Page 15

M ust. Go. On .

Rain lashes against my soaked arms as they shield my belongings.

Behind me is the capital that believes I’m dead; that will kill me if I’m not. Behind me is Hinsard and vitalian magics I can no longer wield. Behind me are two royal brothers vowing loyalty to one another.

Vowing never to let me come between them again.

Steel clashes through the trees, and the tinny scent of blood pierces the damp air. The sky shudders with flashes of lightning, thunder rolling like drums underfoot, shaking the final golden leaves from the branches. An eerie screech rises from the river.

Ahead, soldiers battle. Wyverns thrash. Still, the path before me seems easier than the one behind.

Rain drips down my nape, trickling from my hood, running off my chin onto my grandfather’s books, a change of clothes, needle and thread, a few rare herbs, some food... I clutch my bundle tighter and hurry along the narrow path.

Keep west of the woods. Pass the Great Violet Oak and the soldiers guarding it. Descend to the coast. Find the merchant ship to Iskaldir.

His last instructions, scrawled on a note, left beside southern currency and official passes for safe passage.

The rain thickens, pelting my face. I swallow the knot in my throat, grip my bundle, and push through a tangle of bushes—

A cry shatters the storm, and a flash of movement draws my eye. A wyvern falls, its body thumping into the leaves at my feet. I freeze, breath held, searching the sky for more.

Wyverns could rip through my flesh, their venom killing within minutes. I have no magic now. Even if I have herbs to combat the poison, I don’t know the crude methods to prepare them.

I step back. The sky is a dark bruise of clouds, evening closing in. The rain patters steadily on skeletal tree trunks. Thank the Arcane Sovereign, there’s no other movement. The wyvern must have been separated from its pack.

I glance at the shimmering scales of the small creature. It’s wounded, blue blood seeping from a gash in its stomach. Its chest rises and falls with shallow, laboured breaths. It’s too hurt to shift into its watery form, to attack me.

I could leave. I should leave.

But its eyes are on me, filled with pain, exhaustion, fear.

It’s vulnerable. Afraid.

Its claws flex as it tries to move, but its wings go limp. A small, pitiful whine escapes it.

I haven’t used my voice in days, and it comes out rough. “I won’t hurt you. I’ll help, if you’ll let me.”

The wyvern can’t understand my words, but maybe it senses something in my tone. Its claws retract.

I drop to my knees on the wet leaves and fumble for my herbs. I have some that will fight infection, promote healing... but the gash is large.

For a sharp, painful moment, I’m back in Hinsard, beside the canal and the vitalian who died under my hands, the gash on his head too deep... Without magic, I hadn’t known how to save him.

I vowed to learn from that, spent days in my grandfather’s cabin poring over crude healing methods. Now, I pull out my needles and thread.

This wyvern will not die today.

My fingers are numb, wet, and it takes three tries to thread the needle. I speak softly as I work, wrapping its claws in a torn handkerchief. “Just until I’m done. I’ve numbed your scales. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.”

I’ve practiced stitching on leather, but never on living flesh. With magic, I never felt the visceral sensations of healing a wound. Now, the wyvern’s laboured breaths tremble under my palms, its scales silk under my fingers, its blood warm and slick.

I steel myself against the shiver that runs through me as the needle pierces its skin. Strength and steadiness. No room for anything else.

The wyvern whines, and I tighten the thread, carefully knitting the gash together.

The clash of steel grows louder. The battle is closing in. I have to hurry or be caught in the crossfire. I have nothing to shield myself from blades, arrows, axes.

I knot the last stitch, but I’m not done. I chew on an elderleaf, spit out the bitter pulp, and dab it over the wound.

An axe whistles through the trees and buries itself in a branch too close to my head. I duck lower. “Your wings are fine. Rest. Don’t fly until you’ve healed.”

Pounding footsteps. The ground trembles.

I want to run. My stomach drops to my knees.

The wyvern will be trampled if I leave it here.

I scan the woods, eyes darting. There—a hollow at the base of a tree.

Heart pounding with the rising battle, I gently shift the dragonette onto my spare shirt and tuck it into the hollow. As I scramble to repack my things, I spot the last of my food—berries I collected yesterday.

What good is saving it if it starves?

I pile the berries beside the wyvern, knot my belongings, and sling the pack over my shoulder.

More metal whistles nearby. I don’t wait to see what kind. Doubling over, I scramble through the underbrush, thorns tearing at my cloak, one slicing a line under my temple. Blood trickles down my jaw.

I scurry down a small bank.

Wrong way.

Leather-clad soldiers with axes and round shields—Iskaldir’s stormblades, on Lumin turf.

I back slowly into the shadows—

And bump into something warm, solid.

Someone.

Someone who freezes against my back.

I whirl around; the figure spins with a flutter of dark cloak. Our gazes lock—

“Megaera?” I gasp, staring at the woman before me. She arches a brow, her lips silently forming my name.

In an instant, our hands cover each other’s mouths, eyes wide with surprise and a silent warning: stay quiet, stay careful. One wrong move, and we’re dead. Or worse, captured.

A stormblade’s crow rings out, and Megaera and I press back to back. She gestures toward the sound, and I nod, pointing west where the merchant paths are guarded by sentinels—a safer route to the coast.

We carefully inch our way out of the battle, and as soon as the clash of metal fades, we tumble onto a broader path. I lurch away from her.

Her elegant, sharp features turn toward me, eyes locking onto mine with a shrewd intensity. Her voice curls through the damp air, edged with a soft, shivery laugh. “You trusted me through the woods.”

I look away, focusing on the darkening path ahead, the towering black outlines of ancient oaks. “My choices were limited. You were the safest option.”

“Where’s your sidekick?”

“He’s our king.”

“He’s alive, which is the only respect I’ll give him.” Her gaze sweeps over my drenched cloak, my pitiful belongings. She sneers. “He cast you away.”

Live. Love. Leave.

The final words of his note, his last command. Words he’s spoken before, but this time in his kingly scrawl. An edict.

My grip tightens on the fabric cutting into my shoulder. “Why are you headed south?”

Megaera’s lips press into a thin line. “Turns out I value this cheap life of mine.” She forces a smile, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Didn’t you enjoy me begging you to save me?”

I’d hesitated to save her. She was a venomous presence in my life, lashing out and hurting those I cared about.

But then, hadn’t I set her on that path?

My negligence, my arrogance as a healer, had killed her father—the only family she had left.

Didn’t she have a right to grieve, to be a mess of emotions, to make mistakes?

Hadn’t I?

I close my eyes briefly, the shadow-laced path tightening the knot in my stomach. “Is the regent after your life for letting us escape?”

“He’d try to silence me even if I hadn’t. Perhaps with more determination. A price I thought I could accept. Then.”

The rain stops, but the scent lingers, sharpens as we step through puddles, until a cool breeze overwhelms it with the salt of the coast. A rustle in the distance has us padding quietly, ears pricking for signs of danger. Branches sway under a cloudy sky. An owl hoots. Something slithers.

Someone curses.

We press ourselves behind a tree and peer around it. In the darkness, it’s hard to tell friend from foe. Do we sneak past, or—

A pained hiss. “Damn stormblades. Just wait.”

Not one of theirs, then. Someone from our side, and injured.

Megaera realises it too, her tension ebbing with an elegant roll of her shoulder. She steps out from behind the tree, chin up, eyes sharply forward. I lead the way, scuffing through damp leaves, following the scent of blood—

I stop sharply.

A violet-robed man slumps at the base of a knotty tree, one broad shoulder resting against the trunk, the other grasped in his hand as he tries to wrench it back into place. His face is gritted with pain, but there’s a steely look in his eyes—he’s seen countless battles, fierce and deadly. His long spear rests over his bent legs, the dark, deadly head surrounded by sharp nails, angled toward me like a warning. Like a reminder of the damage it can do.

The damage it has done.

Crusader.

Not just any crusader. I’ve seen this determined face before—in the ruins where Prince Nicostratus was held hostage. He was teaching a boy how to destroy linea meridians.

He joined the battle during our escape.

He got up after a blow from Quin, gripped his spear, and thrust it toward the king—

My stomach drops, a sick, sludgy feeling of fear, unrealised hatred, overwhelming hurt. This man robbed me of my little magic. Magic that, despite all hardships, I’d protected, nurtured, finessed. Magic that made me feel I could help in this harsh world.

“Who are you?” the crusader barks. “What’s your purpose?” His eyes slice sharply to Megaera as if sensing the magic in her veins.

He raises his spear with his good arm.

Instinct and unbridled anger surge—I kick the spear out of his grip. If he weren’t injured, he’d have resisted, but his arm is in agony, and a deep slash across his chest has soaked his shirt with blood, staining the leather meant to protect him. The spear lands in a nest of rotting leaves.

I should leave. Before I yell. Before I lash out. Before I make a fool of myself by crying.

The crusader tries again to reset his shoulder. He hisses, unsuccessful. “Don’t need weapons for the likes of you two.”

Megaera picks up the fallen spear and aims the point at his throat.

The crusader barks a laugh, but she slides the spear along his skin, and he shuts up, jaw flexing as fiercely as my clenched hands.

“We’ll do the talking, hmm?” she purrs.

His eyes flicker stubbornly, but there’s a small jump of... admiration in his brow. “Hurry. I’ve some Skeldars to settle scores with.”

“With your arm like that?” I say coolly.

“If I must.”

“What are crusaders doing so far south?”

“This is the most sacred land in the kingdom—all the linea pilgrimage to the Great Violet Oak. Why wouldn’t we gorge on such a banquet?”

I steal the spear from Megaera and press the sharp tip against his chest wound until he grunts and my hands shake. “Why do you kill us like this?”

“We rarely kill. We maim meridians.”

“Why!”

“Why should only those with magic hold power? Our kingdom will be better when we’re all on equal footing. Destroying meridians is about equality. About being fair.”

My hands tremble so violently Megaera has to catch the spear as I lose my grip. “Your fair is not my fair. There’s no such thing as fair.”

Megaera flicks her wrist, a bolt of magic sparking between us, and she hisses, “Cael... your meridians...”

I stare at the crusader.

“It was you who released those redcloaks,” the crusader grunts.

My eyes sting. I yank myself back, refusing to let him see a tear. “Let’s go, Megaera.”

Her sultry laughter stills me. “You’re right. He’s not worthy of healing.”

I slice my stinging eyes to hers. “That’s not what—”

“Then what are you doing?” She glides before me, whispering at my ear, making me shiver. “Why does this hesitation feel so familiar?”

“They’re not . . . mortal wounds,” I say weakly.

“Fair enough!” She hooks an arm around mine and pulls, but it feels like a test.

I don’t move. “He won’t die.”

“Come on, then.”

A suppressed grunt from behind hits me like sharp needles. He’s in pain. There’s danger around.

I squeeze my fists. He hurt me. This is fair.

My fair is not his fair, either.

Leaving him here, in a forest of wild animals and battling factions... Can I be responsible for what may happen?

What kind of healer does that make me? What kind of person?

I swallow thickly, peel Megaera off me, and turn to the grimacing crusader. I drop to my knees, gripping his bad arm. “This will hurt. Bear through it.”

He cocks a smirk, and I angle his limb into position—

The crusader’s cry shakes through the woods.

“Admit it,” he gasps, “that was satisfying.”

I stitch up his chest wound. “Stay away from the stormblades for now.”

“Can’t.”

“You must, or you’ll rip open your wound. If they don’t hurt you worse.”

“Stormblades delivered my boy to a Skeldar ship. I must get him back.”

My fingers pause. “The terrified boy you forced to fight?”

The large man bows his head, a silent sigh skidding over my wrist.

I pull back. So, he knows how to regret.

My wrist tickles.

He uses the tree trunk for support, heaving himself to his feet. I rise and press crushed elderleaf over his stitches while blocking his path. “What will you do? Fight your way onto the ship?”

He flinches at the press on his wound.

“Skeldars have rituals this time of the month. This area is sacred to them.”

Megaera hums, a reminder she’s been quietly watching, judging. She twists the spear in her hand. “If they leave their ships to congregate... you may have a chance.”

A grunt of confirmation.

“But they’re not foolish enough to abandon their prisoners without guards. How will you get past them? What if he’s injured?”

My stomach clenches. A young boy, imprisoned, frightened... not sure if he’ll live another day. Maybe he’s humming to keep calm.

River’s frightened face flashes in my mind.

“An innocent child,” she says.

I glance sharply at Megaera. She’s recalling the court case too. She’s reminding me of my failure...

“You—” I croak over the thundering guilt in my heart.

She holds my gaze. “For a boy’s untimely death.” She glances away, shrugging. “I suppose I can assist.”

I stare at her. Is this another trap? Or could she be sincere? Could she feel some of the blame? Could she be trying to right it?

I square my shoulders. Either way, a boy needs saving, and everything in me compels me to go, hurry, make it right this time.

The tall crusader spares us unimpressed looks. “You can heal, but what can a beauty do?”

Megaera casts a spell at his feet, the earth rising and rolling under him, toppling him back to the foot of the tree. She tosses him his spear.

I answer him. “Don’t underestimate her.”

He looks from her to me, back to her, a brow quirking. He could easily destroy her meridians.

Megaera turns her back on him, casting a teasing look over her shoulder. “You have a choice. Me, or your son.”