Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Mayah hasn’t woken. Not made a single sound in the last hour. If not for the shallow rise and fall of her chest against mine, I’d have lost my mind by now. Anxiety roils inside me like a storm waiting to unleash its rage.
“Mayah.”
No response.
“Mayah,” I try again.
This time, she groans, shifting slightly.
“Mayah.” Baby, please. “Wake up.”
Her eyes flutter open, and my knees nearly buckle with relief.
“We’re far enough,” I mutter, glancing behind me. No energy signatures, no sign that we were followed. “Let’s get that arrow out of you.”
The sun is just beginning to set, its fading light casting long shadows in the small clearing. I carefully set her down, helping her lean against a thick tree trunk.
“Drink.” I hold the canteen to her lips, and she gulps down the water in heaving mouthfuls.
“Easy,” I murmur, tracking the glassiness in her eyes.
A heavy weight compresses my lungs. My chest feels tight, like it did when Faramir once wielded mounds of packed dirt on me as a prank and left me there.
I was trapped for hours until Lev found me and brought Mother.
“I’m going to break the shaft before I remove the arrow,” I tell her. “Then you can heal yourself.”
She nods weakly, wincing through the pain.
I brace the shaft against my palm.
“Hold still.”
A muted crack. Mayah’s breath escapes in sharp pants, her eyes clenched tight. I find her hand and squeeze, lacing our fingers together.
When her breathing slows, I lift her tunic over the shortened shaft, tucking it around her ribs.
My heart stops.
The bloody gash is inflamed, arrowhead almost completely embedded. With every shallow breath, blood trickles from the edges of the wound.
“Does it look bad?” she pants. “Because it hurts like a bitch.”
“It’s only a scratch,” I say, forcing my mouth into a faint smile, even as panic claws at my ribs. “You’re just a baby.” I’m not sure if she believes me.
I hand her the leather sheath from my dagger for her to bite down on. My fingers skim her ribs before bracing my palm against her sternum.
I find her dull, blue gaze.
“Ready?”
“Just do it,” she mumbles around the leather.
I yank the arrow from her flesh, staunching the flow of blood with a heavy press of my palm. Mayah moans in pain, tears streaming down her cheeks. The sound of her agonized whimper breaks something loose inside me.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I murmur, covering her wound with a piece of cloth. “Hold this.” I press her hand over the wound. I don’t want to leave her, not like this, not with tears of pain still dampening her cheeks, but I need to refill the canteen.
I return minutes later from a nearby stream, tipping water into her mouth, along with a few berries I found along the way.
My hands cover hers over the wound, and I pull her back against my chest, holding her until her breathing steadies. Even then, I refuse to let go. If the arrow had hit her heart…
I’d come so close to losing her.
She’s not yours to lose, an unwelcome thought whispers.
I swallow hard, arms tightening around her.
Right now, she is.
Right now, she’s mine to protect.
“Thank you,” she rasps. “I think I can heal myself.”
She closes her eyes, brow furrowed in concentration. Her body tenses, a look of confusion crossing her face.
Her eyes scrunch tight again, before snapping open.
She pulls away from my chest, swaying as she sits up, panic etched across her features.
“What’s wrong?”
“My power,” she stammers. “It’s not working. I don’t know what’s wrong.”
I stiffen.
Fuck. Fucking Skies. Lightning burn them all.
Iron. Skiesdamned iron.
I clench my hands to hide their tremble, before rising and walking to my pack. Retrieving a small tin of herbal resin, I stalk back. Anger courses through me, hot and heavy, choking the air from my lungs.
“Zevayr. Breathe,” she grits out, and I realize the sky has darkened with stormclouds.
“Iron,” I manage. “The arrow was coated with iron. It’s in your bloodstream, suppressing your powers. It’s why you can’t heal. Brace again.” I press the leather sheath back between her teeth before tipping the canteen over her wound.
Fresh tears leak from her eyes as I pack resin into her wound, and the sight guts me more than it should. But I’m past caring about what I should or shouldn’t feel.
I’m in love with her.
It’s as certain as the Skies and as turbulent as the Thunder.
I love her.
Fresh fury batters my chest at the man who put an arrow through her flesh. At every single rebel. At their fucking leader, hiding in the shadows while shaking kingdoms. I’ll kill them all, one by one. Painfully. Slowly. And still it would not atone for the pain they caused her.
I tug Mayah’s tunic back into place before carrying her to the blanket. Settling beside her, I brush back a lock of damp hair from her forehead.
“Sleep,” I whisper. “The iron will be out of your system by morning.”
But even still, I can’t bear to let her go.
Morning arrives as it always does, bright and hopeful. As if all were good and right, as if the woman who ensnared my heart isn’t gravely injured. All throughout the night, she groaned with pain.
I barely slept, terrified she’d stop breathing. Irrational, foolish thoughts, but this is who I am now, I suppose. Hopelessly in love with my brother’s betrothed.
I’ve worn a path in the ground, pacing, waiting for her to wake, eyes fixed on her deathly pale face.
When her eyes finally flutter open, I’m at her side in an instant, helping her sit up, asking how she feels, pressing a strip of dried meat between her lips even as she grimaces.
“Try now.” Hope and panic and fear curdle my blood.
Blue eyes clench shut for a heartbeat. Two beats, then three.
The fear in her eyes when she opens them drives a spike through my heart.
The iron isn’t out of her system.
I try to school my features, to conceal the panic that’s flooding my lungs. From her pack, I retrieve a tunic and chemise—her only spares. She eyes me warily, chest heaving, but doesn’t say a word to stop me. Doesn’t insist she can do it herself.
Wordlessly, I gently lift her bloodied tunic and chemise over her head, averting my gaze from the gray bindings banded around her chest. Goosebumps erupt across her arms and back and belly, my fingers grazing her soft skin as I help her into the clean clothing.
“Thank you,” she whispers, voice hoarse. I don’t trust myself to speak, so I just nod.
Mayah attempts to stand, but her legs won’t hold her weight. She sways violently, arms thrown out for balance, before I steady her.
“I’ll carry you,” I mutter, my voice rough.
“I can walk,” she insists, even as her fingers grip fistfuls of my shirt for dear life.
I don’t bother answering—just lift her into my arms.
We head east, her head resting against my shoulder, arms wrapped around my neck. She’s feverish, her body warmer than mine for once.
Mayah drifts in and out of sleep, her face nuzzling my chest.
Not mine. Not mine. Not mine.
My heart refuses to believe it.
I’ve carried her all throughout the morning and afternoon, but I barely register the ache in my arms. Not when I’m looking at her pale face, sweat gleaming on her forehead, her slight frame propped against yet another tree.
The Arbinj base, with its medics and supplies, is still at least a week and a half out.
“I need to check the wound.” I lift her tunic and swear. The jagged gash is inflamed at the edges, significantly worse than yesterday. Could the rebels have laced it with poison along with iron?
“Maybe my power will be back tomorrow?”
I clench my jaw. “Bastards must have double-coated the arrow. Maybe triple-coated. The effects shouldn’t last this long.”
If I ever find the person responsible, they will beg for death.
She tugs her tunic down, brow pinched with pain.
My teeth grind together. “I should’ve killed them slower.”
“How did you kill them?” she rasps. “You didn’t summon lightning.”
I don’t answer immediately. Instead, I lift her tunic back up, massaging a mint-based ointment around the edges of her wound. It should help numb the pain.
“There are small particles of lightning in the air,” I explain. “Sometimes more, sometimes less, but always present. I harnessed those to kill them.”
“Have you—have you used it in battle?”
Yes. When I killed your friends.
I swallow hard, meeting her gaze for a heartbeat before the guilt becomes too much. “Just once. I can’t do it at will. Only when I’m enraged—too far gone to think. It’s like something else unlocks inside of me.”
“Oh.” A beat. “Was that when Lev died?”
I swallow past the lump in my throat, bitter self-loathing coating my tongue. “Yes.”
The next day passes the same—Mayah still can’t heal herself.
“Hey.” I jostle her slightly in my arms, where she’s dozed off again.
“Mmmm,” she moans, head lolling against my shoulder.
It would be adorable if not for her raging fever and the fact that she can’t remain awake for more than fifteen minutes at a time.
“Tell me about Tundrayn.”
“No,” she mumbles, eyes fluttering shut. “Tired.”
“Baby, please.” I’m desperate. Desperate to keep her talking, keep her awake, keep her alive.
But it’s no use. She doesn’t even hear me, just falls back into a fevered sleep.
Later at night, I make camp.
When I check her wound, I suck in a startled gasp. The wound is angry and swollen, red starbursts radiating out across her torso. She stretches, and the resin seal breaks, yellow pus clinging to its edges. A foul, metallic stench curls into the air.
“Try to heal yourself,” I rasp, voice cracking with fear.
She tries—she closes her eyes and tries and tries.
But even if the iron were out of her system, she’s too weak now from the infection to heal herself.
“Skies,” I mutter, raking a hand through my hair before pacing the campsite, palm pressed against my forehead.
I know with stark clarity what I need to do. What, perhaps, I should’ve done when I realized the arrow was iron-coated.
Will she agree, though?
Skies, let her say yes.
With measured steps, I walk back and crouch before her, my eyes fixed on the angry gash in her side.
“Are you familiar with … power sharing?” I ask quietly.
She frowns, trying to sit up, but her ravaged body can’t handle even that slight movement. I steady her before she falls over, all the while cursing the men who did this to her. I wish I could kill them again.
“There was a man and woman,” she rasps. “Caught power sharing. It’s forbidden. Too much power to one person. Unnatural. Dangerous.”
I nod quickly. “That’s true, yes. If one wielder channeled enough power into another, it would weaken him temporarily and strengthen the other.” I take a deep breath. “But that’s not the only reason it’s forbidden.”
Her brows furrow. She doesn’t know. I don’t know if that makes this harder or easier.
“It also acts as a strong … stimulant. For the wielder receiving the power.”
“Stimulant?”
Her brows draw tighter together.
“Aphrodisiac.” My lips press into a thin line. “If performed without consent … it makes it incredibly easy to take advantage of someone.”
“How do you know about this?” she asks.
“I’ve shared my power before.”
I can’t decipher the expression on her pale face—is that a whisper of jealousy?
“And you want to channel your power into me,” she rasps.
I nod, gently wiping the sweat from her brow.
“Just a little. Enough to fight through the lingering iron so you can heal yourself. I’m—Skies, Mayah.
I’m terrified.” I’m not proud of the way my voice trembles.
“We can keep going, but you’re getting worse.
This would save you. But you need to know what will happen after. ”
A panicked laugh rips from her throat. Fuck, is she afraid I’ll take advantage of her? I’m about to reassure her that I’d never do such a thing when she speaks.
“Maybe—maybe it won’t have that effect on me. Maybe I can fight it off.”
Unlikely. I’ve seen wielders twice her size succumb to the effects.
“Yeah. Yeah, definitely. You’re strong, Mayah. You can do this. And even if you can’t, even if you start feeling … strange, it’ll just be my power flowing through you. I’ll know it’s not anything real.”
It’ll never be real.
“All right.”