Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Stavros
Even as pain burns through my abdomen and blurs my sight more than usual, I can’t help jerking my gaze toward the boy. The boy whose shaggy blond hair and freckled face make memories of another teenager swim up from the depths of my mind.
Michas, some part of me calls out, but this isn’t my old friend. It isn’t the boy I watched a riven sorcerer rip apart.
Still, a pang of happiness resonates through the pain when I see this other boy getting to his feet with no obvious injuries other than a scrape on his forehead and a reddish blotch on his cheek that’ll probably bruise.
The shouts and cries of the riot have blurred too, my sense of the rest of my surroundings going increasingly hazy. The press of frantic fingers around my arm brings me back.
Ivy is staring down at me. Her blue eyes have gone so wide I could lose myself in them, but the wax-pale shade of her face sends a jolt of panic through my veins.
Is she hurt? Did the bastards—
I try to ask, but the pain searing through my abdomen seems to have stretched to my throat. All I manage to do is croak, “Ivy.”
“I’m here,” she says, her voice quavering, and the pain in my side sharpens. Her other hand is pressing against the worst spot—fuck, it hurts. “Do you think you can walk at all? There are more Order members coming—we have to get you out of the way—”
A rotund figure appears at the edge of my vision, standing over us. His voice comes out in a rough baritone. “He protected my son. I’ll protect him, as well as I can.” He motions to the boy. “Sebias, here, we need to get this man inside.”
More hands grasp my shoulders, my thighs. As they heft me into the air, the blaze of agony knocks the breath from my lungs.
That fucking asshole ramming into me from out of nowhere—I should have been watching my surroundings more—first fucking rule of combat—
My back jars against a tiled floor. Ivy is babbling thank yous to the man whose shop we’ve intruded on.
“It’s the least we could do,” he says, sketching the gesture of the divinities with a shaky hand. “Take whatever you need to stop the bleeding. I don’t know how else to help. Sebias, let’s clean that scrape of yours.”
Their footsteps shuffle away. Ivy’s still here, leaning over me.
The pain clenches around my lungs, stabbing deeper as I haul in a breath.
“Stavros,” Ivy says, sounding choked, “you’re bleeding so much. It’s deep. I don’t think I can stop it like this.”
She’s so upset. Terrified. I’ve seen that emotion in her before, but this time she isn’t afraid of me but for me.
We’ve come that far. I could laugh at the wonder of it, but I can barely suck enough air into my chest to grunt.
Ivy strokes her hand over my hair and cheek. Her fingers are shaking. “What do you want me to do?”
Something clicks in my head through the hazing of my thoughts. She’s afraid of herself too. Of what she could do.
She’s asking me if she should pour that fathomless, mad magic of hers into me.
My muscles tense automatically as if trying to shut out the very idea. Flickers of Michas’s blood-splattered face, his screams, whirl through my head.
Riven magic always destroys in the end.
Great God help us, how bad must I look for her to even offer?
I part my lips and focus all my attention on forming my breath into words. “I—I’ll be fine.”
The last word fractures into a groan at a fresh wave of agony. A sob breaks from Ivy’s throat.
We both know I’m lying. A chill is starting to seep through my limbs like nothing I’ve ever felt during any battlefield wound.
My own fear stirs.
I don’t want to go like this. I’m not done.
Ivy bows her head close to mine, her voice falling to a raw whisper. “I promise I won’t do anything you wouldn’t want.”
I stare up at her, her face hazing before my eyes. Sunlight gleams through the window behind her, glowing amber as it passes through her red-blond hair.
Like the golden halo artists give those god-blessed in their paintings and tapestries.
The glow seeps into me with a sudden, sharp clarity.
Ivy didn’t destroy anything when she hid us in the forest or concealed Rheave to carry out our plans. No catastrophe rained down on us when she pulled off her tricks with the shield.
How did I not see it before? The power I’d normally revile passes through her… and she colors it with all her strength and compassion.
What she works isn’t just riven magic. It’s hers.
A strange sense of peace washes over me. Ivy has given me the choice, because that’s who she is—the woman I believe in, the woman I love.
And I do believe in her, more than I hate the errant energies she can channel through the cracks in her soul. This woman can take the vilest power in the world and transform it into a force for good.
In the sudden calm, my voice detaches from the pain. I hold Ivy’s gaze as well as I can and force out the hoarse words. “I want… to live. Don’t want… to leave you. Don’t want… to fail the… kingdom. I trust you. Anything… you do… will be right.”
Ivy’s breath hitches. She leans so close her lips brush my forehead in a ghost of a kiss. “Are you sure?”
I can only manage one more word, but it contains everything I need to say. “Yes.”
The pain is swelling again, eating at the edges of my consciousness. But Ivy makes a resolved sound low in her throat and clamps her hand tighter against my side.
Warmth bursts through my torso. It swallows the pain and the creeping numbness; it melts the agony gripping my lungs.
I gulp one full, hungry breath—and my mind spirals away into darkness.
Alek’s voice penetrates my consciousness first, muffled as it passes through the wall. “Should we try to find a healer, just to look him over?”
Casimir answers in a softer voice I can’t totally make out—something about not knowing who’s with the Order.
I blink, my sense of my surroundings coming back to me. I’m sprawled on my back on one of the heaps of folded blankets that’s served as a mattress in our temporary apartment. Another blanket is draped over me to my shoulders.
Memories of my last conscious moments rush in: the boy, the pain, Ivy’s desperate questions…
Tentatively, I push myself into a sitting position. A faint twinge passes through my abdomen, but more like a bruise that’s nearly finished healing than a fatal wound.
Ivy did that. Ivy poured her riven magic into me, and it fused the injured pieces back together.
No horror pierces me at the thought. Only bemusement at the irony that I’ve been fixed thanks to the part of her that’s broken.
She wouldn’t have done it if she wasn’t sure she could control the consequences in a way I can accept.
She and the others must have carried me back to the apartment. And cleaned me up. My bloodied clothes are gone—I’m wearing my other woolen tunic and pair of trousers.
They left my harness on my left arm but removed the prosthetic, maybe so I didn’t accidentally smack myself with the metal contraption in my sleep. It’s lying on the floor within arm’s reach, gleaming and untarnished as if they washed that up too.
The voices in the other room have fallen silent. Did my companions leave?
I’m about to get up and check when the door eases open. Ivy peeks inside.
Her face both brightens and tenses at the sight of me. “You’re awake! How do you feel?”
“Impressively normal.” I glance down at my side. “I’d almost think it was only a nightmare.”
She lets out a rough laugh. “If only. Let me just—”
She slips away for a few seconds and returns with a steaming mug. When she hands it to me, a warm, meaty smell fills my nose—it’s broth, both food and drink.
As I raise it to my lips and take a tentative sip, Ivy sits down next to me, leaving a small space between us as if she isn’t sure how close I’d want her to get. She waits quietly while I fill my stomach with a few larger gulps.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asks. “With… everything?”
From the wariness in her expression, it’s obvious which part of everything she’s specifically concerned about.
All at once, it hits me just how difficult that moment must have been for her too. Not just because of my past reactions to her magic, but because of how it would have reminded her of the one other time she brought someone she cared about back from the brink of death.
The only other time she’s used her power to save a life, she lost an equally dear one… and the woman she saved turned on her for it.
An ache swells in my chest. I set down the mug and turn toward her, reaching to grasp her hand.
With the squeeze of my fingers, I hope I convey the truth of my next words. “I meant what I told you, Ivy. It doesn’t matter what magic you used to heal me. What matters is you were the one doing it. I trust you.”
She exhales a little raggedly. How long is it going to take before she fully believes that statement?
She twines her fingers with mine, but her head droops.
“I keep thinking back to the moment when it happened. Maybe I could have reacted quickly enough to stop him from stabbing you in the first place, and then I wouldn’t have needed to use any magic on you.
But I hesitated—I didn’t have time to think of where to aim the backlash— Even after the training and practice, I’m still scared. ”
I stroke my thumb over the back of her hand. “I think that’s a good thing. The consequences of being cautious should be much less than the consequences of going too far. I’m glad you were there to save me from my carelessness.”
I pause, but I know I need to ask this question. To find out who or what paid so that I could live. “What backlash came out of healing me?”
Ivy takes a deep breath. “I was going to focus on the tree I’ve been using on the abandoned farm. But then I glanced out the window and saw one of the daimon Rheave had marked with a burn. I figured it’d be safer using a target I could see, and something almost human, for an effect that big.”
“It killed him?”
“He at least fainted from whatever injuries I passed on to him. I think one of Emor’s people took care of the rest.”