Page 22 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)

First Ashenvale, then Glassfall Gap. It has to be someone within Stonehaven, somehow feeding information to the Authority, to Sereven.

Did Sacha know? Did Sereven tell him one of his own has betrayed him?

I wonder if Varam has reached the same conclusion. I drag my attention away from Sacha to look at him. He’s scanning our surroundings as we walk, tension vibrating through him.

Is he having the same thoughts as me?

After what feels like an eternity, he signals for us to stop. In front of us is a solid rock face, dense foliage growing around the base.

“We’re here. Set him down.” They carefully ease the stretcher to the ground, and Varam walks across to the rock. His hands move across the surface, then he disappears behind a curtain of vines.

“Mira and Tarn will know where we are, they’ll meet us here when they can. The cave system extends deep into the mountain. It’s unlikely anyone else knows of its location, but there is another exit if we need it.”

Getting Sacha inside presents a new challenge, though. The opening is too narrow for the stretcher, which means he’ll need to be carried.

“I’ll take his shoulders,” Varam says. “Arem, take his legs. The rest of you will have to help keep him stabilized. We need to keep him as comfortable as possible.”

With as much care as we can, we lift Sacha from the stretcher.

Even unconscious, he responds to the movement.

His muscles tense, and his breath catches with a pain he can’t voice.

The restraints at his wrist catch the moonlight, and for a second, it seems like the symbols engraved in them are moving, twisting along the metal.

Getting through the cave’s entrance is a nightmare of angles and adjustments.

We have to guide Sacha’s limp form through the opening inch by painful inch.

Inside, the cave opens into a larger chamber.

Moisture glistens on the walls. The air feels cooler, carrying a mineral scent that speaks of deep earth and hidden water.

Varam leads us deeper, following a passage that twists leftward before opening into a second chamber.

Here, there’s evidence of people spending time here before.

A stone ring for a fire, small niches carved into the walls like shelves, and a natural depression in the floor is lined with stones to collect dripping water from the ceiling.

Lysa gets to work as soon as we stop, unpacking the few medical supplies she has. Her hands move with a confidence that speaks of too many similar moments, too many fighters brought back broken.

“I need light.” All her focus is on Sacha, as if the rest of us have ceased to exist.

Kiran produces a small lantern from his pack, strikes flint against steel, and coaxes a flame to life. He places it in one of the small niches carved into the cave wall. A warm glow fills the chamber, dancing across the stone walls, and revealing the full horror of what lies before us.

In the unforgiving lamplight, Sacha’s condition steals my breath.

The journey has reopened almost every wound, fresh blood seeping through our hastily applied bandages to form spreading crimson flowers against the dirty cloth.

His skin has taken on a gray pallor beneath the grime and dried blood, no longer the warm bronze I remember.

His lips that once shaped clever words are tinged with blue, and part slightly with each labored breath.

The fever burning through him creates a sheen of sweat that catches the lamplight, making him appear almost translucent. Already halfway to becoming a ghost.

I press my hand to my mouth, fighting the urge to cry.

“His wounds need to be cleaned.” Lysa’s voice is soft, worried. She checks his pulse at the neck, her fingers lingering a second too long as she measures how much weaker it is than when we started our journey. “We need water, clean cloth, and whatever herbs might help fight infection.”

“There’s an underground pool further in with water that’s safe to drink.” Varam’s voice echoes slightly off the cave walls. “Kiran, go fill the waterskins.” He shrugs out of his cloak, one of our few remaining clean fabrics, and hands it to Lysa. “You can use this for whatever you need.”

“Ellie, help her with Sa—Lord Torran.” Varam’s eyes meet mine, and I see something unspoken there. Recognition, maybe, of how my hands haven’t left Sacha’s vicinity since we found him. “I’ll go back outside to hide the stretcher and leave markers for Mira and Tarn so they know we’re here.”

Following Lysa’s instructions, we start the painstaking process of trying to treat wounds that haven’t been given any care since he received them. We cut away the filthy bandages we applied at Glassfall Gap, exposing the full horror of the Authority’s cruelty to the lamplight.

Each injury revealed provokes fresh rage inside me.

The systematic nature of the torture is the most disturbing aspect.

Lysa points out the order in which she thinks they occurred, knowing through experience the progress of infection through each one.

Cuts made to cause maximum pain without killing.

Burns targeted where nerve endings cluster.

Pressure points abused for the most effective impact.

The brand on his chest weeps with pus, and his back tells a story of destruction.

Lysa directs my attention to the welts and tears, explaining the different kinds of whips that were used, and how the patterns aren’t random, but purposely placed to enhance the suffering they inflicted.

Her tone is matter-of-fact, and the longer she talks, the sicker I feel.

Twice more while cleaning his wounds, his breathing falters. Each time, my heart seems to stop with his. I don’t breathe until Lysa coaxes him back with herbal stimulants held beneath his nose or precisely applied pressure to specific points on his neck. Each revival feels like borrowed time.

“His will is strong,” Lysa murmurs during one such moment, “but his body is failing. The damage is …” She shakes her head, leaving the thought unfinished.

I watch the shallow rise and fall of his chest, counting each breath like it might be the last. Twenty-seven years imprisoned in that tower, only to escape to this. The unfairness of it burns in my throat.

Varam returns before we’ve even cleaned half of the wounds on his body. His face looks carved from stone as he stands to one side, watching.

“They’ve done more damage than I thought would be possible.”

My voice is small and scared when I manage to speak around the lump in my throat. “Will he survive?”

“I don’t know.” Lysa doesn’t stop working. “If he manages to make it through the night, maybe?”

We work in silence after that admission, absorbed in the grim task of cleaning and treating injuries the best way we can.

Lysa’s knowledge is invaluable. She sends Varam out for herbs that might be available, explaining their use to me as she applies them.

Garamwort to numb the pain, Thrishammolt to replenish blood.

She creates poultices for the burns, tinctures for internal injuries, compresses for broken bones that can’t be set properly, all seemingly from magic, although I know that isn’t the case.

I can’t help but compare it with how doctors and hospitals work in my world, and wish I had access to some of the first aid items from there.

When we’re finally done, we arrange cloaks, packs, and travel blankets around Sacha, so he’s still propped up on the side that isn’t as damaged. It’s the only orientation that avoids pressure on both his back, chest, and branded cheek.

I collapse against the cave wall, physically drained and mentally shattered.

My hands shake violently when Kiran passes me a waterskin to wash away the evidence of our work.

I pour water over my palms, watching as it cascades crimson down my wrists, then pink, then finally clear.

But I can still feel Sacha’s blood in the creases of my skin and beneath my fingernails.

“The others should be here soon,” Varam says. “I’ll take first watch.”

“I’ll stay with him.” The words come out rough. “We’ll need Lysa’s knowledge tomorrow. I’ll wake her if …” I shake my head, pressing my lips together.

If he stops breathing ...

If the infection worsens ...

If he slips away while I’m watching ...

No one argues with me. Varam studies my face for a long moment. Whatever he sees there satisfies him. He nods once and makes his way toward the cave entrance, footsteps nearly silent despite his size.

When he’s gone, and the others have settled into exhausted sleep around the cavern, I position myself beside Sacha.

Close enough to monitor every labored breath, and watch the faint flutter of his pulse at his throat, but far enough not to disturb him if I need to move.

The lantern burns low, casting long shadows across the walls.

It’s probably my imagination, but I’m sure they lean toward him, as if his presence calls them to him.

In the quiet of the cave, broken only by the soft percussion of water droplets and shallow breathing, reality finally catches up to me.

We rescued him, yes. We prevented whatever final horror awaited him at Blackvault. But at what cost? He’s been utterly destroyed. He’s sustained injuries that may never fully heal, and not just physically.

What will the kind of torture that caused his injuries do to his mind, to his spirit?

We’re isolated, cut off from resources, surrounded by enemies on all sides, with a potential traitor waiting at Stonehaven to undermine what little security we have.

How can we possibly come back from this?

And yet …

I look at his face. I watch his chest rise and fall with stubborn determination despite broken ribs and infected burns. I look at his hands—those elegant, powerful hands that once commanded shadows and gave me pleasure beyond imagining—now bearing evidence of vicious, violent cruelty.

They tried to break him. To unmake everything he is.

And everything inside me says that they have failed.

I refuse to give up. I won’t let him die. I won’t let what was done to him go unanswered, even if I have to tear apart the Authority with my bare hands.

The woman I was three months ago—the Chicago waitress who worried about rent and tips, who knew the world had hard edges but had never seen true cruelty—wouldn’t recognize me now.

That version of Ellie Bennett feels like a character in a story I read long ago.

She never witnessed torture. Never felt power surge through her veins or watched a storm bend to her will.

Chicago seems impossibly distant now, a soft-focus memory compared to the sharp reality of Meridian. I once desperately wanted to go home. Now I’m not sure where home is anymore, except maybe wherever Sacha is. The realization should frighten me, but instead, it feels right.

Sacha’s pulse beneath my fingertips is threadlike, irregular.

One moment strong enough to feel, the next so faint I have to press harder, terrified it’s stopped altogether.

His breathing follows no pattern I can discern.

Sometimes it’s quick and shallow, other times they’re so far apart I count the agonizing seconds between each rise of his chest.

The night stretches ahead like a test of endurance.

Will he make it until dawn? Until Mira and Tarn return? Until we can somehow get him back to Stonehaven’s more substantial medical supplies?

I find myself bargaining with whatever forces might be listening. Just let him survive this night. Just one more hour. Just one more breath.

Every hour he survives brings not only hope, but conviction. This can’t be where his story ends. This is not where our story ends.

The shadows in the corners of the cave seem to deepen, to lean closer, as if listening. Watching over their master. I think of the prophecy— where shadow leads, storm will follow —and wonder if it meant this moment. If I was always meant to be here, beside him, when he needed someone most.

Unable to help myself, I reach out and carefully cover one of his hands with mine, avoiding the raw wounds where his fingernails once were.

The moment our skin connects, a silver current ignites at the point of contact, spilling through my fingers to cast delicate illumination across our joined hands.

The shadows around us stir in response, and a moan escapes his lips.

I snatch my hand back, worried I’m hurting him.

Instead, I lower my head until my lips are beside his ear.

“Stay with me,” I whisper. A plea, a prayer, a command. “Please, stay with me. I’m not letting you go.”