Chapter 9 #2
“Please, sir, I didn’t…I mean, I wasn’t going to do anything, I was just following Turner’s orders, I didn’t mean anything by it,” the man who’d cut me begs when they get close to Blackheart.
Quicker than I can track, Blackheart sinks a blade into the man’s side.
His eyes go wide and Blackheart’s remain cold and steady, not a flicker of apprehension or remorse.
Turner gasps and steps back from the man, while Gregor curses, trying to hold the other man upright on his own and struggling.
The man sucks in a wet, rattling breath and I know that he will be meeting Noxum, the Maker of death, very soon.
“You knew the rules within my camp. You chose to ignore them.” He pulls his blade free and the man falls to the floor, Gregor unable to support his now very dead weight any longer.
Blackheart shifts his gaze back to Gregor and Tuner.
“You can share his fate, or you can go. Eight minutes,” he adds, casually wiping the blood from his knife on his pants.
“Fucking hells,” Gregor rasps, clearly terrified, and fumbles with the lock, desperate to escape. When he throws the door open, there are ten soldiers waiting, all armed.
“Escorts,” Blackheart explains with a cold smile.
He shifts his gaze to one of the men at the front of the group.
“Seven minutes, northwestern edge of the post.” The soldier nods and though he looks like he wants to protest, or possibly tear Blackheart limb from limb, Turner steps out into the night with Gregor on his heels.
The snow is still falling and I inhale deeply, letting the smell and feel of it settle me.
Odessa bursts through the group of soldiers as they lead the other two men away, eyes wide in horror and fear.
“What happened here?” Blackheart asks her calmly.
“You had an assignment, Dessa.” I blink at that, surprised to hear him call her by a nickname.
It’s what Mia calls her as well. I try to figure out what that might mean—are they…
together, perhaps?—but then the room sways and I grip the edge of a table to steady myself, gasping.
I will not faint. I will not faint. I will not fucking faint.
“I…” Odessa swallows hard, but shifts her shoulders back, brave and ready to accept her punishment, whatever it might be, but before she can say a word, I cut in, stepping forward and willing my knees not to buckle.
“I snuck out here on my own,” I say firmly.
Odessa snaps her head to me and Blackheart’s gaze follows more slowly.
His eyes bore into me, as if daring me to continue what he knows to be a lie.
I somehow shift my shoulders back and hold his stare despite the cold fury still wafting from him.
“Odessa had no idea I was out of my room. Turner and the others must have seen me walking here alone and took the opportunity to try to take what they wanted.”
The silence that follows is deafening, but I hold strong.
Odessa’s eyes dart between me and Blackheart, unsure, though not fearful despite how truly fucking terrifying Blackheart looks right now.
I honestly don’t know what’s keeping me unflinching at his intense gaze, at the quiet, restrained power within him.
But Odessa doesn’t deserve to be punished for taking care of Mia. None of this is her fault.
“Try,” Blackheart finally says softly and my brow furrows.
“What?”
“Try to take what they wanted.” He studies me in that way he has, the one that makes it hard to believe he doesn’t see right through every last one of my lies.
“This is the second time you’ve been outnumbered and bested trained men.
” My blood chills. He’s pulling at a thread that could unravel everything.
“Not well-trained,” I say, jutting my chin stubbornly.
He gives me a look that says he’s expecting an explanation and will get one, so I give him a semi-plausible answer.
“King Barony made sure that I was trained in self-defense in the event I was ever taken prisoner and collared—or blocked by another Gifted,” I add pointedly.
Surely that’s believable, isn’t it? I know damn well that Tesni would never lift a finger to train physically, not believing for a moment she would ever be without her Gift, but a rational person certainly would.
He seems to mull that over but before he comes to a decision, another wave of dizziness crashes into me so forcefully that I fall to my knees with a gasp, the pain coming quickly on its heels. Blinding. Burning.
“Tess!” Odessa cries, at my side in a heartbeat. “This is bad,” she says to Blackheart as I pant through gritted teeth and try to make the world stop spinning.
“Get her to Copeland immediately. Then bring her.” With that Blackheart strides out into the snow. Once he’s gone, Odessa turns back to me.
“Can you stand?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” I’m not completely sure it’s the truth, but I will it to be.
She nods and helps me rise, quickly scanning the room and running to a nearby table.
She comes back with a rag and wraps it tightly around my arm.
I bite my lip to keep from crying out, but tears burn my eyes, sliding down my cheeks.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” She secures the rag and grips my elbow to steady me as we walk from the room. “Why would you do that?” she asks quietly, ducking her head against the falling snow. “Lie for me like that?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I haven’t seen you all evening. I did sneak out by myself.”
I see her staring at me from the corner of my eye as we walk, the cold giving me strength, her dark brow furrowed.
I turn to meet her gaze and give her the best smile I can muster, which admittedly isn’t great and comes out more as a half grin, half grimace.
She huffs out a small laugh, her lips curling up as she shakes her head.
“My mistake, then.” After a few moments she adds softly, “Thank you.”
We make it to one of the long cabins and Odessa settles me onto a chair while she fetches Copeland. He turns out to be an old man with long, white hair that’s pulled back into a knot at the top of his head, and a long white beard to match, reaching the middle of his chest.
“Makers, what happened here, then?” he asks, voice raspy but gentle.
“I met the…pointy end of…a blade,” I say through gasping breaths, and he laughs lightly, giving me a warm smile.
“Nothing this old man can’t fix, my dear.
May I?” he asks, reaching his hand towards my arm but stopping before he touches me.
I blink, shocked and confused by the question, but nod.
He unties the rag and gently grips my arm just beneath the wound.
I don’t want to look, but I do anyway and immediately regret the decision.
I wouldn’t call myself squeamish, exactly, but seeing a gaping hole in my own arm, flayed skin and muscle and catching a flash of what I think is bone, is enough to make me gag.
I put the back of my other hand to my mouth and take deep breaths through my nose to steady myself, not wanting to vomit on this very nice man.
“You’ll feel heat, but hopefully no real pain. Are you ready?”
Odessa puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder and I nod. Copeland hovers his palms above the wound and an intense heat flares up and down my arm. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s not exactly comfortable. I close my eyes, determined to keep my composure no matter how long this ordeal takes.
“There we are. All finished.”
My eyes flash open and I stare at my arm, mouth gaping.
“Great fucking Makers,” I whisper, and he and Odessa both laugh.
“Copeland is one of the most powerful healing Gifteds in all of Hypathia,” Odessa says and the old man inclines his head in modest thanks.
“Thank you,” I tell him. “That was…that was amazing.” I move my arm, bending and flexing, and find that it’s as if the wound was never there at all.
“I hope you won’t need my services again any time soon, but I am always happy to help if the need does arise.”
“We need to go,” Odessa says urgently. “Thank you, Copeland.”
Confused, I follow Odessa outside, still shocked at how fully and easily I’ve been healed. Duskthorne truly does have quite the collection of Gifteds. We hurry towards…I have no idea what.
“Where are we going?” I ask quietly as we near a crowd of soldiers.
“To witness,” Odessa says, voice laced with anger, and lead settles into my stomach.
We make our way to the edge of the group and find Blackheart standing a few yards out in the thick snow, the tip of his sword resting on the ground, his hands resting casually on the pommel.
Before him is a group of seven men, Turner and Gregor among them, all looking uneasy.
Blackheart turns his head towards us, sensing my Gift, I assume.
He meets my gaze for a heartbeat before turning back to the men.
“You can’t really send us out into this!” Turner complains, throwing an arm out towards the woods in the distance, dark and menacing and dotted with thick hills of white.
“I can and I am.”
“I won’t go. You can’t force us to—” I gasp when Blackheart moves faster than any man his size should be able to move, the tip of his sword now resting at Tuner’s throat, just as it had rested against mine that day by the stream.
The dragon on the hilt seems to be snarling, begging for a taste of the bastard’s blood.
“You’re right, I can’t. But I can give you two very clear options: leave, and take your chances, or stay, and die.”
The other men in the group mumble to each other, exchanging glances. They come to the only real decision and slowly trudge out into the darkness with nothing but small bundles on their backs. Blackheart is truly sending them out there alone? Great Makers.