Chapter 2
EDEN
The roar shook the very marrow in my bones. My knees buckled as the sound ripped through me, the vibration so strong I had to steady myself against the exam table.
“By the stars!” Seraphine complained, stumbling her way toward the window. Her hands dropped to her hips. “Is all that racket really necessary?”
Another deafening roar shook the infirmary, and nerves sloshed around my stomach with this morning’s breakfast. I knew what usually followed roars like that. My fingers blanched around the exam table.
Get it together, I told myself. Now is not the time.
“She just likes to let us know she’s coming,” Matty said, clearing debris off the floor.
Seraphine tsked, muttering as she spied out the window. “I think a dragon landing in the garden is warning enough.”
“Must be a doozy of an injury.” Matty rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “Nisse, get those salves ready!”
Bang!
The door crashed against the wall. Standing in the doorway, framed by a menacing silver-scaled dragon, was one of the grumpiest-looking women I’d ever laid eyes on.
She glanced from my stunned expression to Seraphine’s crossed arms to Matty’s ridiculous grin, and her scowl darkened her face like a storm cloud.
Still, I had to admit, it was a rather nice face—sharp gray eyes, strong nose, rosy lips, and a jaw that looked to be cut from stone.
Her black hair was pulled back in a single braid and tied off with a scrap of leather.
I cleared my throat, suddenly as dry as sand.
The woman’s eyes narrowed in my direction, and my heart flip-flopped. She had the look of every dragon wrangler I’d ever encountered—determined. Fierce. A little wild. But I’d never seen one look quite so miserable. Not that any of that mattered, of course.
What mattered was the man slumped over her shoulder.
“You there!” she barked at me. At me! She hiked the limp body further up her shoulder. “Find Gunther. Now!”
Excuse me? Who did this woman think she was?
A wrangler had their place, and it wasn’t shouting orders at anyone inside the infirmary. She didn’t work here, and she certainly wasn’t going to tell me what to do.
I ignored her, my gaze falling to the patient, assessing the man who moaned against her shoulder. He was obviously somewhat conscious, which was a good sign. His head lolled forward, and the wrangler sagged under the dead weight.
Okay, that was less good.
Whether it was from pain or blood loss, the man was now out cold. And I could smell the curdle of singed flesh. A burn nurse would know that smell anywhere.
“Did you not hear me, burntender?” the wrangler snapped, dragging the injured man across the threshold of the door. “I need Gunther. Move it!”
Matty surged forward to help the wrangler deposit the man on the exam table. “He’s on a house call.”
Laid out, I could see exactly where the dragon fire had caught the patient. It had scorched the side of his tunic, burning away the fabric and singeing the skin across the left side of his ribs. Red-hot blisters swelled over the injury.
“Who’s in charge then?” the wrangler demanded.
All heads turned. S-l-o-w-l-y. In my direction.
Why were they all looking at me?
“This is, uh, Eden. Our new burn nurse,” Matty said unhelpfully. He scrubbed at the back of his neck, eyes flicking from me to the wrangler. “It’s her first day.”
The wrangler made a sound of discontent.
Her gaze started at the top of my head, working over me like a rain-shower, finding every flaw, gathering in every imperfection.
It left my heart thumping wildly in my ears.
But instead of shrinking beneath her stare like she expected, I curled my hands into fists and straightened my spine.
“Well?” she said flatly, looking rather unimpressed. She gestured to the man on the exam table. “Are you going to deal with this? Or are you just going to remain there like moss on a tree?”
Her words rattled me, irritation itching at the space between my shoulder blades.
How one person could be so irksome was beyond me, but as the man on the table groaned, I set my frustration aside, making room for another emotion.
It was an old, deep fear, and for the briefest moment I froze, imagining the dragon fire that had caused the blistering.
The fire that had eaten through his skin, trying to gnaw his bones.
Because that’s all fire did.
Eat. And take. And consume.
I sucked in a sharp breath as memories took me.
There had been so much fire at the academy, so much unnecessary carnage because of lax rules around rider armor.
Here, Gunther had promised me peace. All he needed was an extra set of hands while the dragon migration moved through the mountains.
I was supposed to be spending my days tending splinters and putting bandages on cuts. Not taking point on serious wound care!
But this man needed help, and there were no flames now.
You’re safe, I reminded myself.
“Hey,” Matty whispered, dragging my attention back to reality. “You’ve got me and Nisse here. Put us to work.”
“And me,” Seraphine cut in. “If you need extra hands, I can follow directions.”
I nodded. Burntenders always worked under nurses or healers.
They had a smaller skillset, often versed in tending uncomplicated patients and performing basic dressing changes.
But in urgent situations, they were an invaluable resource, and as I held Matty’s gaze now, I was grateful for his steady presence across the table.
“What do you want me to do?” he prompted, waiting for his first order.
I felt the heat of those sharp gray eyes across the room. Against my better judgment, I turned to the wrangler. She crossed her arms, one thin eyebrow raised—the arrogant asshole.
With a different heat fueling my veins, I snapped into action.
I’d done this before. Hundreds of times.
And I could do this now, despite whatever Miss Grump thought.
“Seraphine,” I said, keeping my voice calm and even. Chaos helped no one in these situations. “Find a pair of scissors and cut the fabric of his tunic away to expose the injury.”
She raced across the room.
“Matty,” I continued. “We need bandages. Lots of them. And antiseptic.”
He whirled toward the supply cupboard.
“And Nisse!” I shouted. She appeared at the end of the hall. “Bring me all the salve you have!”
“On it!” she cried.
With everyone moving at once, I bent close to the wound, evaluating the burn.
Redness. Swelling. Blisters. There was no leathery skin, no char, and no exposed bone.
A classic second-degree. When the man finally regained consciousness, he’d be in a lot of pain, but that meant the nerves were still intact.
My eyes lifted briefly to find the wrangler watching me.
“I need to know what happened. Can you walk me through the incident?”
She frowned. “What does that matter?”
“It matters because the mechanism of injury tells us important information.”
“Mechanism of—what?” The wrangler pursed her lips.
“How did he hurt himself?” I repeated impatiently. “Were you there? Did you see it?”
She threw her hand up dismissively. “When dragon migration season starts, everyone in Ember Ridge is suddenly a dragon expert. If you want to know what happened, it was stupidity. Plain and simple.”
“That wasn’t an answer,” I muttered.
She dropped her hands to her hips. “I got there just in time to see the man throw his arms up against the flame.”
“He shielded himself?” The wrangler nodded. I turned back to the injuries. “Matty, lift his left arm. Carefully.”
Matty did, and sure enough, there along the back of his forearm was another strip of singed flesh. The flame must have caught it as he’d turned away to shield his face.
“Looks like… a first-degree?” Matty said.
I nodded as the man suddenly cried out and bolted upright on the exam table.
Ah, yes, there was the pain I’d been expecting.
He howled louder, the sound making my teeth ache.
“Do you even know what you’re doing?” the wrangler snapped, hovering over my shoulder now.
I turned to scowl at her. I’d been tending burns since I was a little girl. That’s what happened when you spent your childhood in training camps, traipsing after your dragon rider father. “Why don’t you just keep quiet so I can think?”
Her nostrils flared. “Why don’t you—”
“Unless you’re also a burntender,” I said, eyes narrowed, “then get away from my exam table.” Her eyes flashed with something fierce, but I didn’t back down, and she took a deliberate step back.
Over her shoulder, I caught sight of those silver scales slithering past the window. A low warning growl echoed.
“My arm’s falling off!” the injured man exclaimed. I turned to him. “I need tending!”
“What do you think we’re trying to do?” Matty said, forcing him to lie down. “Stop wriggling.”
“Nisse, something for the pain!” I called. “Quickly!”
She hurried out with a handful of jars, handing Seraphine a white cloth soaked in something pungent. “Stick this under his nose.”
The man’s eyes widened in horror.
“Inhale,” I ordered. He did. Sharply. Then his eyelids started to droop. “By the time you wake up, we’ll have your wounds all dressed and bandaged.”
“Mmm…” he mumbled.
“Cool herbal compresses,” I said to Nisse, holding my hand out for them as fast as she could prepare them.
I cleaned the burns and arranged the compresses.
“Matty, clean bandages.” A stack of linen appeared at my side.
“Seraphine, can you make up the bed in bay two? This young man is going to be spending some time with us.”
She nodded and rushed off.
“Looks like he’s out,” Matty said, helping me reposition the man so I could dress the wounds along his ribs. All the while, Miss Grump stalked back and forth, watching me work. Her energy pressed in around me like a storm, lingering, heavy. Most of all, annoying. I wanted to kick her out.
But it wasn’t my infirmary.
Where the hell was Gunther when I needed him?
I finished with the wound and left Matty to transfer the man into burn bay two while I washed my hands. When I was done, I turned on my heel to tell the wrangler her services were no longer required. And that’s when I saw a drop of blood hit the floor.
“What is that?” I demanded.
“What?” she grumbled.
“That!” I pointed at the droplet. “You’re bleeding all over the floor.” I surged forward to inspect her hand. A dark stain oozed through a thin layer of cloth. “Let me see.”
“It’s nothing,” she insisted, pulling away. “I got nipped trying to rescue Buddy over there.”
“Let. Me. See.” I reached out, catching her fingers, and it was like a spark shot down my entire arm. I ignored the way the hairs on the back of my neck prickled and the heat that flamed across my chest. “This looks deep.”
“It’s a graze,” she huffed. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Are you the healer?” I said, snarkier than I probably should have been. She huffed. “I didn’t think so.” She stopped fighting long enough for me to unwrap the poorly tied cloth. Blood bubbled from two deep puncture wounds in her hand. “What in stars-name is this?”
“What?” she grumbled.
“For starters,” I said, “you need stitches before you bleed out. And secondly, why are you not even remotely concerned about infection? This wound is filthy. Do you want to contract some form of dragon lurgy? Is that how you want to leave this world?”
“It’s fine,” she muttered. “I get nipped all the time.”
“I doubt this badly,” I said. “Or else you’d already be dead.
” There was nothing in my contract about dealing with cocky dragon wranglers who were probably taking unnecessary risks with their lives.
If I’d wanted to deal with that, I could have just stayed back at the academy.
But now that I’d found the injury, I couldn’t just ignore it.
“Nisse!” I called. “I’m going to need some yarrow to clot this bleed. ”
She rushed down the hall, bottles in one arm, her mortar and pestle in the other. “Coming right up.”
“Hold still,” I told the wrangler as Matty uncorked a fresh bottle of antiseptic for me. I poured it over the wound.
“Ow!” the wrangler hissed. “You didn’t even warn me!”
“What did you expect?” I shot back. “That it was going to tickle?”
She scowled at me, and it was somehow grumpier than before. “Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired.”
“Well, your sense of self-preservation leaves something to be desired, Miss Dragon Wrangler.”
“It’s Frixsar,” she said.
I glanced up into those gray eyes, like the moon on a clear night. “What?”
“Vaela Frixsar,” she said between her teeth as I jammed the poultice of yarrow into the wound to help form a clot. She jerked.
“Miss Frixsar—”
She grunted. “Vaela is fine.”
“Maybe I should just call you a fool for taking unnecessary risks,” I said, waiting for the yarrow to work so I could throw in a couple of stitches.
Once that was done, I wrapped a healing poultice against the wound with a clean bandage to hold it in place, crisscrossing the linen between her thin fingers.
“You should know better than to leave a puncture wound to fester. How did you even end up with a puncture wound in the first place? Were you not wearing your gloves?”
“I might have left them in my saddlebag,” she muttered.
I leaned closer, making my point. “Sorry. What was that?”
“They were in my saddlebag!” she snapped.
“And what good are they in your saddlebag? What good is safety gear if you’re not going to wear it?
” I threw my hands up in disbelief. Dealing with dragons was extremely dangerous, and the safety gear was already subpar.
But what little protection it did offer was null and void if she refused to use it. “You’re reckless.”
“I don’t need a lesson in wrangling from a burn nurse,” she growled.
“Clearly, you do.” My thoughts flashed back twelve years, to a sky full of fire, to the howl of heated wind, but I beat the memories back, locking them into the box they’d escaped from.
That stormy look returned. “Why don’t you do what you do best and put bandages on things?”
“Gladly,” I said. “Keep that bandage on overnight. You’ll need to return tomorrow for another round of cleaning.”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
“Tomorrow,” I said, yanking the bandage extra tight. She grimaced. “Or else you’ll have more than just gangrene to worry about.”
She huffed a laugh of disbelief. “Is that a threat?”
“Yes,” I said pointedly. “To both life and limb.”
“Fine,” she grumbled.
“Great.”
She turned and stalked out the door, climbing onto her massive dragon. It coiled across the yard, serpentine-like. Then it launched itself into the sky, sending a wave of heated air to ruffle my apron.
Nisse walked over and nudged my arm. “Fun first day, huh? I think that went really well.”
I exhaled sharply, knowing I was going to have some very stern words for Gunther when he returned. Because stars if I was going to put up with the likes of Vaela Frixsar—one of the most irritating wranglers I’d ever had the displeasure of meeting.