Chapter 5 #2
The breathy, singsong sound sent a current down Lunara’s spine, and her back hit the wall. She squeezed her eyes shut, clutching her belongings with white knuckles.
Please, no. Not right now.
The answering giggle did not help.
That infernal laugh followed almost every statement the Voice had ever made—a disturbingly cheerful, mischievous tinkling that was in complete juxtaposition to the words it said.
The intrusions, rare and random as they were, never failed to turn Lunara inside out. Still, she sent out a silent prayer every time, begging the Sisters for the Voice to be real. Friend or foe, it didn’t matter to her.
As long as it wasn’t madness setting in. Anything but that.
Deal with it later. Or never.
Lunara shook herself, shoving her upset into the dark inner dungeon where it belonged, and dumped the items she held on the mattress.
Yes, never was good. Perfect.
In the closet, she pulled an embroidered bag down from the high shelf. Another payment, one she’d never thought to actually use.
She hardly looked at the dresses she tugged from their hangers.
They were all the same, anyway, only their colors and patterns varying.
She stuffed them into the bag as she walked, and added the collection on the bed after.
Though, what she planned to do with a brush and gardening gloves while healing a Demon was outside her comprehension at the moment.
She used one of her moon-woven blankets to hold all the things she didn’t actually need, but that an average Sorcerit would be expected to use. Jars of salve, bundles of cloth—her distractions.
Better for them to think she spent time making potions and creams, infusing them little by little. Better they assume she had only a few tricks up her sleeve, a piddling skill she was known for. That she was just the same as every other Nachthellian.
She could hardly see over the mass in her arms when she found herself back on the porch, ready to go.
“Ach, gimme that.” Thad snatched everything away, her possessions looking so much smaller when he held them. “If you trip and break your neck, we’ll be right back where we started.”
He continued to talk as he turned and left, unaware she was frozen to the spot, her booted foot dangling in the air.
Lunara had come and gone from her home so many times, but this was different.
She wasn’t popping into the next village to oversee a birth or mend a bone. She wasn’t foraging for mushrooms, or swimming in the lake, or lying in a field beneath the aurora.
This was another pissing realm.
When she finally convinced herself to move, to clear the stairs and hit the path, the ground seemed to tremble beneath her feet.
At the bend, she spared a single glance behind. Her cottage faded into the endless gloom of the Evesong with every vibrating step, until all she could see were the shadows and branches crowding her between the glowing flora and twinkling dust.
That was when she turned ahead, towards the portal hidden amongst the trees.
Thaddeus was already holding the toll in his hand when she approached him. “Ready?” he asked.
Not even a little bit.
“Ready.”
With a nod, he tossed the small piece of Straelon into the undulating surface in front of them and held out his hand for her to take.
Lunara’s last thought as she reached out and followed him in, as spectral fingers caressed her skin for the briefest of moments and transported her body away from Nachthelliae, was a desperate plea.
Sweet Sisters, let this not be a mistake.
The first thing Lunara saw was the blood.
Rivers and puddles of it stained an alarming area of the marbled brown flagstones—which meant she should have known better than to dive straight for the mangled creature at its center without being more sure of her footing.
As she slipped and her feet went out from under her, Lunara could only be grateful that Thaddeus had taken her bags and she wasn’t forced to chuck them every which way to catch herself.
Except, just before she went arse-over-teakettle, a massive pair of arms banded around her middle and saved her from the indignity of ever hitting the ground.
“Shite,” a deep voice rumbled, craggy and soft at once. “Are you—”
She lifted her gaze and followed a strong, straight nose upward to meet hazel eyes in a kaleidoscope of earthy colors, wide with surprise beneath an elegant arch of thick brows.
Weeping Sisters. The Demon holding her was the most beautiful male she’d ever seen in her life.
“Th-thank you,” she murmured, trying to catch her breath. “I wish I could say that I wasn’t always so clumsy, but then I would be lying.”
More lies were the last thing she needed.
He blinked down at her, silent, and Lunara didn’t quite know where to look anymore—or why he was still holding her instead of setting her upright.
Hearing her name being uttered in hushed tones snapped Lunara from her frozen state, wrenching her focus back to the task at hand. Scrambling from the Demon’s hold, she pushed him from her mind as she twisted and fell to her knees beside the creature on the floor.
All of the confidence she possessed burst to the fore at moments like these, when Lunara knew without a shred of doubt that someone’s life was depending solely on her.
She called power from within herself, the threads of magic venturing out between her and the male. His heartbeat reached her ears in an instant—weak, wavering, barely there.
Without a thought, she placed her hands on his ravaged chest and funneled magic into him, detaching his mind from the agony of feeling. She knew just from looking at him that he’d long-since gone into a state of shock, his body precariously close to a point of no return.
It was going to take everything she had to heal him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had to expend that amount of power, and the realization daunted her.
No, she had enough. She could do it.
He had to be moved from the floor first—if for no other reason than Lunara’s own bones wouldn’t be able to take hours upon hours of crouching in this position.
“I need a room and a bed, now,” she said.
Shouts sounded in response, but she didn’t understand a word. Her only focus was on forcing the Demon’s heart to move, to pump, to keep him alive.
“Shall we lift him, my lady?”
Lunara spared a glance for the female who’d spoken directly beside her, a stunning Demon with red-rimmed eyes like moss. “I will do it, just tell me where to go.”
The Demon hesitated briefly before standing. “Follow me.”
Ignoring the twinge already starting in her hips, Lunara rose, her hands fused to his exposed muscle and bone.
She bade the male’s body to follow and he left the ground, his particles obeying her commands.
Lunara kept one eye on her charge and the other on the female’s back, the steady pitter patter of blood dropping to stone the only sound as she followed.
It wasn’t long before they came to a door and she was led inside. The bed had been prepared with gauzy, clean linens, blankets and pillows absent and the curtains removed.
Lunara placed the Demon on its soft surface as gently as she could manage. “What is his name?”
The female stood at the end of the bed, gaze distant. “Baldrir.”
“Hello, Baldrir,” Lunara crooned as she detached herself from him, leaving two small handprints of perfectly healed skin, her palms burning as if it had been her own flesh she’d left behind. “And yours?”
“Hedda.” Her voice was thick, trembling.
Lunara pushed a matted lock of black hair away from Baldrir’s beaten face. “I’m going to do everything I can to save him, Hedda,” she said quietly. “I swear it.”
“Thank you.” Hedda drew in a deep breath and made for the door. “Is there anything else you need?”
“My things, from Thaddeus. Otherwise, just time.”
Hedda bowed her head. “It shall be done, my lady.”
Lunara sat on the edge of the mattress as the door closed, lifting the Demon’s large hand in her own. “You are beloved by those around you, Baldrir, which says a great deal. I should think they’d be rather cross if you left them here without your company. Let’s not disappoint them, hmm?”
Light flared as Lunara’s power concentrated between their palms, and she began.
Time wasn’t real in that place, where flesh knit and bones mended. Where power was exchanged for pain over minutes and hours and days.
Where Lunara broke so others could heal.
Every reconnected vessel was a knife to her own. Rebuilding jointed places caused hers to splinter. Each bit of sinew restored and ligament repaired sent a fiery blaze of devastation through her.
She held Baldrir’s violent mutilation within her hands and then accepted it all into herself.
No, Lunara didn’t bleed. She didn’t bruise, or split, or shatter. Her skin didn’t rend in the same places. Her limbs didn’t crack in the same ways.
There was nothing to see, but she felt it. Sisters save her, she felt every horrific second.
Lunara’s fangs cut into her more than once as she clenched her teeth against it, slicing her lips and tongue, shredding her gums. Sweat beaded on her scalp and soaked her dress, the film of hard labor clinging to her. Her throat ached and her head pounded from the screams withheld.
From bearing every raw ounce of Baldrir’s torture in silence.
Silent, but for the whispers she gave him between their shared torment. Soft words she uttered in earnest, their only purpose to uplift and bring him back gently.