Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
M y head hurt. The soles of my feet hurt. Shit , my whole body hurt.
Wine was not my friend. It was a temptress who danced with me all night long, then bent me over and fucked me in the arse with a pitchfork before leaving me there to recover alone.
Her merry gifts had been stripped away to leave me with a foul mood the size of a mountain and no desire to ever play with her again.
I rode a camel at Drake's side, heading back towards the city and Kyra sat on her own camel, staring around at the desert in wonder. We'd left the oasis behind and now the dunes swept away ahead of us like a rolling sea frozen in time.
Once, we’d heard Azurea’s bellowing roar in the distance and dread had slithered through my chest like a serpent.
I’d been tempted to throw away the scale she’d given me for fear of it leading her to us, but Kyra had assured me she never would, and the scale was too valuable a prize to simply discard.
When Magdor was dealt with, I would offer it to the emperor along with the Forken sword and hope it would help buy his pardon for my crimes. For now, they were mine to protect.
I clutched the wound on my side which was the keenest pain of all this morning after I’d split it open on that cursed rock last night. The blood that had leaked from it had plastered my tunic to my stomach and the ache was growing to a searing throb.
We travelled on under the baking sun and the horizon became so blurry and bright that I let my eyes fall shut, the steady movements of the camel beneath me the only thing grounding me as my limbs became heavier.
I am made of steel.
I forced my eyes open again, my grip tightening on the reins as I wetted my parched mouth. As the hours ticked by, shivers started to track down my spine and despite the raging heat, I was starting to feel cold down to my bones.
Drake and Kyra were ahead of me on their camels, talking idly as the world tipped and swayed. I reached for the water canteen strapped to my saddle, but my fingers wouldn’t grasp the damn thing as the strength ebbed out of my body.
“I need to...” I couldn't get the words out. My mouth was too dry, and my thoughts were spinning like the wheel on a ship.
It’s just a flesh wound, it shouldn’t be this bad.
The world seemed to shift and suddenly I landed in a soft, fluffy bed of sand. The camel trod on my leg and I groaned further as another injury was added to my collection, but my limbs were leaden and I couldn’t find a way to make them move.
The sky swum in a murky blue pool above me, close then far away.
I was on the verge of losing consciousness when someone struck me hard across the face.
“Say the words, Cass! Say yes!” Drake's voice sailed to me like a distant dream clinging to the edges of my sanity.
“Huh?” I managed to force out despite the heaviness of my tongue.
“Do you agree to me saving you, Cassius?” Kyra's voice. Her dark hair came into view and suddenly it was her I was looking at, not Drake. She was very pretty. Did she know she was pretty? Better tell her.
“You're very pretty, magic girl,” I breathed and her golden eyes widened.
“Oh dear, I think it was the moss,” she said, cocking her head.
“What moss?” Drake demanded.
“On the rock,” she said.
“What rock?” Drake hissed, then reached for her, but she pulled away. “Kyra, help him. I need him.”
“The rock that he fell on, Master. I saw all that lovely pink moss on it, and I thought oooh I remember when that man with the eyebrows died because he ate it that time. I think it’s all kinds of toxic.”
“What man? Kyra, for the love of the Fallen, he’s going to die and I need him,” Drake begged.
“You can touch it, but it can’t get in you. Not your mouth, your nose, your ears, especially not in your blood, that would be very bad,” Kyra said matter of factly then beamed, bouncing up and down and fading in and out of focus. “I remembered something, Master, isn’t it wonderful?”
“Oh fuck, he’s gonna die.” Drake grabbed some sand, packing it against the wound on my side, and pain flashed through me, but I couldn’t move anymore.
Everything was fading and I turned my mind to the princess, wanting her face to be the last thing I held onto.
My final crime in this world, but a sin I gladly committed.
I’ve failed you. Forgive me.
“I can do the saving. You just need to agree, Cassius,” Kyra said.
“Say yes, arsehole. I need you,” Drake insisted, slapping me again.
This fucking thief...
“Yes,” I sighed on what felt like my final breath as the baking sun and sizzling in my veins made me want to fall into the comforting embrace of darkness.
Slowly, it receded. All of it. The pain, the blistering heat, the blinding ache in my side. The air glittered above me, my skin alight with power as a trickle of magic fluttered across my flesh, wiping away the wounds it found, digging deep to cut the infection out of my body.
I groaned, trying to protest to the magic surrounding me as I tensed in resistance of it, but I couldn’t deny how soothing it was, how it was taking away all of my pain and leaving me whole again.
When Kyra sat back, I stared at her, bracing a little as magic continued to spark in her eyes and for a moment I wondered if her gift might turn to a curse. But she just smiled at me, a sweet relief in her expression before she looked to Drake for approval.
“Did I do well, Master?” she asked as he stared at me in astonishment, his eyes fixed on my stomach where my tunic was pulled up.
“You did fucking incredible, Kyra,” he breathed in awe, leaning closer to me and whispering, “You good, mate? She hasn’t turned your brain into a turnip or something, has she?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows and gazing down at my unmarred flesh. She hadn’t just healed the wound on my side, she had healed away every last bruise and cut I’d still been left with.
I looked to Kyra again, this being who declared herself a Blessing, and I had to wonder if perhaps that word did fit her after all.
She had just dragged me back from death's door. I would be taking the dark walk right now, hunting for the eternal garden, if it wasn’t for her.
Or perhaps my sinning soul would have been taking a turn onto the Bridge of Bones, crossing into Hellravia to be punished for my bad deeds.
At least I only had a few of those that I could count, and legend said that once sinners had paid the price of their crimes, they would be free to leave hell and seek out the eternal garden instead.
Kyra leaned down to inspect me, her hair creating a curtain of darkness between us and Drake as she moved so close that her face was only a breath away from mine, her golden eyes swirling with the magic which lived inside her.
She didn’t touch me and that seemed intentional somehow, making me wonder what would happen if she did and whether I could survive it.
She smelled like saltwater and fire smoke, and despite her Fae form returning to her, she seemed wholly other in that moment.
“Thank you,” I murmured, and her eyes lit with pleasure at those words.
“You’re welcome.” She stood up, a wide grin lighting her face as Drake glanced between us with narrowed eyes.
“Right. On to the city then,” he said, holding out a hand to help me up and I frowned at him, remembering it was he who had made the wish to save me. The choice hadn’t come from Kyra.
I took his hand, gaining my feet and relishing the renewed flush of life in my body which I hadn’t felt since before I’d been tortured in that wretched prison.
“Maybe it is you I should be thanking, thief.” I kept his hand in my grip, drawing him closer as I tried to see the truth of why he’d done it.
“Oh, here we go,” he drawled as he moved into my personal space, his face an inch from mine. “It’s already happening, isn’t it?”
I dropped his hand, frowning at him. “I just wish to thank you.”
“No, you wanna kiss me, mate. It’s written all over your face. Told you you’d fall in love with me. Everyone always does.” He clapped me on the shoulder as I scowled, my gratitude falling away in an instant.
“Did you ever hear the story of Onix, the Fae who pretended to be a god and found himself at the end of Herdat’s wrath?”
“Nah, my mommy didn’t read me bedtime stories on account of her being dead and all.” He shrugged and walked away while Kyra drifted after him.
My jaw tightened as I climbed onto my camel while Drake and Kyra returned to theirs.
But I couldn’t stay angry for long when I felt made anew after all these days suffering, and I stretched out my limbs and drank in the feeling of not hurting anymore.
I’d be able to train harder during my morning workouts again, and find some solace to the anxiety plaguing me about the threat to the kingdom as well as the task that lay at my feet.
I hadn’t always been an early riser, but Marik had ensured I was made one, and I had come to crave it too.
Now, I needed to wake and fall into the routine of pushing my muscles to their limits.
There was nothing like the trickle of sweat down my back at the crack of dawn, knowing I’d already out-worked ninety nine percent of the citizens of Osaria before they’d even woken up.
“We’re travelling very far, aren’t we?” Kyra said after a while. “On and on and on forever. You must like riding camels very much, Master.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s giving me ball blisters,” Drake grumbled. “My beautiful cock is gonna get tarnished next.”
“If he doesn’t like it, why doesn’t he command me to do something about it?” Kyra muttered to herself.
“Wait, you can transport us to the city?” I asked in disbelief.
“I can do anything Master commands,” she said, smiling proudly and Drake turned to look at her with his jaw slack.
“You mean to tell me I’m out here baking in the sun like some common peasant-”
“You are a common peasant,” I interjected.