Chapter 13
Kier pulled me back before the tip of my boot could hit the silver lake around the mausoleum. Gravity yanked me, and I slipped in slow motion, the dirt around the lake little more than mud.
When I screeched, Kier locked his arms around my waist, catching me before I could faceplant the mud. My bound hands whacked his stomach before rebounding into mine, catching my still-healing wound hard enough to make my eyes water.
“Fuck,” I grunted through gritted teeth.
“Have you never heard the legends, girl?” Jakoda snapped. “If this really is Gaia’s final resting place, it’s surrounded by wards and protections.”
“No,” I snapped back, sharper than I usually would be. “Unless you’ve forgotten, I’m fucking human, so I didn’t grow up sitting around a campfire swapping goblin stories, or hearing goblin tales from the mouth of a sweet mother before bedtime.”
“Zaba,” Kier murmured, so quietly only I heard him. When I wasn’t in danger of falling, Kier brushed my jaw with his thumb, the soft touch full of apology.
I blinked the tears from my lashes and clenched my jaw, looking across the lake at the mausoleum. It was exactly as I’d seen in the vision in the cellar of stars, the vision gifted by… Gaia herself? It seemed insane to even think it, but something had certainly led me here.
My stomach burned, pain scorching across my senses, but I did my best to push it back, to focus on the watery grave that held the answer to destroying Cleodora.
“Do you guys smell blood?” Aerona asked, sniffing the air as she approached the muddy edge of the lake. She turned, her lips pursed when she faced me. I pushed her face back towards the mausoleum.
“Focus on the grave, kid,” I said, knowing the K word would piss her off.
But she didn’t take the bait. Well, shit, someone was maturing. Probably at a faster rate than Ryvan and I. “Your highness,” she said politely, peering up at Kier, several feet taller than her even without his goblin form.
If Kier was surprised to be addressed directly by our most mercurial member, he didn’t show it. “Yes, Aerona?”
“Just thought you’d like to know Letta’s bleeding and trying to hide it.”
I sighed. Heavily. “I’m completely fine, a little blood and pain never killed anyone—”
“That is wildly inaccurate,” Cherish remarked, that focused, serious look in her eye that told me she meant business as she came closer. She nudged Hames’s shoulder, but he was already striding across the mud towards me.
“I’m fine, I just knocked the wound.”
“Then you won’t mind us taking a look,” he replied, all grumpy and no-nonsense.
I grinned. “Nice. Clever.” Us, not me. Kier would take his head off otherwise. When Hames just stared at me, using the power of silence, and everyone else just stared, I sighed and lifted my shirt. “It’d be easier without my hands knotted together,” I muttered.
“You’re right,” Hames muttered, assessing me with a heavy, sombre stare. “You’d be less likely to hurt yourself if your hands are freed.”
“Her hands are bound because she tried to hurt herself,” Xiona pointed out. I was inordinately pleased to find she disliked someone else as much as she disliked me. I wondered how Hames pissed her off.
“I’ll be fine. What’s the verdict, doc?”
“This needs to be repaired again,” Hames sighed. “I’ll patch it up for now, but you need to rest, Letta.”
“Sure,” I agreed easily. Well, lied.
“I’ll make sure she rests once we’re home,” Kier promised, ignoring the betrayed stare I threw his way. He tensed when Hames laid his healing hand on me, but it was only there for a moment, enough to take the pain away and stop the trickle of blood.
“Thanks.” I tried to squeeze Hames’s arm with my bound hands.
Take the dagger from his waistband and use it to gut him.
The command landed so placidly that I didn’t process it until my fingers met cool metal. I whipped the sharp blade up—where Hames’s strong hands intercepted the blow, magic flaring from his rings to give him extra strength.
“Fuck,” I choked out, heaviness returning to my shoulders, my chest, pressing on it until all the air crushed from my lungs. “Get back. Get away from me.”
Everyone except Kier took a step back. Xiona took a step forward because she had a death wish. I swallowed against a sudden lump, unable to look at anyone, my throat full of jagged edges.
“Better get to the mausoleum,” I rasped.
But if Cleodora knew I was here, it was probably too late. She was coming for me.