Chapter 51
Ikar
Iwake in my dimly lit room, immediately assaulted by pain. Though it forces a groan from my gravelly throat, for a small moment, I’m grateful for it because it means I’m alive when I doubted that fact while dreaming moments ago. Relief fills me as my heart pounds within my chest.
“Ikar?” Darvy stands and comes toward me from a shadowy corner of my room, relief easing the creases at the corners of his eyes. But I don’t miss the dark bags beneath his eyes and the weariness in every line of his face.
“What happened to me?” I grind out. My mind is muddled, and all I can see behind my lids is Vera’s face from my dream. Where is she?
“You’ve been walking the brink of death for the past three days.” He laughs without humor as he sinks into a chair near my bed and runs a hand over his face. “Blazing gloam masters,” he mutters.
“Three days?” I ask hoarsely.
Darvy nods, and I try to put the pieces together. I remember the battle, remember the pain of a sword being thrust into my torso…
“They took her, didn’t they?” I curse and attempt to sit up, but fire ignites and Darvy pushes me back.
“We’ve been trying to heal you, but lucent is getting worse. The last originator passed out when we’d barely begun… I can only use Nadiette so many times before she tires, but she’s been worried—”
“We have to leave,” I interrupt as he offers me a cup filled with water. I painfully lift my head to drink. How am I to find Vera in this state?
“Once you’re healed, we’ll put together another team—”
“They could kill her!” I nearly shout, and pay for it with another wave of pain that has light dancing behind my eyes.
“You’re going to undo all my efforts if you don’t calm down. If you want to find her, you have to heal. That means don’t move,” he reprimands me angrily.
“If they let her live… he’s going to bridge with her.”
Darvy nods grimly and clasps my good shoulder. “We’ll work as fast as we can.”
I watch as Darvy pushes a needle through my skin, resorting to healing methods most of our people haven’t had to use regularly in centuries.
I lift my gaze to stare at a small crack in the high ceiling of my personal room.
He was able to finish healing my shoulder a day ago, but the originators, even Nadiette, can only offer lucent for moments at a time without fatiguing now.
It hasn’t been enough to completely heal my side yet, even with the head start Vera offered with her own healing magic—the reason I’m still alive.
“It’s good enough,” I say after he finishes the last stitch.
Darvy shakes his head. “It’s not.”
“It has to be.” I look down. “It’s closed… enough.”
“Barely,” he mutters.
He finishes, and I wince as he secures a knot, then steps back while I slowly grab a clean shirt and gingerly drop it over my head. I hide all signs of pain and raise my brows in success. I try to hide the fact that I feel weak as a newborn foal. Apparently, it shows.
He offers a slow clap. “Congratulations, Your Majesty, you’ve put your own shirt on.”
I scowl at him, then begin gathering items to fill my pack, frustrated with how carefully I’m forced to move.
“I don’t know how much longer the mate bond mark will last. They told us six weeks, but it’s already been three.
” Or has it been four? The past month has been a whirlwind, and I lost most of last week to injury-induced coma.
“We have to go now, or I risk losing not only her, but our kingdom.”
I check the underside of my wrist, the small shimmering gold circle my only link to Vera.
Darvy falls into a cushy chair. “What type is it?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t check, but it’s gold and shimmery. We only needed it to prevent another shifter from trying to mate bond with one of us, and all I knew was it wasn’t the one labeled reproduction.”
Darvy snorts. “You chose the gold one while you were searching for a different woman to marry?”
I whip my head around to look at him, blinking away dizziness. “Do you know about mate bonds?”
He shrugs. “A thing or two.”
“Well, what is it then?” I’m growing irritated.
“Did you ever wonder why it was the most expensive?” He raises a brow, as if I should already know the answer.
“No. The shop was rather… uncomfortable. I just grabbed it.”
“Good thing she ended up being a Tulip and you plan to make her your future wife, or you’d have some explaining to do.”
“Get on with it already,” I growl. He’s getting to be as bad as Jethonan about drawing things out.
“It’s a connection bond, likely the one labeled Never Apart. Some call it the soulmate bond.”
I still for a moment, confused. “Never Apart?”
“I assume so. It’s the only one I’ve ever used—er, seen.” Darvy rubs the back of his neck.
“What does it do?” I stare at the gold circle, dim now.
He appears to consider his words carefully. “If it’s the one I’ve heard about, then it connects you in reality… and in dreams when you’re apart. Have you… dreamt of Vera?”
“Wait. The dreams—are you telling me those were real?” I freeze as a rush of emotion runs through me, and I try to wrap my mind around the fact that my suspicions all those days ago were correct.
He smirks. “It’s a dangerous thing, buying a mate bond without knowing what it is first, especially when it comes to dreams where we often feel uninhibited. Might you have some explaining to do?”
“What? No.” I shake my head, grateful I kept my head on straight. And why does Darvy act like he knows from experience? It’s something I intend to ask about later.
“So if I go to sleep right now, I’ll be able to talk to her?” Hope blooms in my chest.
“If she’s also asleep.”
I look out the window to see the third sun setting.
“Kissing her in your dreams will be quite helpful in the current situation,” Darvy drawls sarcastically.
I scowl at him. Unfortunately, no kissing happened in the dreams.
“Like you said, it connects us in life as well… I used it to find her when the shift king imprisoned her. Led me right to her tent. It glows brighter the nearer you are.”
“What about your magic and hers, they draw together, don’t they?” He lifts a questioning brow.
“Yes, but only within a certain distance, which is too far in this case to be helpful. If I’m able to dream with her, I’ll tell her we’re coming. She doesn’t know they’re real, but I’ll try to convince her.”
“You really should wait a few more da—”
“We leave tomorrow.” Nothing will sway my decision.
“Tomorrow?” Darvy sputters, and I feel a twinge of guilt.
He’s worked hard to keep me alive this week, and here I am, barely healed enough to leave my bed, heading out on a dangerous rescue mission.
Even I feel a twinge of unease. But the stitches will need to be enough, for now.
I shove the worry aside. There is no time to wait.
Who knows what they’ve done to Vera. I intend to make them pay.
“We can heal it more again in the morning before we leave, if you have enough energy. It’ll be enough,” I say firmly.
From the look on Darvy’s face, he doesn’t agree.
“Tomorrow. Tell Rhosse.”
He throws his hands in the air in exasperation, then turns and stalks out of the room, muttering something about me beneath his breath. I don’t hold back a small chuckle, even though it triggers another wince.
Now, time to dream.