Chapter Twenty-Three #2
She trotted off to the table, and Stefan turned back to Lord Griset.
“As soon as I’m armed, I’m entirely at your disposal, my lord,” he said, and his tone had gone grim. “Very, very much so.”
“My principal believes his hand may be too injured by Lord Remigius’s magical attack to fight tonight after all,” Lord Griset’s second said, stepping forward between them. “He will need to—”
“Nonsense!” Lord Corombos cried. “Fuck me, but that’s nonsense. Lady Sylvian proposed postponement three times that I recall, and you both refused categorically. Now that your opponent’s on your level, you’re suddenly too hurt to damn well follow through on the duel you insisted on?”
“You’re holding your sword in the hand you claim is hurt, too,” Sylvie piped up. She sounded even more cheerful now that her principal was likely to survive. “You will abide by the terms negotiated, my lords, or I’m afraid this contest is forfeit.”
Lord Griset and his second exchanged glances, the latter shrugging as if to say, well, we tried.
Lord Corombos turned aside to confer with the mage and place him nearer to me, where presumably he could tell if I tried to interfere.
A tense silence fell as the combatants took their places.
Sylvie and Lord Griset’s second stood off to the side.
They raised their swords and arranged their stances. Stefan missed his footing for a fraction of an instant, catching himself and raising his arm.
Dread rose up and choked me, my body nearly shattering with tension.
“Begin, gentlemen,” Lord Corombos said.
They both lunged, moving faster than I could follow, their swords silvery flashes in the night.
Only the scrape of metal on metal told me they’d engaged; otherwise they could’ve been dancing.
Even Lord Griset had become beautiful, in a bizarre way, his body twisting and turning with extraordinary grace.
But he was nothing to Stefan. As a languid, drawling fop, my husband still commanded attention, tall and handsome and witty.
With a sword in his hand, all pretense dropped and his true intensity and focus and skill on display, he’d become magnificent. The sword didn’t even seem to be held, but a part of him, a natural extension as he lunged and riposted, sidestepped and pivoted.
I’d been holding my breath, but I let it out, trying to calm myself, because he’d be fine, he would—and then he staggered, stumbling to the side with his left arm falling limp, and Lord Corombos swore, and Fritz’s fingers dug into my arm painfully as he tensed.
“Surely that’s enough to satisfy you, Griset,” Lord Corombos called out. “First blood, that’s enough.”
First blood…Stefan’s blood, and Fritz had to haul me back, and I couldn’t help calling out Stefan’s name. He flinched, but he’d already pulled himself back upright again.
“I’m not satisfied,” Lord Griset snarled, his eyes glittering and his teeth bared, and he lunged again.
“For shame!” Lord Corombos’s voice boomed out. “You ought to be—damme!”
For a split second I couldn’t tell what had happened. Both Stefan and Lord Griset had gone perfectly still, their eyes apparently locked, the position of their swords unclear in the strange lighting and with their flared coats in the way.
And then Stefan’s voice carried clearly across the distance between us: “I’ve achieved my own satisfaction, Lord Corombos. I can’t answer for my opponent.”
He stepped back. Lord Griset leaned toward him, grimacing horribly.
And then Stefan gave a quick twist of his arm, pulling his sword loose.
The blade gleamed dark. Blood trickled from the corner of Lord Griset’s mouth.
And as Stefan took another step away from him, Lord Griset folded to his knees and toppled over, his second leaping forward to catch him before his torso could hit the ground.
“You’ve killed him!” he cried. “Griset’s dead.”
Dead. Right there, in front of me. Gods, better him than Stefan—and I suddenly remembered that sensation of horror and fear when Stefan had told me he wished Griset had challenged him so that he could kill him and get it over with.
How I’d shrunk away from him, terrified of the husband I didn’t know.
Horror still struck me at the sight of that still body on the ground, at the sudden absence of a person who’d been thinking and feeling and plotting and fighting a bare instant ago.
But it wasn’t Stefan. It wasn’t Stefan, thank Ennolu, and I’d bribe the High Priest a thousand times over in thanks.
“I say, Lord Stefan,” Lord Corombos muttered. “I don’t think you had much choice, but I say.”
“He would’ve murdered my consort,” Stefan replied, his tone grim and hard, with no attempt at all at his usual lightness. “If you’re looking for regret, you’ll be disappointed.”
Stefan turned to me, and our eyes met, and his dark gaze fixed on me with an intensity they’d never had, as if he meant to drink me in and hold me there—and then they rolled back in his head as the sword slipped from his hand, his body swaying and slowly tilting.
My horrified cry blended with Lord Corombos’s shout of surprise and dismay and Sylvie’s scream. “Fritz, let me go! Let me go, damn you!” I jerked my arm out of his hold, and he released me at last, letting me race toward Stefan’s side.
Lord Corombos reached Stefan first, catching him under the arms and lowering him, but I was there an instant later, dropping to my knees and cradling his head in my arms before it could loll onto the grass.
Stefan’s coat fell open. The shirt beneath was soaking wet.
Not sweat. Blood.
“What,” I gasped, all my own blood seeming to congeal for a sick, quivering instant.
Stefan’s head was too heavy. His eyes had closed, his face dead white.
He looked as dead as Lord Griset. I scrabbled at the shirt, trying to pull it away from his body, but it was stuck, and more blood welled up and through it, and if I removed it he’d only bleed out faster, wouldn’t he?
I couldn’t remember anything I’d learned about healing, my mind washed blank with panic. “Wasn’t he wounded in the arm?”
“Yes, he damn well was,” Lord Corombos said. “But that’s a hole in his side. Maybe his belly. He’s almost certainly a dead man, damn me.”
A dead man. Stefan. Stefan, dying in my arms, and I clutched him close, my chest seizing up.
Nothing seemed quite real. I’d wake from this.
Stefan would open his eyes. I stroked his face, leaving streaks of his own blood down his stubbled cheek.
He and Fritz had known about this, and he’d still come running to save my life.
No wonder Stefan hadn’t embraced me, and no wonder Fritz had held me back and told me not to distract him.
He shouldn’t have even been able to stand, let alone win a duel.
And yet he had. For me.
If he died, it would be for me.
I had to save him. Because if he died, it wouldn’t matter that he’d saved my life; that sacrifice would be worthless, because I’d die too, withering away in grief and guilt and despair…
I reached out with my magical senses, trying to find the edges of his wound, to see how much strength he had, but my power skittered away from me, spinning in circles, lost in the same panic that had overwhelmed the rest of my body and mind.
His life ebbed away, pumping out of him with every shallow breath, and I couldn’t, I couldn’t…
“Get that mage over here, make yourself useful!” Lord Corombos shouted. “Yes, you, come on and help, damn you! Leave that fellow. He was dead before he hit the ground.”
The mage left Lord Griset where he lay, rising from an examination of the body to crowd around Stefan with the rest of us.
He had a sharp, intelligent face, and when he laid his hands on Stefan’s chest and half-closed his eyes, the warmth of his power radiated through Stefan and into me, steady and calm, soothing my magic and helping it coalesce into something coherent.
“The wound is deep, but not necessarily mortal,” he said. “It may not be within my skills, though. Lord Remigius? Does your magic not lend itself to healing?”
“I—I don’t really know yet. I’ve only begun to learn. I’m a dawn mage, and I used a potion for most of my life. I’m afraid to try. What if I make it worse?”
The mage nodded. “A possibility with beginners. But reach out and feel his wound with me. You might be able to help me. If you control your curse through your marriage now, he’ll be attuned to you. Especially if you’re compatible.”
I focused on the strong current of his magic rather than on my own fear, and now, when I tried to sense the extent of Stefan’s wound, I could follow the mage’s lead, tracing the depth of it, the ragged edges where something had stabbed through Stefan’s skin, into his internal…
My stomach heaved, and I turned away, retching, my eyes watering, not quite vomiting but choking on the sensation of it.
The mage kept working, muttering under his breath while his magic burrowed under Stefan’s skin and began to repair sliced veins and chase down threads of his clothing that had been pushed into the wound, stopping the bleeding, preventing future infection.
But I couldn’t do it, I simply couldn’t.
If it’d been a stranger I might have been able to overcome my squeamishness and horror.
But this was impossible. Even a sideways glance, magically with my mundane sight, set me retching again.
And so I closed my eyes and gathered Stefan close and focused on his whole self, not just the injured parts.
His smile and the warmth of him and the gleam in his eyes when he desired me, his protective strength and his yielding indulgence when I wanted something he could give me.
The beat of his heart, thready and weak now, that I could match to mine, tie to me, feed my own body’s strength into until it steadied.
To my amazement, it worked. His heart skipped and then settled into a better rhythm, each pulse stronger, each breath slightly more expansive, the energy of his body beginning to glow a little brighter.
“That’s it, Lord Remigius, that’s it,” the mage said, sounding worryingly harried. “If you can keep him alive long enough…”
He trailed off into a tense silence, but he didn’t need to finish the sentence. More than that, he didn’t need to add the corollary to it, that if I didn’t keep him alive long enough, he wouldn’t be able to complete the healing before Stefan’s body couldn’t keep up with the blood loss.
Stefan, I whispered inside my mind, sending the way I felt when I spoke it aloud through the tendrils of my magic I’d wrapped around the fluttering shimmer of his life’s energy.
Stefan. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone.
I need you. My longing and my desperation flooded through his body with every beat of his heart, suffusing him along with his blood.
Out of the corner of my magical eye, I could see the mage’s healing finally taking hold, the wound closing, all of the dirt in it filtered out and evaporated into the ether. Some healing trickled up to Stefan’s arm, too, cleaning out the cut and slowing the bleeding there.
Stefan didn’t wake. He didn’t stir. Nothing visibly changed—not to any of the people watching and waiting for some sign of life.
But I felt it: the tipping point between an inexorable slide into death’s abyss and a slow, burgeoning likelihood of recovery.
Stefan would live. Unless someone else stabbed him, anyway, and I meant to keep a close eye out; twice in one night had to be considered more than enough. Gods, he’d live. I’d never need anything else from the gods again.
At last the mage began to withdraw his magic from Stefan’s body, detaching carefully in case anything went wrong, slowly letting go and allowing Stefan’s natural healing to take over.
I drew back too. Not as much, because I’d never be truly separated from Stefan again.
I saw that now. Every time he’d taken me, every time I’d welcomed him so eagerly, we’d twined together on a level far beyond the physical, the resonance of his mind and soul echoing in mine, mine in his, two matching harmonics melding into one.
But now that I’d recognized that fundamental joining, I could withdraw out of this plane of energy and unheard music into the world most people would see as real, remaining a part of Stefan even as I opened my eyes.
Lord Corombos and Sylvie were still crouched down beside us, wearing matching expressions of anxiety, and the mage’s gaze refocused on the mundane world too as I glanced over at him.
He smiled at me. “Good work, Lord Remigius,” he said, and his voice held a mighty struggle’s worth of exhaustion, far more than would seem reasonable to someone who’d seen him laboring for only a few minutes.
But I knew better.
“You’re a temple mage?” I asked him, and he nodded.
What would Stefan say to thank him? My impulse, to collapse on his shoulder and weep in relief, probably wouldn’t be appreciated.
“Whatever improvements your dormitory’s been needing, consider them funded.
I can’t thank you enough. Thank you. I—” I bit my lip to keep in the sobs that wanted to rise up regardless.
“He needs rest. He may not wake for some time, Lord Remigius, but you probably know that already. I’d send for another healer to confirm my opinion.
Someone more expert than I am.” He pushed to his feet, shrugging wearily.
“I’m more of a legal consultant, though we don’t send anyone to preside over duels who can’t close a wound in an emergency, for obvious reasons. ”
“The servants will take care of you, sir,” Lord Corombos said to the mage, and then to me, “You’re both my honored guests, of course.
You’ll have all the comforts of home.” Without waiting for my answer, he began to give orders to the servants, organizing the unenviable logistics of a comatose patient, a weeping consort, and of course the corpse on his lawn.
Fritz and a pair of footmen maneuvered Stefan onto a litter someone had produced from somewhere; I didn’t care about anything but keeping his hand in mine, remaining by his side. He would live. My Stefan would live. Nothing mattered but that.