CHAPTER EIGHT #2
He stares at me for a moment longer before turning toward the rest of the troops.
“No one leaves the training area. Once you are cleared you will go straight to your bunks.” Then his red eyes are on me again.
“Call your mates.” When I don’t automatically respond he gives me a small shake.
“Ravina, there was just an assassination attempt on your Fates-fucking life. Call your mates.”
My head feels dizzy, and as I go to touch my face, I remember that my hand is soaked in blood and still actively bleeding. “Jesper, Aemon, Nero. You need to come to the training yard. Someone tried to kill me.” Fucking Fates. Someone tried to kill me? Again? “They’re coming.”
“You’re bleeding.” Some of the anger leaks out of his voice.
I wave him off. “I think I landed on a stone when I hit the ground. Nero will heal it when he gets here.”
He nods and begins shouting orders, and that’s when it settles in: there’s nowhere in Damorleia that I’m safe. Nowhere.
Ember and Roz rush from nearby on the training field just as Aemon appears out of the shadows and storms across the field to me.
“I’m fine, this was my own doing,” I assure them, waving my bloodied hand towards them.
Aemon nods, pressing his lips quickly to mine. He pulls away, his face stern and lit with anger, before stalking towards Killian who’s still shouting orders at the warriors.
Ember tsks as she checks out my hand. “For someone as powerful as you are, you seem to get hurt fairly easily.”
“Now, now,” Roz adds. “She was trying to seduce her mate, which looked like it was going well?” he teases, trying to lighten the sudden cloud that seems to have nested over the training yard.
“Ravina!” Nero yells as he comes soaring down. “I can’t seem to leave you alone, now, can I? Oh, shiny!” He scoops down and picks something up before landing on my shoulder.
I hold my hand out automatically and he drops the necklace my mother gave me all those years ago into my hand. Huh, it must have fallen out when Killian pushed me out of the way. “Thanks Nero.”
The cool metal throbs as it lands in my bloody palm and the realm turns sideways.
I feel hands on me before I hit the ground.
Nero’s panicked caws sound distant as the magick in my veins seems to evaporate out of me, making my body feel weaker than it has in a very long time.
The necklace falls from my fingertips and it’s as if everything becomes clear again, but not before the horror of what just happened begins to piece together in my mind.
“Beastie,” Jesper yells by my ear in a panic, and I realize that he must have caught me before I hit the ground. “What happened? Nero, why aren’t you healing her?”
“Well I was about to before she collapsed again. Did you feel that? It was like the bonds were cemented shut for a second there,” Nero says, nuzzling my injured hand as he funnels his familiar magick down our bond, healing the gash.
Vasari’s voice comes in strong. “Soul Magick,” she hisses. “What’s going on over there?”
I swallow, looking up at my friends and Jesper before eyeing the necklace laying beside me. “I think a piece of the Soul Stone is inside that necklace.”
“YOU CAN LET me down to walk, you know. It was my hand that was injured, and Nero fixed that,” I tell Jesper as he continues to carry me through the castle towards the healers.
He glares at me. “You were almost assassinated. Again. Surrounded by our warriors. And who knows what the necklace did to you. No. If you want me to keep my blades to myself instead of torturing every Fates-damned fae on this property then you are staying right here, in my arms.”
“He has a point you know,” Nero adds, unhelpfully.
Jesper smirks at Nero.
“You’re a traitor,” I tell him, though my voice lacks conviction.
It doesn’t take long before we are bursting through the Healer Quarters doors and heading straight to where my mother’s private room is.
My mother tries to sit up but fails, somehow looking even more frail than yesterday. “Maeven, what happened?” she croaks, her lips parted and eyes wide as Jesper sits in the chair next to her bed with me in his lap.
I give him an exasperated look, but all he does is shrug, so I turn to face my mother. “There was an attempt on my life, but I’m fine. I’m here because of something else that happened.”
Her eyes run down my form and notice the dried blood on my hand.
“If you’re fine then explain the blood, darling daughter.
” Her voice may be worn and quiet, but it doesn’t dim the fact that she is a mother worried about her fledgling.
So I take a deep breath and explain everything that happened before I get to the question I need answered to confirm my suspicions.
“The necklace you gave me… Does it,” I take another breath, “Does it have a piece of the Soul Stone in it?”