Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The jolt of fear washed away whatever exasperated fury Lorne had been nursing. What did his annoyance with her—made more fondness than true anger after hearing her explanation—matter when she was dying?
Lorne gathered Adeline up in his arms. She was shivering, as if caught in a snowstorm, and he cradled her close against his chest. “You’re going to be all right.”
She tucked her head against his shoulder, her grip tightening.
He turned, shooting a look at his father. “She needs the fleech dragons.”
His father nodded as he hurried to open the tent flap, holding it open as Lorne ducked through, Adeline in his arms.
“I’ll fetch a horse.” Orvyn burst out of the tent on Lorne’s heels.
“The queen! The queen has been poisoned!”
The shout came from the group of Kelvernese lords and guards who had come with Adeline and stopped a hundred yards away.
Lorne spun to face that direction, even as several of the lords and guards sprinted toward the tent. Behind him, there came a shout of “Protect the king!” from the Lalsacian guards.
This war could spark all over again at any moment.
Likely the intent of the lord who had poisoned Adeline. Lord Sarlon was lingering back, strolling forward but not joining the surge to protect his queen. After all, he wouldn’t want to die in the battle he was in the process of starting.
Adeline wiggled in Lorne’s grip, a clear sign that she wanted to stand. He set her down, and she took a tottering step away from him, somehow straightening her shoulders. She lifted a hand, her voice rising to carry over the hubbub. “Halt, everyone! No one is attacking anyone.”
Her voice sliced with enough conviction, enough command, that the Kelvernese guards and lords staggered to a halt only a few yards away. When Lorne risked a glance over his shoulder, the Lalsacian guards had halted as well, although they had pulled his father into their midst.
That left Adeline and Lorne alone. Just two people standing in the gap, trying to prevent the war from resuming right then and there.
“Lord Sarlon.” Despite the shivering he could see still quivering her body, Adeline’s voice remained strong. “How did you know I was poisoned?”
Farther up the hill, Lord Sarlon crossed his arms, a slight shift to his feet giving away that he felt anything but calm. “You are clearly unwell.”
“Am I? And you could tell that from way over there?” Adeline waved her hand. Then her gaze dropped to her hand, her eyes widening. “It was your ring, wasn’t it? There’s a mark from when you gripped my hand. You poisoned me.”
The Kelvernese guards and other lords were glancing between Adeline and Lord Sarlon, something almost like dawning comprehension crossing their faces.
Lorne stepped slightly closer to Adeline. How much longer would she stay standing? Everything in him wanted to sweep her back into her arms and spirit her away to Lalsacia where the fleech dragons could heal her.
But if he did that, war would break out. There was no telling how Lord Sarlon and his cronies would spin the Lalsacian crown prince abducting their queen.
“Did you kill my parents? Or was that my grandfather’s doing?” Adeline’s gaze remained fixed on Lord Sarlon.
If Lorne hadn’t been looking at Lord Sarlon, he wouldn’t have seen the start, the way the lord’s eyes swung away just for a moment.
Lord Sarlon had been involved in killing Adeline’s parents. He’d helped in starting this whole war in the first place, and he was trying to kill Adeline and prolong it now.
Gently resting his hand on Adeline’s lower back, Lorne faced the Kelvernese. “Lalsacia didn’t kill Crown Prince Elric and Princess Delia. We never wanted this war. But someone in Kelverny did.”
All eyes were focused on Lord Sarlon. He took a step back, his hand dropping to the sword at his waist.
“Guards, arrest Lord Sarlon for treason against the crown.” Adeline pointed, the gesture still strong despite the tremble he could see in her.
The guards rushed Lord Sarlon. He turned to flee, but he had nowhere to go. The guards quickly tackled him, flattening him to the ground.
“Be careful of the poison!” Adeline shouted, but Lorne wasn’t sure anyone could hear her over the commotion of the arrest. Her knees buckled, and Lorne caught her before she fell.
Thaddeus appeared out of the crowd. “They’ll search him. Surely he’ll have the antidote on him. He wouldn’t want to accidentally poison himself.”
“If he were smart, he’d have taken the antidote already and no longer has it on him.
” Lorne swept Adeline into his arms again.
She was shaking even harder, curling in on herself as if her stomach hurt.
“Nor would I trust anything from Lord Sarlon’s hands.
Any supposed antidote he provided might just be even more poison. ”
The lines in Thaddeus’s face deepened. “Then…”
“I’m taking her to Lalsacia.” Lorne spun and marched toward the Lalsacian lines. Thaddeus and the Kelvernese lords would have to finish calming things down. He didn’t dare wait any longer.
Orvyn hurried forward, tugging a large black horse and a large chestnut on leads in each hand. “Sir.”
Just a hint of a smile creased Lorne’s face as he took in the black horse. Warrior, his own destrier. His father must have brought the horse along in anticipation of Lorne’s return.
Lorne had to pass Adeline to Orvyn to swing into the saddle. Once Orvyn handed her back, Lorne settled her in his lap as best he could. The high pommel of the saddle must have been digging into her hip, but she didn’t complain as she held onto him, her face pressed into his shirt.
With one arm around her to hold her steady, Lorne gripped the reins and nudged Warrior with a squeeze of his legs and a click of his tongue.
Warrior burst into a trot, then smoothed into a canter.
The Lalsacian guards parted, giving him a clear path.
As he plunged onto the other side, Godwin and Orvyn rode into place beside him.
If any of Adeline’s Kelvernese guards managed to grab horses and join them, Lorne didn’t look back to find out.
He cantered up the hill toward the wooden palisade cutting across the landscape. As they neared, Godwin began shouting, ordering the soldiers there to open the gates in the name of the prince.
The gates swung open, and Lorne’s destrier charged through without slowing his pace. On the other side, soldiers hurried out of their way as Lorne led the charge through the Lalsacian encampment, its layout nearly identical to what he’d seen on the Kelvernese side.
Then he was out on the far side, his horse charging down the slope of the saddleback ridge.
He kept the destrier at a steady canter for some time, keeping an eye on the horse’s gait and feeling his steady breaths between his legs. As much as Lorne wished to push the horse, pushing the destrier too hard wouldn’t help Adeline.
As a war horse, the destrier was bred for carrying the heavy weight of an armored soldier and its own armor into battle. Unlike a saddle horse, the destrier held up under the weight of two people far better, as it wasn’t that much different than a man in heavy gear.
After a while, he let the horse slow into the walk, the destrier’s nostrils flared and his chest heaving but no more than he would have in a charge into battle.
In Lorne’s arms, Adeline convulsed, then turned her head to retch. He adjusted his grip on her to let her heave and retch to one side of the horse. Transferring the reins to the hand around her waist, he smoothed her hair away from her face.
There was nothing more he could do but hold her and get her to the fleech dragons as quickly as possible.
Once the destrier had rested, he nudged it back into that easy canter, despite the desperation shuddering through him to kick the horse into a gallop.
He wasn’t sure how many miles passed as he, Godwin, and Orvyn alternated walking and cantering the horses. Around them, the mountains grew more forested, the foothills more rolling.
In his arms, Adeline went from retching and shivering to lying still, and the only things letting him know she was still alive were the faint breaths on his cheek and her occasional shudder in his arms.
The road ahead darkened as it disappeared into the thick vastness of the Donnaris Forest. Dense stands of spruces, cedars, and pines intermingled with a handful of oaks and maples that had somehow managed to grow between the evergreens.
Once they were fully enclosed by the trees, Lorne drew Warrior to a halt. The destrier didn’t prance or toss his head at having to stop as he normally would. Instead, he stood there, blowing and lathered, as done in as Lorne had ever seen the large horse.
Without waiting for the others to dismount, Lorne swung his leg over the saddle and slid to the ground with Adeline in his arms. His knees nearly buckled, and he had to stagger several steps to regain his balance. But he didn’t fall, and he didn’t drop Adeline.
He strode away from the horse, trusting that one of his men would see to walking Warrior to cool him off.
Instead, he tottered a few yards deeper into the forest before he sank to a mossy spot at the base of a cedar, Adeline still clutched in his arms. Her head lolled against his arm, her face so achingly pale that he pressed trembling fingers to her throat to check that her heart was still beating.
Her pulse was there, thready and faint. She wouldn’t linger much longer.
Lorne gathered a deep breath and let out an undulating, chittering call.
For long moments, nothing happened. The birds and squirrels fell silent. Only the whisper of a breeze in the needles overhead broke the quiet. Even the crunch of the horses’ hooves as his men led them in circles seemed muted in the stillness of the forest.
Lorne let out another chittering call. Were there any fleech dragons in the vicinity? Were they close enough to hear him?
While the occasional fleech dragon bonded with a human and became more or less domesticated, the majority of the fleech dragons remained bonded only to the land, wild and yet responding when called upon by anyone in Lalsacia to heal.
He waited several more breathless seconds, mentally tracking Adeline’s heartbeats to ensure that she was still alive.
There came a skittering in the tree overhead, sounding somewhat like a squirrel yet with an extra scraping of scales and claws.
An answering chitter called from above before a yellow-green fleech dragon scurried into view.
It was about the size of a weasel with a similarly long and sinewy body.
Scales, larger than that of a snake or typical lizard, covered the dragon while sawtooth ridges ran down its back from the top of its head to the tip of its tail.
Tiny wings were folded against its back.
A few yards from the ground, it unfurled its wings, pushed away from the tree, and glided the last few feet to the ground, landing lightly on the moss next to Lorne and Adeline.
Lorne laid Adeline on the moss, his gaze fixed on the fleech dragon. “Please. Help her.”
The fleech dragon scurried closer, its body wiggling and waddling. It sniffed at Adeline’s face, its tiny nostrils flaring as its slitted, golden eyes squinted.
It lifted its head and let out a louder, screeching call.
All around the forest, other screeching chitters answered before more claws skittered on bark and loam. Fleech dragons in jewel colors from bright red to cerulean blue appeared, bounding over the forest floor or gliding between the huge trunks of the trees.
The first fleech dragon crawled onto Adeline’s chest and curled up there like a cat preparing to snooze in the sun. It began making a growling, purring noise deep in its chest. That sound seemed to reverberate outward until Lorne could feel it in his chest as much as hear it with his ears.
As more of the fleech dragons arrived, curling up on or next to Adeline, they also rumbled their purr. A golden glow pulsed, so faint at first that it almost seemed a trick of the light. As it strengthened, little starbursts drifted around the fleech dragons and Adeline.
Lorne held his breath and Adeline’s hand. Would this work? Fleech dragons couldn’t heal everything. Lorne’s mother would still be alive if that were the case.
He couldn’t lose her. Not like this. Not after everything. He’d begun to lose his heart to her, and he could see himself falling utterly and completely, if he hadn’t already. He wanted to hold her as they celebrated their first child. Their second. The many years of a long and happy marriage.
He’d done all he could for her. All he could do now was sit there, his gaze fixed on the fleech dragons, and hope the magic of those tiny dragons was enough to save her.