Page 55 of Winds of Death (War of the Alliance #4)

“Your dacha has never gotten this close to the limit of his magic before.” Uncle Weylind’s gaze rested on Dacha, his eyes filled with a weight as if remembering other battles, others times Dacha had used great quantities of his magic.

“I suspect the sudden draining was more of a shock to his system than it would have been to another elf since his body is used to an abundance of magic.”

Fieran lifted a hand, letting just a hint of his magic twine around his fingers. “Is there something I can do? I have his magic.”

“No, nirshon.” Uncle Weylind shook his head, the grooves around his mouth and in his forehead deepening.

“You have the same type of magic, but it is still your magic. It cannot be transfused into him like blood. If he needs more magic, your macha will sense it. She will see to it that the magic stored in their elishina is returned to him.”

Right. That made sense. Dacha always kept a great deal of magic in the heart bond he and Mama shared, and he wouldn’t have touched it during the battle—not even when trying to overwhelm those machines. Mama would look after Dacha.

Still, Fieran didn’t like sitting there, helpless to do anything.

“He will be fine with rest, nirshon.” Uncle Weylind picked up his pen again, although he didn’t start on his paperwork right away. “His magic will replenish. He merely needs sleep.”

The reassurance only helped so much while Dacha lay there, too still, too pale. The memories of him lying limp in the mud of the battlefield still played in Fieran’s head.

Dacha stirred, his breaths hitching. He didn’t make noise or lurch awake. Instead, he tilted his head, his eyelids cracking open as if even that much was a great effort.

“Dacha.” Fieran still wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. He settled for resting a hand on Dacha’s shoulder, giving a squeeze much as Dacha had done for him when he’d been the one on that bed.

Dacha’s gaze swung from Uncle Weylind up to Fieran. “F…Fieran…” The name was a slurred whisper.

“I’m here, Dacha.” Fieran glanced around. Should he offer him water? Fetch food? Just sit there? He didn’t know.

“Heard…fought well…” Dacha’s hand twitched. Perhaps he meant to indicate the swords leaning against the wall.

That answered one question. Dacha must have been awake at least once to have been told what Fieran had done.

Fieran swallowed and nodded. “You taught me well.”

Dacha shifted a fraction, grimacing. When he spoke, his voice had strengthened somewhat. “I have…one last lesson to teach. But I had not…learned it myself yet. Do not…drain your magic. It is…uncomfortable.”

“You mean inadvisable and something you will not do again.” Uncle Weylind shot Dacha a stern look over his paperwork.

Dacha didn’t do anything as immature as stick out his tongue at his older brother, but the look he gave Uncle Weylind in return was almost the same thing. “I cannot promise.”

Uncle Weylind huffed and scratched a line through something on the page with more vigor than the action warranted. Once done, he added that paper to a different stack than he had the signed one.

“Are you using me as a desk?” Dacha’s nose wrinkled slightly as he peered down at the papers arranged on the blanket.

“Yes.” Uncle Weylind wrote something on another paper and added it to a third stack. “Do not move, otherwise you will mess up my organization.”

Fieran further relaxed against the back of his chair at his dacha’s and uncle’s banter. Surely if Dacha was awake enough to joke, then he was going to be all right.

Dacha tilted his head toward Fieran again. “Call your macha. Tell her…” Dacha’s hand twitched again as his eyes fell closed. “She knows.”

“You can use the telephone in my office.” Uncle Weylind spoke without looking up from his paperwork. “But take the time to wash first. The telephone lines will be busy for a while yet.”

He must be a sight if his uncle was not-so-subtly nudging him toward showering.

“Yes. Shower.” Dacha flapped a hand at him as well, his eyes still closed. “It will help.”

Well, Fieran could tell when he’d been dismissed. He pushed to his feet, turning for the door.

“And you, shashon.” Uncle Weylind’s voice turned that teasingly stern tone once again. “You need to rest.”

“Not tired.” Dacha’s voice was slurred.

“If you are not tired, then you can assist me with my paperwork.”

“I will rest.”

“I thought so.”

Fieran couldn’t help a smile as he eased the door mostly closed behind him.

After a shower that was longer than army regulations allowed—where he scrubbed and scrubbed and pretended he’d cleansed the feel of blood and death from his skin—Fieran made his way to the headquarters building. The MPs let him enter once they saw his identification.

Inside, a chaotic bustle still reigned, with aides, adjutants, secretaries, and army officers hustling to and fro, reporting to this general or that.

Another set of MPs halted him. “State your business.”

“I’m Capt. Fieran Laesornysh. My uncle King Weylind of Tarenhiel told me to use the telephone in his office to call my mother, Princess Elspeth.” If ever there was a time for name-dropping, this was it.

The MPs straightened at all that royalty in a single sentence. But they didn’t shift aside until Uncle Julien called from somewhere just out of sight, “Let him through.”

“Thanks, Uncle Julien,” Fieran called back as the MPs jumped out of his way.

Uncle Julien stepped out of one of the nearby rooms, dark shadows beneath his eyes. He pointed down the hall to Fieran’s right. “Weylind’s office is all the way at the end and to your left.”

Fieran waved to Uncle Julien before he set off down the hall. Even if elves weren’t drifting between the rooms, he would’ve been able to tell he was now in the elven section since the noise almost instantly faded into a more subdued murmur.

At the end, he turned into the room on the left. A large desk took up most of the space, a few neat stacks of paperwork waiting on it. Windows set high in the wall brightened the room while a smaller desk sat beneath the black telephone mounted to the wall.

Fieran took a seat at the smaller desk, picked up the earpiece, and jiggled the lever to call the operator.

Within a few moments, he’d given the direction for Treehaven.

The operators along the route didn’t seem at all surprised.

Then again, given how often Dacha had likely been calling home, they were well practiced at connecting Fort Defense with Treehaven House.

A few minutes later, Mama’s worried voice filled the line beneath the static. “Weylind?”

“It’s me. Fieran.” Fieran rested his elbows on the desk, hunching forward as a lump clogged his throat. He didn’t know how to go about telling her what had happened.

“Fieran.” His name was a breath of relief, and he could picture the way her shoulders slumped.

“Dacha…he…” Fieran’s throat closed. He couldn’t manage to say it.

“I know.” Mama’s voice had steadied, her tone that comforting one he knew so well from childhood. “He’s going to be all right. He just needs sleep.”

Fieran nodded, even though Mama wouldn’t be able to see the gesture. But for a moment, he couldn’t respond.

He’d thought Dacha had been sending him to call Mama to comfort her. But perhaps this telephone call had been for Fieran’s sake as much as for hers.

“What happened?” she asked quietly, a gentle prompt.

“There was this machine. Lots of them.” Fieran found himself pouring the story out to her, barely checking himself before he said anything out loud that shouldn’t be shared over a telephone, even a secure line like this one.

Such as the fact that Pip had retrieved two of those machines.

The Mongavarians likely knew that the Alliance had gotten their hands on them, but there was always a chance that had been obscured by the chaos of battle.

They certainly shouldn’t be informed that the machines would soon be heading to Aldon by train to be studied by Uncle Lance, Louise, and other top mechanics, magicians, and magical engineers.

As he was finishing up, a new voice broke into the line. “My apologies, Your Highness, Captain. But there is an urgent telephone call for His Majesty that must be put through. I will need to ask you to hang up.”

“Yes, of course.” Mama’s tone didn’t waver. “Thank you for calling, Fieran.”

After exchanging hurried goodbyes, Fieran hung up the earpiece. As he stood, he grew aware of the noise in the hall. Something bad was going down if Uncle Averett needed to be informed.

Jumping to his feet, Fieran hurried from the room and down the hall, dodging the various elves who were also hurrying about their duties. As he entered the central section of headquarters, the bustle and voices grew louder, although he couldn’t pick out exactly what was happening.

He didn’t see Uncle Julien, although he could just hear the timbre of his voice coming from behind a closed door on his right.

Fieran caught one of the aides bustling nearby. “What’s happening? Has Mongavaria attacked again?”

Should Fieran rush to his aeroplane? Or rush to the front to wield his magic on the ground alongside Uncle Rharreth and Rhohen?

The aide turned to Fieran. “The king’s great-grandson Lt. Myles Kinsley has been found dead in the rubble of the railyard.”

Someone called a name, and the aide jumped, turning away from Fieran. “Coming, sir!”

Fieran stumbled forward and braced himself with a hand against the wall. He squeezed his eyes shut as the words shuddered through him. Myles? Dead?

Myles. Always ready with a grin. One of the few cousins on that side of the family who actually had a good head on his shoulders. So eager to do his part for the war.

He couldn’t be dead. He simply couldn’t.

Yet war didn’t discriminate. It didn’t care how famous or well-connected a person was. It didn’t care about one’s last name or lineage.

Death could come for Fieran. For his dacha. For his family. As long as this war continued, it stalked them.

Even Dacha with his great power could not prevent it.