Page 15

“You can’t die.” I say it bluntly, over an enormous flare of panic in my chest.

“Caelus...” His whisper goes right through me, instantly carving through the panic to reach into the thickening heat and those low-slung shivers.

My fingers pinch at his flutette and my breathing is so hard I’m surprised music isn’t giving me away.

I shake my head .

“Caelus . . .”

His voice. It has that creamy softness to it, almost a plea. It’s exactly like the memory inside the dromveske of that night. The night he wanted to be real.

That bittersweet night I’ve visited too many times.

“I need to work on my self-restraint.” I shove myself away and land with a cold thump on the ground. Quin peers over the side of the cot with an amused smirk and a raised eyebrow. I jump to my feet and wag a finger. “You too, your majesty.”

I climb a hill inside the camp and try to cool myself on the night grass while staring at the sky. Only, I can’t escape it. That memory is too strong, too pulling.

I clutch blades of grass and slam my eyes shut, and sink into every detail again...

Quin has been knocked out. When he awakes, it is to find himself locked in his bedchamber, his magic sealed.

Incense burns in all corners of the room, smoke swirling lazily in the air.

He coughs on the thickness of it and snaps his cane in a hurry to put them out.

He bangs on his door, shouts, but the men outside are under king’s orders—still he calls out, begging futilely until his voice is hoarse.

Soon he’s slumped at the door, shallow breaths turning into pants.

His face is flushed and his neck blooming red.

He tears off each layer of clothing and staggers to a basin to splash his face.

He murmurs to himself he must watch out for trickery, he cannot succumb to this, but his voice is slurred and he keeps squeezing his eyes shut, slapping his head .

He’s slumped against a wall, half-naked and dripping when the door opens and a figure is shoved inside.

Quin squints and the room grows blurry. When his vision finally sharpens, Chaos’s face appears, also flushed; Quin surges to his feet and whisks him close, demanding to know what he’s doing here. Who brought him. Why.

Chaos tilts his head back, baring his throat as he moans and pulls at his clothes.

He doesn’t know how he got here. He was sent in by redcloaks.

He doesn’t know what to do, but he’s hot.

He’s feeling hot and shivery and shaky, and he reaches for Quin, pushing himself against his body with a groan, as if just being against him provides relief.

“Something’s not right,” Quin says, the room coming in and out of focus, but each time, it is Chaos standing before him, half undone, his shirt torn, his leggings very tight indeed.

Quin’s hands clamp around Chaos’s hips and his lips urgently seek Chaos’s ear.

“What are you doing to me? Is this how you feel too?”

Chaos shudders in his arms. “I can’t help this,” he says. “I don’t know what they did, but I’m burning inside. You feel cool, so cool. Will you cool me?”

Quin’s body is wracked with something hot and primal and he crushes Chaos against him.

“You’re the one who feels cool. Arcane Sovereign, I must have you cool me also.

” Quin’s hands tighten around Chaos and their shivers are linked as they stumble to the bed, Quin dropping first, embracing Chaos protectively on the way down.

Quin’s gaze seeks Chaos’s and holds. “Some... scheme... but... ”

Chaos shudders against him, cocking his hips and arching to get closer. “Don’t care,” Chaos says. “I need...”

“But we haven’t before . . .”

“Please. Please.”

Vicious heat slams through Quin, making him growl and flip Chaos onto the bed. He struggles to keep the barest slither of reason. “I’ll take... you carefully.”

The memory Quin shared with me of that night didn’t stop there, but it faded—as if he couldn’t let me see everything.

Only enough to know he thought of me. He thought that night was with me.

And when the memory sharpened again it was morning, and the doors to his chamber were open, blowing in a mind-clearing breeze, and Quin turned in his sheets to find not Chaos sprawled beside him, but his crown princessa. Veronica.

She awakens too. They stare at one another in shock and misery.

They utter apologies at the same time and grit their teeth as they stare at the redcloaks lined up outside.

The princessa rushes away, and Quin canes himself angrily to the bathhouse where he curses and slams water and scrubs himself over and over until he sags into the depths with a single tear rolling down his tight jaw.

I wake on a hollow sigh to discover Quin and his small unit of men gone. Along with the grey rays of dawn, a heavy quiet has descended over the camp. Only the flapping of tent doors and hooves stamping the ground break the silence.

The air is heavy with the scent of blood and pain, carried on the wind from a not-too-distant battle. I stare into the foreboding breeze as stormblades ride solemnly through camp, axes and arrowheads glinting at their backs.

Quin has already headed there.

I wish he’d told me, and I’m glad he didn’t. It’s hard enough watching men I don’t know brace themselves and bravely go into a violent unknown. How could I have possibly watched Quin?

I know how strong he is, how determined, how utterly courageous. But I also know he too feels the furious pound of fear. He too can bleed into the earth. He too can cry.

“Get through this,” I pray, squeezing my fists. “Nicostratus will be coming soon.”

Cutting through the silence comes a hectic bustle of soldier feet and cries to make way. Bloodied stormblades are running through camp, with injured men on their backs.

I bolt towards the healing tent.

There’s no time for introductions—I meet my fellow healers with a mere nod before helping settle an unconscious soldier onto a straw mat as other wounded are laid likewise in orderly rows.

I check my soldier’s pulse and scan the tent for supplies.

There’s a fair amount, but how long is it supposed to last? How many does it have to save ?

I choose only to heat a brew for his critical internal bleeding and the older healer beside me nods once.

All morning, we work relentlessly through the copper tang of blood.

When we’ve removed arrows, sewn slashes, patched and bandaged one group of soldiers, another group is carried in, and another.

There’s no time to eat, no time to use the privy.

When we’re not cleaning wounds, we’re cleaning cloth for future wounds.

Even when two more healers arrive to help, we are too few.

After midday, more come racing into the tent carrying their injured.

This time, Quin is behind them, hobbling.

I’ve never been so happy to see that hobble.

It feels so relieving that I, too, am unable to balance.

I stagger to him. His face is tired, worn, but he’s still attempting a smile for me.

I steal him to a stool outside where he can look up at the cloudless sky and not upon the fallen.

I grab his wrist and take his pulse, but he shakes his head. Not wounded. This is his leg.

He glances at passing stormblades and back to me, and my gaze meets his with shared understanding. He’s been on horseback so far, but there will be times he’ll be forced to his feet. He needs a plausible reason he can’t move easily or he might raise suspicions. Might give his true identity away.

Quickly, I bandage his lower leg under the knee, with some wood for the appearance of added support.

Anyone will understand a hobble now. As I tie the last knot, Quin organises his band of fighters, giving orders, receiving the condition of his injured men.

And no sooner is his horse brought to him than he hops right back on it.

I clasp his reins and whisper up at him. “You’re tired. Your magic is near drained. You need to meditate.”

He grimaces, taking his reins. “Their numbers are greater than ours.” He glances towards the healing tent. “I need my men fit enough to fight a few more hours.”

Until his brother arrives with more.

“I saw some pearl heart.”

“Commander Kjartan will escort any capable of battle in an hour.”

I rush inside and brew a soup using the last of the pearl heart; my fellow healers help me feed it to those with minor injuries. The colour soon returns to their cheeks and their pulses thicken with strength.

Commander Kjartan. The ship’s captain I’ve shared weal and woe with is again at the heart of a fight. A commander of fighting men. He enters the tent and asks if there are any willing to help their comrades at the centre of battle.

Without a moment’s hesitation, all those with minor injuries rise and file out of the tent—even the more severely injured try, but we steer them back to their mats with a shake of the head.

“You’ll drag them down like this,” I murmur. “Recover first.”

Commander Kjartan calls again into the tent. “We need a healer to join us out there. Who’s brave enough to volunteer? ”

Out there is the thick of battle, the clash of metal and the spilling of blood.

Out there is blood that might become our own.

I feel their fear along with my own. I want to shrink behind my patient, but what of those that can’t be moved here? Those who so courageously march towards death on the hope they can save those behind them? And—

Out there is Quin .

I rise from my crouch. Commander Kjartan spots me and his eyes flash in recognition. “You will come,” he says with certainty.

“I will come.”