Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
Sy
The healers had set up our makeshift unit at the foot of the hills, close enough to the front to help and far enough to pretend we weren’t all about to die. The medical tents flapped in the wind. Every breath brought the metallic stench of the battlefield, coating my tongue with the taste of death.
The first responders began arriving through the Veil, a grim procession of the broken.
A vampire missing both legs. A shifter whose arm ended in a mess of tattered flesh.
A mage desperately trying to hold her own eye in its socket.
A dozen healers rushed to meet them, their hands already glowing with frantic energy.
My throat clenched.
Was Barbie hurt? Her tolerance for pain was pitifully low. I had always been the one to absorb it for her.
For twenty-one years, every danger had been ours to face together.
Now she was fighting our evil father without me.
Did she remember to watch her left side?
Who was there to remind her? I’d tried to drill into her the need to pace herself, to not burn through her power in furious bursts. Was she listening?
I needed to know what was happening on the other side of the Veil. The not-knowing was churning my insides into sludge.
Did my mate still stand? Were the heirs even alive?
“I’m going.” For the fifth time in as many minutes, I started toward the Veil.
“Nope.” Pucker blocked my path in his solid form, his muscled arms crossed. How did the ghost now look like a weightlifter? How much energy had he siphoned from naive students? He’d been careful not to take a drop from Barbie, at least, knowing she needed to be at her peak.
I glared. He merely gave me a rueful look. “Barbie made you promise. Remember?”
Of course she’d appointed him as my keeper.
“You’re the best healer here,” he said, his voice losing its teasing edge. “So heal. Show the others what you can do. Earn their respect and actually help. That’s how you help.”
“You need to broaden your vocabulary, Pucker,” I snapped.
“Next time, milady,” he said, his tone unexpectedly earnest. “I understand the need to be there, to do anything but wait while others bleed. I was a selfish dick for centuries. My point is, I want to scream, too. Scream at me. I can take it. But we are most useful right here. Now quit pouting and do the job.”
“Stop talking,” I told him, shaking my head. I turned from the Veil, knelt beside the wounded vampire, and let the healing light pour from my hands.
The vampire’s legs reformed instantly, bone first, then muscle, then skin. He screamed and cursed through the process—creation hurt almost as much as destruction.
Next was a shifter missing the lower half of his jaw. He endured the rebuilding in stoic silence, a pointed contrast to the vampire’s cries.
“Your new chin is a vast improvement,” Pucker told the shifter, hovering at my shoulder. He beamed at me. “Well done, Sy. I always knew you had the talent.”
This, from the ghost who’d once called me talentless when he was only interested in kissing Barbie’s ass.
The healers gaped at me, so impressed that their knees nearly buckled.
“You don’t need to kneel,” I told them.
A head nurse quickly guided me to the most severe cases while the other healers handled the less critical injuries. My hands moved on instinct. Find the wound. Pour in the light. Rebuild what was broken. Move to the next. Repeat.
The relentless healing began to drain me. Creation was not meant to be limitless, not like this. It would be, if Barbie were here—her goddess essence could refill my well. We were always stronger together, but she was on the front line, and I was left behind.
“I must go back!” A freshly healed bear shifter struggled against the healers holding him down. “My pack needs me!”
“You’re going nowhere, soldier!” the head healer barked. “Not until you’ve rested for an hour.”
“We don’t have an hour!”
The ground heaved from a massive shockwave on the other side of the Veil. For a heart-stopping second, the Veil flickered, and I caught a terrifying glimpse of the raging carnage. Fire and shadow wrestled for dominion in the sky. My eyes desperately sought out Rowan and Barbie.
I found Rowan.
A flash of silver hair, and then smoke swallowed everything. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat demanding I run to him, I stand and fight beside our warriors.
The Veil flickered once more and solidified, cutting off the view. In its place, a fresh wave of wounded soldiers stumbled through. I had a job to do. Only I could heal those clinging to the edge of life. As long as a spark of life remained, I would pull them back.
A witch was laid before me, her chest caved in so deeply I could see her spine through the front.
I pressed my hands to her wound, my light weaving flesh and bone back together.
The other healers fell to their knees, calling me a blessed goddess.
They thought this power was a gift from Barbie.
No one but the heirs knew my true nature.
I worked faster, glowing with light and healing everyone I touched.
Beside me, Pucker trembled, his form flickering violently.
“Something is wrong!” he cried out. “My mistress has never been this distressed. I have to aid her!”
“Pucker!” I yelled after him.
He turned, his ghostly eyes pleading. “You. Stay!” Then he vanished toward the Veil.
Seconds later, he rematerialized, screaming at the top of his lungs. “Move the wounded! Get them over the hills, now!”
“Pucker? What is it?” I shouted back, my blood running cold.
“The enemy dead!” he shouted, his form wavering with terror. “They’re coming back to life!”