Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Callum’s rage was an oppressive energy, consuming his every nerve as he stood above his brother.
He had forced everyone out of the infirmary but Theo and Helaina. As he observed Aaron’s pale face, he couldn’t stop the cold grip of guilt from creeping in. No being had ever gotten this close to their stronghold undetected.
He thought about getting Lionel himself in his weakened state.
But his power had limits. Maybe he could get to Lionel with the energy he had recovered, but there was no way he could carry him across time and space to get back here. He would sputter out trying, leaving him and the healer in a forgotten place, possibly another realm.
He could only wait at Aaron’s side, stewing in that helpless feeling.
Despite his haggard body, he would not sleep another moment tonight, nor the many nights ahead.
The Divine Allura were not gods; they could be killed.
It was impossible not to have casualties in their hidden world.
Callum just never imagined Aaron could be one of them.
Lionel is coming.
He was going to get here in time; he had to.
“It’s almost sunrise.” Callum held his younger brother’s hand as he spoke, as if to keep him tethered to this world. He was his anchor that wouldn’t falter. He refused to let him slip into the ether.
Callum shifted his attention to Helaina. She sat on the floor, back against the solid rock. She still wore Aaron’s blood; she was painted in it. Theo hovered above her.
“Where did you learn this?” He gestured with his head to Aaron.
“A better question is, why haven’t any of you learned it? It’s simple battle aid—”
“This”—he pointed to the tube protruding from Aaron’s ribs—“this is not simple battle aid.”
She had covered the odd contraption in bandages to keep it in place. Callum had nearly pulled the damned thing out when he first arrived; he’d never seen anything like it.
“Where did you learn it? How did you know it would work?” His waves of hair draped over his dark eyes as sweat cooled his forehead.
“One of our healers wrote about it in her medical volumes.”
“You read it in a book? You let her do this to him with no training?!” Callum shouted at Theo.
“I did have training!” Helaina fired back.
His captain lazily raised his head. “What exactly are you angry at, Callum? If it wasn’t for her, he’d be gone already, just like Agatha.”
Helaina noticeably tensed at the name.
“She didn’t leave him, she kept him safe until we got there,” Theo added.
Callum immediately regretted his outburst. His brother was breathing because of her.
He reined in his capricious behavior and accepted that feeling of gratitude in his chest. His brother was his world, his only blood.
It should have been him out there protecting Aaron.
He would gladly trade places with him if given the choice.
“We used to learn this,” he said quietly, “how to save a life in combat. Since Lionel passed his trial, having the healing light of Nedos in our ranks . . . I guess we started depending on him more than we should.”
Theo hung his head in agreement.
Helaina palmed the side of her hair, letting the strands thread between her red-tinged fingers. The last time he saw her, she was knee-deep in her own blood. She looked better now, more awake—more alive.
“I never said it when I should have,” she said. “Thank you, Callum. Thank you both . . . for following me into the water. For saving my life. And I . . . I’m sorry, for the rock and the whole spitting-in-your-face thing.” She darted her eyes around, seeming embarrassed.
Callum gave a simple nod, accepting her surprisingly genuine apology.
“So you do know how to say thank you,” Theo muttered, leaning against the rock wall.
To Callum’s surprise, Theo’s grin that followed wasn’t menacing. It was playful. Even the tone of his voice suggested a joke between the two of them. What was this girl doing to him?
Some silence passed between the three of them.
Callum had been awful to her in the beginning, and she repaid him by saving such a big piece of his heart. He felt he owed her a piece of him—a truth.
“We’re all we have, Aaron and I.”
Those silver eyes looked toward him, trying to listen despite her obvious fatigue.
“We were kids when our mother placed us in an alley and walked away. It became too much for her, two extra mouths to feed. She left us in the dirt and didn’t look back.
” His throat tightened at recounting his mortal youth.
“She was whoring herself day and night. We used to sit outside the doors of the brothels, waiting until she was done. Most of the time she didn’t finish her ‘work’ until the sun was rising. ”
He wouldn’t make eye contact with her as he spoke. He wasn’t even sure he had told Theo of his past. He had buried it as deep as it would go.
“One night, a few patrons didn’t ask for a woman. Those men had other . . . proclivities.”
“I don’t understand?” How lucky for her.
“The companionship they were seeking was from Aaron and me. They were willing to pay triple the price. She said we were selfish, making her work every night without contributing something ourselves. She said we needed to be men and start helping our family. Aaron was only five, I was ten.”
He heard the audible swallow of the girl as she brought her uninjured leg to her chest and hugged it. Theo’s eyes remained on Helaina, but he knew his captain was listening.
“I wouldn’t let them touch Aaron, not for all the money and food in the world. They couldn’t have him, he was too innocent. I shoved him in a broom closet and told him not to come out until I came for him.”
“Did you hide too?” Her voice trembled with the question.
“No. I fought. I remember scratching one of their faces up pretty good, but it was three men against a boy. They said if I kept causing trouble they wouldn’t give my mother a single coin.
I . . . just didn’t want Aaron to be hungry anymore.
” His nose wrinkled up in a snarl at the memory.
“She received her payment . . . then dumped us on the streets a few mornings later. We never saw her again.”
His chin quivered a bit, but he steadied it. He was shocked by the lack of fear and shame he felt revealing this to her. She was a stranger, a neutral party that knew nothing of him or where he came from. She was safe in a bizarre way.
“Is that why you have no family name? Everyone else seems to. Manos didn’t mention yours.”
He smirked. “Yes, Princess, that’s why. I couldn’t remember it if I tried. I buried any part of my mother and that time of my life. Even Manos can’t reach that pit of my memory.”
He stroked back his brother’s bloodstained hair. “I have always protected him. I’ve never failed him . . . until tonight.”
“One failure in centuries?” Helaina asked, twiddling her thumbs in circles around one another. “I’ve failed my family countless times. We were never perfect, but we were good once. Then I broke us all, beyond any chance of repair . . . I’m the reason my brother and sister are gone.”
Callum noted no tears on her face, only blankness. They were more alike than he had realized. He had misjudged her.
“You’re not alone, you know.”
She looked up.
“In your suffering, I mean. Whatever you’re holding on to.
Sometimes when we grieve, we think we are the only ones who could possibly feel the way we do.
That no one else could understand our pain—but we’re wrong.
There is always another who carries a similar burden.
Tragedy unites us all. Mortals, gods, everyone in between .
. . No one escapes loss. It comes for us all in one form or another.
” Callum brought his gaze back to his brother’s chest, ensuring it still moved.
“What divides us is what we decide to do with that suffering. Do you let it infect you until there is nothing left? Or do you give all that pain a purpose? A reason.”
She clutched her bent leg even tighter, resting her chin atop it, hanging on his every word.
“What’s your purpose, Helaina?” His dark eyes cut through her with the question.
She gave no answer.
Rapid footsteps sounded from down the hall just then. Callum perked up as the steps grew close. Theo’s face mirrored his hopefulness.
The door swung open. That slender, white-haired male entered the room. His coffee-brown skin radiating specks of light as he shimmered in the dimming sconces.
Lionel, thank the gods.
“How long ago?” The healer grappled through the shelves of jars and potions, bundling them in his arms.
Callum didn’t have that answer.
Helaina did. She told Lionel everything.
“Extraordinary,” he said as he continued to arrange his supplies.
Lionel placed his hands on Aaron’s pale chest. His golden eyes began to blaze a glowing white. Even his fingertips possessed the dazzling glow.
“I cannot save the arm; the tissue is dead and gone. There is nothing there to heal.”
Callum hung his head, his whole face scrunching in regret. Aaron’s power came from his hands, possessing the strength of ten men despite his boyish stature.
“But the rest . . . he’s going to be fine.”
Aaron’s smooth, easy respirations were audible. Callum lifted his head to find the once-giant puncture in Aaron’s chest had gone. Lionel pulled the tube from his side, and soon that wound faded too, only the faintest scars remaining.
Callum heard Helaina’s breath give out, like she had been holding it in since Lionel arrived.
She had stayed with Aaron. She could have run and abandoned him. She could have saved herself—but she didn’t.
Callum laid his head on his brother’s chest as Lionel left his side to fetch more items to tend to the arm.
“I owe you my life, Helaina,” Callum blurted out through tears. He didn’t care that he was crying. He didn’t even recognize his own voice. “Thank you.”
He didn’t hear a reply. His shoulders shuddered as he wept to the sound of Aaron’s steady heartbeat.