Chapter 43
“C ameron, hey, can you hear me?” Levi asked.
Why was it so dark? Where was I?
“Open your eyes, Cam.”
I cracked open my eyelids to find Chlobe hovering over me. The omega medic had a pinched look about her as she studied me for several seconds while I struggled to fully wake up.
“Hello, sleepyhead.” Her warm smile held an edge of relief. “Good to have you back with us.”
“What happened…” My brain felt like cotton wool. “I was…I…Oh shit. Derek! Where’s Derek?” I tried to sit up, but my body was like a noodle. “Fuck!”
Levi stepped into view. “Derek is fine.”
“No, they hurt him. The wraiths, they…Oh gods, he was protecting me, and they were tearing into him and—”
“He’s alive.” Levi pressed his hand to my shoulder. “But he’ll be much better once you’re up on your feet. You need to calm down. Breathe.”
I closed my eyes, but all I could see was Derek’s devastated face, all I could hear were the sounds of the attack and his grunts and cries of pain. “He’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“He’ll be okay?”
“Yes, Cameron.”
Derek had given all of himself to ward off the wraiths, but it hadn’t been enough. We hadn’t been enough. But Levi had shown up and… “Hawke has a golden sword?”
Levi’s mouth tightened. “Not important. What’s important is that you’re safe.” He had a look on his face, the barely restrained anger look. He was fucking pissed, and it wasn’t difficult to guess why.
“The wraith attack wasn’t planned, was it?”
“No,” Levi said tightly. “It was not. The elite are investigating.”
My pulse spiked. Serath was out there? Back in that settlement? “No. It’s too dangerous.”
“The wraiths are dead,” Levi said. “The settlement has been cleared. The elite are sweeping for a breach. The area is warded. The wraiths shouldn’t have been able to get in.”
“But they did. And they were after me.”
Levi frowned but didn’t argue.
“The others told you, didn’t they? They ignored everyone else and targeted me.”
“Yes, Curi told me. But it makes no sense why they’d target you.”
He had no idea how much sense it made. “We have a fucking traitor here in our midst, and I’ll bet my ass that he or she set me up. Sent the wraiths to kill me and leave us without a fully functioning elite team.”
“But that would mean the traitor can control wraiths and somehow bypass Stone Council security.”
I was beginning to think our biggest weakness was underestimating my wannabe murderer. “Then that’s what it means.”
He gave a curt nod. “I’ll file a report with the council. We will find the culprit. You’re safe, that’s all that matters.”
“Yeah? How safe am I without my shield?” An awful thought occurred to me. “What if this wasn’t about killing me? What if this was about disabling me? Take away Derek, and I have no protection. Take away Derek, and I might not make it through the cadet exams, let alone the elite trials.”
“Then you don’t take the cadet exams,” Levi said. “You can skip them. Derek should be back on his feet for the elite exams.”
But he didn’t sound so sure, and my heart sank.
“Levi, how bad is he?”
Levi’s throat bobbed. “He hasn’t regained consciousness. It’s hard to tell. Yarrow is with him doing what he can.”
“But if I get to full strength, then so will he, right? We’re connected.”
“You are. He’s your shield, and his power comes from you, but it isn’t just his power that’s depleted. The wraiths wounded his body. It’s his body that we need to heal now. Willowman is the only one that can do that, but he’s not here.”
But I was. I was here, and I was Willowman’s student. I knew the basic rejuvenation tinctures.
I tried to sit up again and failed. Again. “Gah!” Tears of frustration burned my eyes. I looked to Chlobe. “I know some concoctions. Willowman showed me. I just need the right herbs to get me on my feet, then I can help Derek.”
Levi’s eyes lit up with hope, and it fueled my determination. “What herbs do you need? I can—”
There was a sharp rap on the door. “Hey! Open up.”
“Touron?” I struggled to sit up and managed to brace myself on my elbows this time.
Another knock. “Cameron?”
Levi sighed in exasperation and let them in.
Touron and Curi pushed past him into the room.
“You had no right to run off with her like that,” Curi growled at Levi.
“And you locked the door!” Touron said in disgust. “Are you that desperate for alone time with her that you’d use her injury to get it?”
Twin spots of color bloomed high on Levi’s cheeks, his lips pressing into a thin line.
“Actually, Mr. Halle was following protocol,” Chlobe said. “Wraith touch can, in some goyles, act like a mystical infection and be passed on to others. We had to isolate Miss Basque and test her saliva. She’s clean for infection.”
But Levi had touched me. “You could have been infected.”
“Yes. But as your tutor for this exercise, it was my responsibility to make sure not only you, but everyone else was safe.”
“Well, that explains why you yelled at us not to touch her,” Curi muttered before turning his attention to me. “And you…What the fuck were you thinking running off like that?”
“They wanted me, I was trying to—”
“Sacrifice yourself. Yeah, we get it, but we’re a team. We protect each other.” His dark eyes gleamed with passion. “We could have held them off together somehow until Levi got there.”
“Or until Hawke decided to pull out his golden sword,” Touron said. “What was that?”
“None of our concern,” Levi said.
Touron looked like he was about to argue but thought better of it. “I’m just glad you’re okay. Those wraiths…” He shook his head. “That was bad.”
My mind whirred, going over the final moments of the wraith attack. There’d been something different. Something strange. Oh gods. “Red stuff!”
“What?” Levi asked.
“Red stuff came out of me. Like…red power, and it went through Derek and attacked the wraiths.”
Levi looked over to Curi and Touron, who both shook their heads, seemingly confused.
“You didn’t see it?”
“No,” Curi said. “I was there the whole time, trying to get close to you. I didn’t see any red power.”
“You were under attack,” Levi said. “The mind can play tricks.”
“No, I felt it…saw it. I was tapped out, and then this other power…”
The skepticism on their faces spawned shadows of doubt in my mind. Maybe I had imagined it. The wraith’s touch could have fucked with my head. “How’s Derek now? Did you see him?”
“Don’t know,” Curi said. “We left him with Yarrow at the dorm. Shar and the twins are with him.”
“It looked…bad,” Touron said.
“But we can help,” Levi said. “Cameron, what herbs do you need?”
* * *
My legs were still shaky, my body achy from the after effects of the wraith touch, but I was on my feet.
Thank the gods I’d paid attention in herbology sessions.
I stumbled on the dorm stairs.
“Take it easy.” Levi braced me, taking my weight. “You’re still weak. I can take the tincture to him.”
“No. I need to do this. I have to see him.”
He swung me into his arms and carried me the rest of the way.
Touron and Curi had gone ahead to let Yarrow know we were en route. My old dorm room door was open, and the twins and the guys stood outside.
Shar was inside the room, kneeling by the bed while Yarrow knelt on the opposite side, holding Derek’s slender wrist.
My shield was shriveled and smaller than ever, barely taking up a third of the bed. The imperceptible rise and fall of his chest was the only sign that he was alive.
Yarrow looked over expectantly. “You have it?”
Levi set me down.
“I think I got it right.” I passed him the vial.
“Rejuvenation?”
“Yes. Willowman said it heals and restores.”
“We might need more than one dose.”
“I can make more.”
“Good.” He slid his hand beneath Derek’s head and gently tipped it back to pour the tincture into his mouth.
Some of it trickled out, but most went in, and his throat bobbed as he swallowed on reflex.
“Good,” Yarrow said. “That’s good.”
“Now what?” Shar asked. “What happens? How long will it take to—”
Derek’s form shimmered and began to grow, unfurling from its fetal position until he was the size he’d been before his great expansion.
“It’s working,” Yarrow said.
Derek groaned. “Cameron…”
I exhaled in relief. “I’m here. Buddy, I’m here.”
“Hurts…” he groaned again.
No. I didn’t want him to be in pain. “I need more herbs. I need to make more tincture.”
“I’ll gather more,” Touron said from outside the room.
“I’ll come with you,” Curi said.
“I’ll head back to the infirmary and get Willowman’s appliances,” Levi said.
They quickly left, and the twins ventured into the room. “We should all eat something. We’ll make some pasta.”
They left too.
Everyone needed to be doing something, I guess.
“He’s going to be all right, right?” Shar asked Yarrow. “Now we have this tincture?”
“Yes,” Yarrow said. “It will heal him, but it’ll be slow. I doubt he’ll be strong enough to assist in your cadet exams.”
Fuck the exams. “I don’t care about that. I just want him to be okay.”
Shar grabbed my hand from across the bed and squeezed. “He will be. He’s strong. Just like you.”
“If Willowman makes it back before the exams, he might have a stronger tincture we can use to speed things up,” Yarrow said. “But if not…I don’t think you should take the exams.”
“If I don’t take the exams, I’ll never be accepted by the initiates. I need to move forward either way. I hunted for years without a shield. I can pass the exam without one. All that matters is Derek heals up in his own time.”
“I want to get my hands on the bastard responsible for the wraiths,” Shar ground out.
“The elite are looking into it,” Yarrow said. “They set off as soon as we got back.”
The thought I’d avoided dwelling on since I woke in the infirmary pushed to the front of my mind. I’d been injured. Badly. And Serath hadn’t come to see me. He hadn’t even tried. He’d gone straight to the settlement instead.
It was his job. I got that, but…fuck, it hurt that he hadn’t cared enough to check on me.
“Never mistake my distance for disregard, Cameron. You have my heart, even though I cannot openly give it to you.”
I wanted to believe that. I really did.
But the more he pushed me away, the harder it was getting to believe that the distance didn’t matter.