Page 112 of Scorched Earth

Ceenah wasn’t wrong.

As Lydia allowed her mark to control her gaze, she saw not just the life glowing around the living but that which was present in the air. Not a fraction of what she would find in a city, but there nonetheless.

“Take it.”

Lydia reached out a hand to the mist, attempting to draw it into herself as she had when she’d healed Agrippa. “I can’t. I… I don’t need it.”

Ceenah nodded. “That is why the corrupted can’t sate themselves without taking from the living. To take from the world around you requires aneed.So let’s give you one. Lord Calorian, if you would.”

Killian approached, his wariness palpable. Especially as Ceenah drew a knife. “Just a little nick. It’s nothing to the likes of you.”

“What are you going to do?” Lydia demanded.

“Create a need that you don’t just see but that you alsofeel.”

Anxiety sent bile burning up Lydia’s throat because that would mean touching Killian without her gloves. “Not him. I… I don’t know why, but it’s hard with Killian.”

Ceenah grunted. “Because he’s marked.” She shoved Killian back and then leveled a finger at Agrippa. “You. Come.”

To Lydia’s surprise, Agrippa didn’t argue, only motioned to Baird to sit next to Malahi and approached, silently pulling up a sleeve and holding out a bare arm. Ceenah drew the blade across the thick part of the muscle, not a nick but a deep slice. Agrippa didn’t flinch.

“Do you feel it?” Ceenah demanded.

Lydia could see the life trickling out with every drop of blood, but she felt nothing except irritation at the woman for hurting her friend.

“I feel it,” Agrippa said. “Terribly painful, and if I’m stuck with it because you can’t get this right, Lydia, I might need to reconsider our friendship.”

The queen made a noise of annoyance, then caught hold of Lydia’s hand and clapped her palm on the bleeding wound. “Do you feel it now?”

It struck Lydia with a familiar jolt. The compelling need to remedythe injury beneath her hand, but the need totakewas also there, the two warring with each other. “Yes.”

“Most healers would take from themselves to fill that need,” Ceenah said, “leaving them in a deficit and weaker as a result. Their mark would passively draw life from all around them to eventually fill that deficit. Those like you and me need not wait. Take what is needed from around you and heal the wound.”

Lydia lifted her free hand, and Ceenah said, “That’s not necessary.”

“It helps,” Lydia growled, her heart thundering because trying totakefrom what floated around her was like trying to drink from a thimble when an entire well was beneath her opposite hand.

You can do this,she told herself.You will do it.

Looking away from Agrippa so as to not be distracted by the glow of life around him, shepulled, her breath catching as the glowing mist sped toward her outstretching fingers and into her. She immediately shoved it into Agrippa, her brow furrowing because the effort had barely slowed the bleeding.

“Again.”

Sucking in a breath, Lydia drew in life and shoved it into him, seeing some of the flesh begin to knit when she examined the wound.

“Now at the same time, and do not stop until the need is gone.”

Closing her eyes, Lydia turned her focus inward. On the beat of her heart. The rapidness of her breath. The pulse in her throat.

The need created by the wound beneath her hand.

And then that which would sate it beyond.

It came slowly at first, then faster and faster, like a river pouring into her left hand and out her right. The moment the need ceased, so did the flow.

Lydia’s eyes snapped open and she lifted Agrippa’s arm. The only evidence there’d been a wound was the sticky blood drying on his skin. “I did it!”

Agrippa whooped and clapped his hands, but Ceenah appeared unimpressed.