestowed on him after his first battle.
But now that he was with his dacha again, he saw once more how far he fell short of being the elven warrior that Dacha was. His dacha didn’t intentionally cause the comparison. But it was there in the deadly aura and dangerous edge that Fieran couldn’t match .
The elf healer continued, facing Fieran rather than Dacha.
“You wield magic that takes a toll even on a full elf. It is no wonder it would take a greater toll on a half-human. You will want to be aware that you do not push your body too far, but I do not believe there is danger to you in wielding great quantities of magic. In fact, you will likely find that your magical stamina increases as you continue wielding magic with such magnitude.”
Fieran nodded. He’d been able to wield more magic before he’d gotten tired during the Battle for Dar Goranth than he had in the Battle over Bridgetown.
In this latest battle, it was likely the extra toll of holding back his dacha’s greater power and overwhelming that strange magic that had done him in so thoroughly.
“See, Dacha. I’m fine.” Fieran hopped from the table, thankful that his dizziness had disappeared.
He wasn’t sure if it was because of the rest he’d gotten by sitting there during the examination or if the healer had done something with his magic while examining him.
“It’s actually a good thing if I keep stretching my limits. ”
“Such a thing is usually inadvisable in battle. Better to do so with practice.” Dacha’s words might have remained slightly sharp, but his shoulders relaxed.
“Sadly, I don’t think there’s a way to practice something like this.” Nor would it be a good idea to push himself to the limits in practice when there was a chance that magic would be needed in battle at any moment.
“No.” Dacha sighed, his shoulders easing the rest of the way. He turned to the healer and nodded. “Linshi.”
The healer nodded back before Fieran, Merrik, and Dacha exited the room.
As the three of them stepped into the hot air and burning summer sunshine, Fieran glanced at his dacha. Time to bring this up, now that Dacha wasn’t so focused on worry for Fieran. “Did you sense that magic coating the enemy aeroplanes?”
“Briefly. I did not get a good sense of it before my magic destroyed it.” Dacha turned to better face Fieran, his stance returning to that of a warrior rather than the worried father.
“It was…strange.” Fieran couldn’t think of another word to describe it. “I didn’t recognize it, and I don’t think it was something created by human magicians. Or solely by human magicians. I would have recognized that magic, nor is human magic strong enough to deflect my magic, even temporarily.”
Dacha gave a crisp nod. “I will give the order to search Fort Defense for debris. Perhaps something survived that we can send back to Aldon for testing.”
“Maybe.” Considering the amount of magic he and Dacha had unleashed, the odds weren’t good that any of that magic survived, even if they could find a piece of debris big enough to test.
With one last searching glance, as if double-checking that Fieran was indeed all right, Dacha spun on his heel and marched toward the nearby headquarters.
As Dacha strode away, Fieran sighed and shook his head. “Now to go reassure the squadron that I’m fine.”
“And confess that their intrepid captain is not as invincible and limitless as he thinks he is.” Merrik nudged him, giving him a look that was somewhere between stern and teasing.
“Fine, fine.” Fieran nudged him back. “You’re never going to let me forget this, are you?”
“Nope.” Merrik grinned as the two of them fell in step behind Dacha. “What are seconds-in-command for but to keep you humble?”