Chapter 11 #3
He releases my reins gently, the brush of leather ticklish over my hand.
He sits, regal in his saddle, and nods, something akin to trust in his gaze.
“You’re here now.” He throws me the saddlebag and I catch it against my chest. Then he twitches his reins and moves off towards the dam looming above the village, his horse picking its way through the rubble.
Water seeps from the crack, darkening the white rock. One more tremor, and it will burst. I force down the fear and fork off the path, descending through shady vegetation to the last vestiges of life in the village.
I hear the moans and whimpers of the wounded long before they come into view, lying on stretchers in an overgrown schoolyard. I tie my horse to a branch and focus.
An elderly teacher moves between the dozen patients and their most loyal family members, handing out bowls of soup, clutching their hands, promising everything will be all right. I approach him. “Caelus Amuletos. Volunteer . . . vitalian.”
He clutches my arms in relief. “Thank the heavens. The luminist was the first to flee. No one else here has magic. I can only bandage wounds and soothe their fear.”
“You stopped the worst of the bleeding, kept them calm. That’s good. Take me to the most severe cases.”
The teacher leads me first to a youth close to River’s age, found trapped under a stone wall, his body protecting the young woman now holding his unresponsive hand. His bones are crushed in many places, and he’s bleeding internally. His sweetheart’s tears fall onto grazed skin.
I use spells to quell the bleeding, but knitting bone together takes layered spelling, time we don’t have. I can magically bind the bone—a temporary measure—but even this requires an abundance of magic.
I glance at the other patients. I’ll be drained after healing three. Unless . . . I swallow, and meet the girl’s wide, scared eyes. “He needs a lot more magic than I have.”
She cries. “I don’t have any.”
“You do,” I say softly. I feel sad for asking this of her, for rushing one of the biggest decisions of her life, but it’s the only chance the young man has. “Have you . . . given him your lovelight?”
She shakes her head. “Is it . . . can it save him?”
“It’s pure magic. It can mend bones, repair organs, stitch skin.”
Her breath hitches. “My lovelight kiss would save him?”
“Yes.” Perhaps it couldn’t cure poisons or mend magic meridians, but it could heal just about anything else. Even if a person were on the brink of death.
“And then it’s gone forever?”
I bow my head. “Yes.”
“He’ll never see it?”
“It will stay inside him; he’ll feel it if he wants to.”
She looks hopeful. “Are you sure?”
I hesitate, and shake my head. “It’s only what I’ve heard.”
She strokes the young man’s hand. “He twisted us around. I was the one meant to be crushed.” She meets my eye, lifts her chin. “Tell me what to do.”
“Your heart and mind have to be one.”
“And if only my heart wants this?”
“It won’t work.”
“What if my mind wants to but my heart—”
“It won’t work.”
“I was going to gift it to him during the festival.” She presses her lips to his fingertips. “My heart and mind are one.”
Tendrils of dazzling light unfurl out of her and wrap around her beloved’s arm, his chest, waist, legs, until he is cocooned in shimmering energy. “Can I hold his hand while you . . .?”
I nod, smiling, and call metallic magic to my palms. It’s blistering hot and scorches my skin, but it’s the best conduit. With this, I can pull and redirect the magic of her love.
It takes twenty minutes to channel and fuse the magic into his bones to repair them. He wakes up with a start, bolting upright, calling “Azula!”
I collapse, shaking, against a nearby tree and suck in deep breaths, willing the nausea to recede.
In the corner of my eye, vines of golden magic climb swiftly up the cliff face, tightening around rock. The scale of it is astounding; a dozen men could combine their magic and wouldn’t conjure half. Even the most pain-ridden patients turn their heads to behold it. “Who is it?” they ask. I know.
Quin.
Air ripples with the familiar currents of his magic, a deeply spicy, rich balsam with a soft lingering sweetness. Like determination, and rightness. Determination to do right.
It sinks into me like its own command and I push off the trunk, moving to the next patient.
Over the next hour I’m able to help three more. I’m drenched in sweat, my fingers numb and blistered.
I glance at the cliff. Golden vines unravel at the sides, and immediately new ones surge up the rock on another wave of spice. I taste the bitter scent of exhaustion and my heart hammers.
We have to move faster.
I direct the teacher to move those who can now be moved to the pier, and to make teas with Frederica’s herbs to tip into my mouth.
Another hour passes, five more patients seen. The golden vines are losing their glow; water stains have turned the white rock grey; more bitterness hits the back of my throat. He can’t hold on much longer.
No more time for intricate spells. I resort to pain relief on the last patients, and cruder techniques. Tight bandages, splints to support broken limbs. The vines are a dull, dying yellow as we haul the villagers to the last boat out.
I help a patient off my horse, carefully bring her onto the boat and settle her on a bench. “She’ll need to see a vitalian when you get out of here,” I tell her family.
An elderly man, the grandfather of the young man I saw first, cups my hand in both of his, settling a stone on my palm. “Take this. Our thanks.”
I glance down at a beautiful glimmering opal, and try to hand it back.
“It’s been passed down for generations. Full of magic.”
“That’s much too precious.”
“Please. For saving our Coralus.” He curls my fingers over the opal.
“Everyone on board?” the boatman calls.
I snap my head towards him. “One man is still coming.”
He looks to the hills, worried. “We might have to—”
I lurch across the deck. “We’re not leaving anyone behind.”
He stares blankly at me. “We can’t risk all these lives for one man.”
“Without that one man”—I jerk my hand towards the yellowed vines, sagging from fatigue only to be stubbornly pushed up again—”None of us would have survived.”
Around us the earth shudders. Trees shiver and the boat rocks viciously, banging against the side of the canal.
Patients cry out and steady themselves, and I do the same, slipping the opal into my cloak for safekeeping. The boatman signals his crew. “Go, now. Leave the animals.”
Aklos loose the ropes holding the boat to the pier, and I rush towards them. The vines on the cliff are unravelling faster than they’re being replaced. I shove my way through, the gap between the boat and the pier steadily growing.
“Jump,” the boatman calls, “and you’ll be another man we leave behind.”
I don’t care. I’ll find us a dinghy—anything that can float.
“Can one man be worth it?”
I jump, landing hard on the wooden pier. Quin might be difficult, proud, frustrating, but he came here and risked his life to save these villagers. He’s still here, giving us time to get away.
I haul myself up on aching legs, and leap back onto my horse.