Chapter 23 #3
A young Temple attendant stumbles past, her arms laden with clean bandages that trail behind her like ribbons. Without thinking, I let loose of Leira’s hand and step forward, catching them before they can touch the bloody floor.
"Thank you," she says, surprise flickering across her scaled face as she recognizes me as human.
"Where do these go?" I ask, my voice steadier than I feel.
She nods toward the adjoining chamber. "To the healer Voss. The naga with the blue scales.”
I follow her direction, moving carefully around wounded warriors and busy healers.
Leira calls after me, and I turn, assuring her I will be alright.
The adjoining chamber has transformed into an organized chaos of pallets arranged in rows, healers moving between them with practiced efficiency.
A female with blue scales and a healer's medallion hanging from her neck looks up as I approach.
"The bandages," I say, holding them out.
She takes them with a curt nod, no time for questions about why a human delivers supplies. "Stay if you have steady hands," she says, already turning to her next patient. "We need someone to hold pressure on wounds while we prepare medicines."
I don't think, I simply nod and roll up my sleeves. My hands, strangely steady despite everything, reach for the clean cloth she indicates. She guides me to a young Talon whose arm bears a deep gash that pulses dark blood with each beat of his heart.
"Press here," Healer Voss instructs, placing my hands over the wound. "Firm and steady."
The Talon's eyes widen when he sees me, confusion momentarily overriding pain. "Human?" he manages through clenched fangs.
"Yes," I reply, meeting his gaze steadily as I apply pressure to his wound. "I'm Serin Valen, the Threadborn’s sister."
Whatever response he might have offered is lost in a hiss of pain as I press down. His scales feel different than Lurok's, rougher, cooler, and lacking the electric thrum that seemed to pulse beneath Lurok's silver surface whenever we touched.
Lurok.
Is he out there now, commanding wind against the human army?
Is he fighting alongside Varok, using the very element I awakened, but fears will destroy his people, or is he being stubborn, and fighting sword against a weapon that could burn the flesh from his bones?
The thought sends a shudder through me, but I force my hands to remain steady on the wounded warrior's arm.
More injured arrive in a steady stream, and I move where directed.
Holding bandages, carrying water, and steadying wounded warriors while healers work their magic and medicine.
My tunic becomes stained with naga blood, my hair plastered to my forehead with sweat.
The air grows thicker, hotter, filled with the sounds of suffering.
As I work, Leira's explanation of the prophecy continues to turn in my mind. The elements are awakening. The Season of Naga is approaching. And Lurok, believing that his connection to me will somehow accelerate the destruction of everything he's sworn to protect.
I press a cool cloth against a warrior's brow, wiping away blood and soot. He murmurs something in naga tongue, his eyes unfocused with pain and whatever medicine the healers have given him.
"Rest," I tell him softly, though I doubt he understands me. "You're safe now."
Am I lying to him? Is anyone safe while battle rages beyond these walls? While prophecy weaves its way through our lives, pulling us toward some culmination none fully understand.
A commotion near the entrance draws my attention. Four warriors carry in another, his massive body limp between them. For one terrible moment, I think it might be Lurok, and my heart freezes in my chest. But even from this distance, I can see the scales are wrong. Dark grey instead of silver.
Relief washes over me, followed immediately by shame. How can I feel relief when another suffers? When families will mourn regardless of which warriors fall?
I return to my task, cleaning a wound on a young warrior's shoulder where sunblight has burned through his scales. His eyes track my movements with wary confusion.
"Why do you help us?" he asks, his voice rough with pain. "You are human."
The question catches me off guard with its simplicity.
Why am I helping? Because suffering demands a response, and these warriors fight to protect their home.
That somehow, in the days since Lurok pulled me from the ash pit, this place, these people have begun to matter to me in ways I never expected.
"Vessan-Kar is my home, and this fight is mine too," I tell him, the truth of it settling into my bones as I speak the words.
His expression shifts slightly, pain giving way to something like grudging respect. He says nothing more as I finish cleaning his wound, but when I move to the next patient, I feel his eyes following me across the chamber.
The prophecy might speak of humans and naga joined by destiny, but here in this room of blood and pain, we are already connected by something more immediate: the shared experience of a world breaking apart around us, and the desperate hope that something better might rise from the ashes.
A hollow ache blossoms behind my sternum, freezing me mid-step. Not agony. Not terror. Something else entirely. My breath catches in my throat as a trapped gale stirs within me, scraping against my ribs and demanding release. My pulse skips and races, untamed as a wild storm seeking ground.
No.
Not mine.
His.
“Lurok,” I whisper, the name torn from me as if by that restless wind.
Across the chamber, Leira’s head whips toward me. The Flame’s light flickers across her tight features. For a heartbeat, we simply stand, two sentinels bound by the same tremor.
“You feel it, too,” she says, voice barely above a sigh, yet charged with certainty as she strides to my side. “How? You didn’t mingle your blood with his.”
“We did, but not in an official ceremony,” I gasp, as another surge rattles through my chest, sharp and unbalanced.
Loose strands of my hair lift as if teased by an invisible draft.
“When he breathed air into my lungs, we tasted each other’s blood from all the cuts from the ash.
He’s losing control,” I manage, voice rough. “The wind… It’s fractured. Unsteady.”
Leira’s breath catches. Her hand flies to the serpent-stone amulet at her throat; its ember-red veins pulse faintly beneath her palm, responding to a call only she can hear.
“Varok,” she murmurs, eyes narrowing. “His fire is… taut. Stretching beyond its tether.”
Before I can speak, Eira glides beside me.
“You feel the bond,” she says softly, yet her voice threads through the clamor of wounded soldiers and chanting guardians.
My heart hammers. “I feel… something. It’s in my veins. It won’t still.”
Eira’s ancient eyes study me, luminous with knowing. “It will not settle because it was never meant to stand alone.”
Her gaze sharpens, addressing me as though I stand on a knife’s edge. “Do you feel the wind answer you?”
I swallow past the weight in my throat, remembering the tornado I created in my room. “Yes.”
“Good.” Her tone holds no comfort, only unyielding resolve. “You understand what must be done.”
My pulse skips. “What—”
“You must go to him,” she commands, as though wielding a blade of light. “Whether he welcomes you or not.”
Leira straightens, ready to protest, but Eira’s gaze flicks to her, unblinking. “You feel it as well,” the elder continues. “His fire strains without your balance. The elements answer his call, but without harmony, his power will turn on more than just his foes.”
Leira’s jaw clenches. She says nothing.
Eira turns back to me, voice lowering until it’s nearly a whisper. “And yours… His air calls to you, Serin. Not in weakness, but in need.”
That word lands like a cold strike, need. Not destruction. Not ruin. Need.
“If you tarry here,” Eira warns, “you will not avert what is coming. You will ensure it.”
Silence crashes down, louder than the groans of the wounded. Something ripples through me, his frustration and desperation coursing alongside my own pulse. My hands knot into fists. “I’m going.”
Leira moves to my side without hesitation. “Then you will not go alone.”
For the first time since we stepped foot inside the Flame room, something like calm settles into my bones. Not peace, but certainty. Side by side, we leave the temple and head for the obsidian gate.
This battle is no longer theirs alone. I am coming to save him, whether he wants me or not.