Page 64 of Valor’s Flight (The New Protectorate #5)

Chapter Forty-Three

As the minutes dragged on with no change, despair began to seep into the fragile weave of her hope. She dared not let go, but she couldn’t hold on forever. If her blood couldn’t help him, then she had to keep going.

Choking back the wave of dry sobs that so desperately wanted out, Alashiya pressed one last kiss to his lips before she reluctantly pulled the knot of the sash apart and peeled her bloody hand away from his.

The grove was silent. The hook in her chest had disappeared.

She was utterly alone as she climbed out of the backseat and stared at the desolate stretch of road.

Rain pelted her from what felt like all sides.

Above her, streaks of lightning danced through the dense clouds.

Blood dripped from her fingertips to soak into the wet gravel beneath her boots.

Alashiya closed her eyes. Please. Please. If anyone is listening, please save hi—

A white light flashed through her eyelids, so bright and all-consuming it seemed to sear her all the way to the backs of her eye sockets.

For a split second there was no sound — or perhaps it only seemed that way, as Alashiya’s mind struggled to process the crack of lighting that struck the ground not six feet away from her.

She turned away instinctively. Hunching against the open door, it took her a moment to process that she hadn’t been hit, and a few more to regain her hearing and sight.

Blinking hard to clear her eyes of the dancing lights, she almost missed the voice that called out to her. “Do you need help?”

Heart lurching, Alashiya turned to gape at the woman standing where the lightning struck.

Naked as a jaybird, taller than Alashiya by at least a foot, and peering at her with eyes of pure black, she didn’t seem to notice the rain — or that her bone-white hair drifted upward like a glowing, sparking banner of moonlight.

All of her glowed. Against the gloom of the rain-soaked road, the being who stood before Alashiya appeared otherworldly in the extreme.

Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know what kind of being she was talking to.

The woman’s angular brows swept down over her inky eyes. “I saw you from above,” she explained in a lilting, accented voice. “You parked terribly, which only bad drivers and people in trouble do. And you are bleeding. This isn’t normal for you, yes?”

A bubble of hysterical laughter escaped Alashiya, which only made the woman’s frown deepen.

Taking one fluid, almost floating step toward the SUV, she noted, “That… doesn’t sound like a happy laugh. Do you—”

A jolt of alarm drew Alashiya’s back up. Pressing herself into the gap between the partially opened door and the frame, she bellowed, “Don’t come any closer!”

The woman stopped instantly. Her head tilted to one side. Alashiya couldn’t tell where her gaze went when her eyes were so… different, but she was almost certain they crawled over the blacked out windows of the SUV.

“I won’t hurt you,” the woman explained, the words lilting up at the end so they almost sounded like a question. “I was just out looking for— This doesn’t matter. I only want to help. Did you know you are bleeding a lot?”

A burn had set in to the slice in Alashiya’s palm and crept upward into her arm. It didn’t matter. Who cared if she got an infection or somehow bled out from it? Nothing mattered except Taevas.

No one but clan and Wing, he’d said. No one else could be trusted.

Alashiya swallowed hard and wished she hadn’t left her shears in the car. “Don’t come any closer, please.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know you,” she answered, gritting her teeth against the burn that had begun to permeate not just her lower arm, but her shoulder, too.

The woman eyed her for a heartbeat before nodding once. “This is wise. I didn’t like speaking to strangers either, until I learned to do it well. Tell me your name so we aren’t strangers anymore.”

“I…” She lifted her uninjured hand to wipe rain out of her eyes. Despite being drenched in cool water, her head felt hot and her skin a little too tight. A pressure built in her chest — like some great thing was coiling, loop over loop, end over end, readying itself to spring.

“I’m Alashiya,” she finally answered.

The pale woman blinked. Little sparks fizzed in the air everytime a raindrop touched her skin. “I haven’t heard this name. Who gave it to you?”

Alashiya felt like she’d stepped from one nightmare to another, except this one didn’t even have the decency to make sense. “Why does that matter?”

“My name was given to me by my ema and my isa and my cousin,” the woman offered, like it was very important.

Her expression was grave, and if Alashiya looked closely enough through the haze of rain, she thought she saw exhaustion there.

“Now you tell me who gave you your name and we’ll both know something about the other. We won’t be strangers anymore.”

Alashiya could only hear every other word. The impending sense that something was happening, that some great change was about to overcome her was a roar in her ears. Heart beginning to race, she answered, “I think my mother named me. She— she said I should have a queen’s name.”

A fleeting half-smile lit the woman’s aquiline face. “It is a very good name. Mine is Hele. It is better.”

Alashiya’s bloody hand slid away from the door. From the stranger’s lips, it sounded like heh-lay. Hele.

I know that name. I know Hele.

What had Taevas told her? She scrambled to recall details, but everything was so fuzzy, and the horror of the last several hours clung to her mind like a film.

All she could remember was that Hele was adopted and a genius and an elemental.

Alashiya had never seen one before, but she couldn’t imagine a being made of pure magic not looking like the woman standing there.

Please, please, please. Please be her.

A hum replaced the heat in her skin — a rising pulse of magic as deep and ancient as the roots from which the first nymph sprang. And there, woven into that old magic was him. Taevas. As big and loud and beautiful as he was in life, so too was he in the hyphae.

A strong royal purple thread braided with hers, tying them together forever — and holding him to this side of Grim’s riverbank. To life.

Alashiya stumbled away from the door to grab the woman’s arm. Electricity rattled the nerves in her hand, but she held tight. Voice cracking, she begged, “Are you Hele? The Hele?”

The woman looked down at her with a deep frown. “I am Hele A?daja, of clan Orlova and Piiritu. Chosen of Vael, cousin of the great Isand Taevas A?daja, and daughter of Valerie and Constantin. Why?”

I know those names. They’re clan. Oh gods, they’re clan!

Alashiya’s legs couldn’t hold her any longer. She crumpled to the ground. Pressing her hands into the wet gravel, she bowed her head and begged, “Please, Hele— You have to save him!”

Hele crouched beside her. Tentatively running her hand over Alashiya’s spine, she asked, “Save who, strange woman?”

Alashiya turned her face up. Rain slid down her cheeks, over her lips, and dripped from her chin when she gasped, “Taevas.”