Chapter 16 #2
They race across the forest floor, wrapping themselves around our attacker before tossing them into a nearby tree.
The attacker drops to the ground in a limp pile.
I hold my breath, waiting for them to rise back to their feet and continue the assault.
When they don’t rise after a few heartbeats, I figure it’s safe to turn my attention back to Bastian.
I’ll have to worry about what exactly he did later.
“Can you walk?” I ask, dropping down beside him, rocks and twigs digging into my knees but I barely notice. I worriedly cast my gaze to the wound in his side.
“I’ve survived worse, staellara,” he says with a breathy chuckle as he starts to rise. I mirror his movements. When he reaches his full height, he sways on the spot, and I have to reach out to steady him.
“You sure about that?” I give him a wry look.
“I’ll be fine,” he says, taking a step out of my arms, but he stumbles a bit as if he’s had one too many drinks at the tavern.
I dart to his side, taking his good arm and wrapping it around my shoulders for support. I snake my arm around his waist, careful to avoid the arrow in his side. “Let’s go.” I scoop up the rucksack he dropped.
We stumble along, me supporting much of Bastian’s weight. I’m just glad he stopped fighting me about how he was fine when it’s growing increasingly clear he’s not in good shape.
We’re still several feet from the faerie ring when I hear the change in his breathing. It’s shallow and I’m having to support more of his weight than before. I grit my teeth as I pull him along with me. “We’re almost there. Hold on.”
We’re only steps from the portal when another arrow lodges itself in the back of my upper thigh. I yelp in pain as I stumble, pulling us both into the faerie ring and falling.
Falling.
Falling.
As we stumble out the other side, his body weight drags me to the ground, causing pain to radiate through my leg as it’s jostled.
I roll to my side so I’m facing Bastian and avoiding shifting the arrow. His chest barely is rising and falling. His face entirely too pale.
I sit up too fast, the world tilts for a moment and my vision goes black and spotty. I don’t even wait to recover before I’m crawling to hover above him.
“Bastian?” I run my hand across his forehead, brushing his hair back. His eyes are squeezed shut and his jaw is clenched in pain. His forehead is damp, slick with sweat. “We need to get moving. Can you move?”
All he offers up is a grunt in response. I’m starting to feel panicky and dizzy from blood loss. I glance around the snow-dusted clearing we landed in.
I don’t recognize anything around us.
The portal outside Grimhallow was that same dreary, overcast as the rest of what I’ve seen of the Unseelie lands.
This is… not that.
The sky is a deep violet, with streaks of blues and greens that sway and move as if they were clouds drifting. The trees are massive evergreens, coated in snow.
It almost looks like the glade from Fleur’s vision. But how the fuck would we have ended up there?
A soft groan of pain draws my attention back to Bastian.
Looking around again, I don’t even know where to take him. At the edge of trees, I can see what looks like the base of a mountain. I’m hoping if we head that way I can find something. But we need to get out of the elements, and I need to get the arrows out of his body. Mine too.
“Okay,” I grunt as I lift myself to my feet.
I sway briefly and throw my arms out to either side so I can regain my balance before I haul the rucksack back onto my shoulder.
“Looks like I’ll be dragging you with me until I can find us shelter.
” Bending over, I pull him up into a sitting position.
He can barely hold himself upright, which is going to make this trek all the more difficult.
With some deep-down strength I tap into, I’m able to pull him to his feet, bracing the entirety of his weight against my body to support him.
I whimper at the sensation that shoots through my leg as I put both of our weights on it. I close my eyes and breathe through the waves of pain, fighting back the nausea. Once I think I can manage, I set off in search of somewhere safe to assess our injuries.
It takes nearly half an hour of me limping and dragging Bastian’s limp body along before I finally spot a small cave entrance. It’s not the most ideal situation, but it’s certainly better than staying in the forest when night falls.
Dragging us through the mouth of the cave, I see that it’s not too large, but it’s at least big enough to lay Bastian out and help him. Thankfully, there’s no sign that an animal has been using this cave as its home.
I lay him down as gently as I can on his uninjured side and kneel beside him. His breaths are still coming, although short and shallow. But his pale face has taken on an almost peaceful look, as if he’s sleeping. I let out a soft curse. He must have passed out on the walk here.
My anxiety is only ratcheting up higher in the wake of this. It’s almost enough to take my mind off my own pain.
“I really hope you didn’t like this shirt,” I say as a warning before I rip it down the front to take it off and get a better look at the arrows. I tear the holes around the shafts wider, so they don’t jostle as I pull the cloth from his body.
I run my fingers along the spot where the arrow is embedded in his side. The bleeding has slowed which I can’t tell is a good or bad thing, but instincts are telling me it’s bad.
“Don’t die on me. Please, please,” I plead with him and the gods and the Fates and anyone who will listen.
How is one even supposed to remove an arrow?
Do you pull it out? Push it through?
I try to remember if I’ve ever read anything about this. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to pull it out but I also know that if I push it through, it will only do more damage, and I’d rather avoid that situation.
I grasp the shaft of the arrow where it disappears into his side.
I close my eyes and take a deep, centering breath.
I open my eyes and look back at his relaxed face.
“I’m so sorry for this,” I whisper softly before I yank the arrow free in one swift pull.
As it comes free, the arrowhead grazes my hand where it’s braced on his chest, and a searing burn runs through it.
I hiss as I pull my hand away and inspect the source of the pain.
It doesn’t have a cut but there’s a raised, pink line that looks almost like a…
burn? How is that possible? It’s not hot… Unless—
My eyes jump to the arrowhead and notice it’s made of a dark silvery gray metal.
Oh no.
I think this is iron.
I take a chance and touch the tip with my index finger, hissing as I yank my hand away. The same pinkish welt appears on my fingertip.
Definitely iron.
Which is lethal to Fae as I’m starting to recall.
Which means I really need to get that other arrow out of his shoulder.
And the one in my leg.
I make quick work of ripping my tunic into strips so I can plug the wound with it and hopefully stop the bleeding that started up again once I removed the arrow.
Once that’s settled into something that should work for now, I roll Bastian onto his stomach to get better access to the last arrow where it’s embedded in his shoulder.
I follow the same steps as before. Grasp the shaft, deep breath, swift pull.
This time once the arrow slips free, Bastian’s body flinches and he lets out a hissed breath.
“I’m sorry!” I rush to apologize. “I needed to get the arrows out.” I plug the wound like I did for the first and slowly help to roll him to his back so I can get a look at his face. His eyes are squeezed shut as he breathes through the pain. “The arrowheads were made of—”
“Iron,” he cuts me off with a rough voice.
“Yeah… A-are you going to be okay?”
He lets out a deep breath. “Yeah… I just… need some rest.”
“Okay, yeah, rest,” I force out. With the adrenaline and my worries over him subsiding, the pain in my leg is coming back full force and I’m starting to feel lightheaded. Spots creep into my vision.
I scoot away from him to give myself enough room to sit on my side and stretch out my leg and look at the arrow sticking from it.
Fuck, this is going to hurt.
I gently grip the shaft and test the movement on the arrow to see how deep it went in, but even that subtle movement sends a burning pain through my leg. I do what I can to bite back my cry, but the sound still slips out.
Bastian’s eyes shoot open where he’s lying, and he scrambles to rise. I shoot my hand out to halt his movement.
“Hey, hey. Stop. Lay back down. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
I don’t think my words even process once his eyes land on the arrow protruding from my leg. His expression shifts into one that’s cold, calculating murder with the barest traces of fear and worry buried beneath it.
“You were hurt,” he growls out. “Let me see.”
“It’s fine, I’m taking care of it. Lie back down,” I try to brush off his hands as he tries to pull me closer.
“Let. Me. See.” His voice promises violence and gives no room to argue.
I give in and slide closer, shifting so the leg faces him.
“Fuck, Liv,” he breathes out. I can feel his fingers gently inspecting around the wound.
“I’m sure it looks worse than it is,” I give a breathy laugh, trying to ease his worries.
“This arrow is likely also made of iron so no, it probably hurts much worse than it looks.” He’s quiet for a moment, and with the way I’m turned I can’t see his face.
“You don’t have to pretend to be strong for me.
You’ve already shown me. You forced me to leave with you and then had to drag my unconscious ass to safety.
You’re so much stronger than you even know.
” His hand caresses down the back of my head, tucking my hair behind my ear.
“Now, I need you to relax. I’m going to remove the arrow, but it’s going to hurt. ”
I give a small whimper but nod quickly, biting the inside of my cheek to fight back the tears.
The second his hand grips the shaft, it shifts the smallest amount, and I can’t help but cry out. “I know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll be quick,” he rambles, panic in his voice. “On the count of three, okay?”
“Okay,” I reply, voice thick.
“One… tw—”
He rips the arrow free before he even gets to two.
The scream is pulled involuntarily from my throat and the tears rush free of their dam.
I distantly hear the clattering of wood and metal against stone as the arrow is thrown across the cave.
Bastian’s warm arms come around me and pull me tight to his body as I sob at the receding burn.
“I’m sorry, staellara. I would take your pain if I could,” he whispers into my hair.
“That—” hiccup “wasn’t—” sniffle “three,” I force out through my sobs.
He lets out a soft laugh. “No, it wasn’t. You would’ve tensed up the closer I got to three and I needed your muscles relaxed so it did the least amount of damage on the way out.”
“I guess I can forgive you for lying about it then,” I croak out, my voice hoarse.
His arms tighten around me as he rocks me gently in his hold.
“I’ll need to try to patch that up and then we’ll need some rest before we try to head anywhere.
My healing has already kicked in now that the iron is out.
Yours will probably be slow with your magic blocked but it will be better than a human’s.
We’ll have to patch you up properly when we get back to town. ”
“About that, I don’t know where we are,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we didn’t come out of the portal near Grimhallow. We’re somewhere… else,” I explain.
I can see the thoughts swirling behind his eyes. They flick to the cave opening before returning to me. “Once we’ve rested, I’ll scout it out to see where we are and where the closest town will be.”
“Okay,” I slur out. Without the pain and adrenaline keeping me going, the blood loss is making me drowsy.
Bastian notices. He pulls me away from his body and quickly attends to wrapping my wound with strips of his destroyed shirt.
I drift in and out of consciousness for the duration and the next time I come to, I’m being settled to lie down on the floor, wrapped in Bastian’s strong arms. I burrow my face into the warmth of his bare chest and drift back off to sleep with his citrus and pine scent lingering in my senses.