Chapter Twenty-Three
The aftermath of the battle in the valley was almost unbearable.
As predicted, the clansmen had attempted to ambush Aemyra’s infantry. Laird Maryk had sent more than half of his forces, knowing Dildain would never withstand a siege.
The antidote hadn’t worked, and more than half of the Dùileach became incapacitated in the first hour. Nevertheless, Thear’s trodach had attacked with feline agility. Each warrior had brandished a spear atop their beathach, while the chimeras had struck with claws and venomous tails.
Trapped between chimeras to the rear and the infantry to the front, the soldiers of Clan Leuthanach had nowhere left to go.
Many tried to run through the valley but were cut down by Adarian’s cavalry before they could make their escape.
Several scurried up into the tree branches only for warriors to leap from their chimeras and send their beathaichean up after them.
It was a bloodbath Laird Maryk hadn’t seen coming.
Aemyra had watched it all from the top of the valley, doing her level best to keep Terrea restrained.
She had donned her golden armor as a precaution, but her army had worked in tandem as though they had trained together for years instead of only a few months.
Dùileach and non-Dùileach fighting for their queen and the Goddesses, proving that unity for Tìr Teine could be achieved.
But the immense loss of life had been difficult to witness.
Aemyra had rarely felt guilty for slaughtering Covenanters, but the clansmen were here on the orders of their laird—not a priest.
The sun was now dipping toward the horizon as Aemyra scrambled from person to person, trying to do what little she could for the wounded with the few supplies she possessed.
Smoke from Terrea’s victorious bursts of flame hung low to the ground as phoenixes darted overhead trying to identify the wounded. Chimeras were roaring across the battlefield, some tearing through viscera of dead soldiers with their claws and eating the steaming entrails.
If it hadn’t been for Orlagh’s training, Aemyra would have been worse than useless without her magic.
Aching from hours spent kneeling beside dying people, Aemyra’s scarred forearms were streaked with blood.
A headache forming at her temples, she wiped the sweat from her brow and wished desperately for water.
She had emptied the last of her canteen for a young Leuthanach boy whose thigh bone had been protruding through his skin.
At least he hadn’t died thirsty.
Sparing a glance around, Aemyra staggered to her feet. Coughing as the smoke irritated her lungs, she connected to the Bond to ask Terrea to stop sending plumes of fire into the air in celebration.
They might have won the battle, but they hadn’t won the war.
Nevertheless, Terrea was humming with power as she circled Dildain, taunting the clansmen cowering inside the town, blood cascading through her scales.
Slipping on the blood-soaked earth, Aemyra scanned the bodies for her next patient. Unless Terrea started ripping soldiers apart without leave, she couldn’t waste time on her beathach.
A pained cry sounded a few feet away and Aemyra leaped over the body of a horse to see a small pile of corpses, peppered with arrows.
Four of her soldiers had died protecting a young woman in the middle. A young woman wearing priestess robes.
Mouth dry and legs shaking, Aemyra fought against the panic in her system as she fell to her knees beside Eilidh.
She was still alive, but her abdomen was flapping open.
“Great Mother have mercy,” Aemyra muttered, pressing her hands against the wound. “What possessed you to come out here?”
Eilidh let out a feral scream at the pain and choked out, “I thought the b-battle was oh-over.”
“Stay still,” Aemyra warned, unable to lift either hand from the sizable gash in her stomach, blood pooling underneath her palms.
The scream faded to a whimper. “I need to tell you, w-what I—”
“I don’t care right now, Eilidh.” Aemyra cursed, looking around wildly for another healer. “I told you to stay with Greer!”
The devastation was spread across a half mile of valley floor to the west. Eilidh must have gotten on a horse after the initial push and found herself caught up in the tail end.
“Your guts are intact, but this wound needs to be closed,” Aemyra said rapidly, peering through the smoke-filled valley in desperation.
Eilidh began to cry and Aemyra pressed harder against the rush of blood that soaked her hands.
“Shh,” she hissed. “Stop moving or you’ll make it worse.”
Eilidh’s lip wobbled, but her abdomen grew still once more. Aemyra cursed herself under her breath. She should have trained harder with Riya, done something more to get her magic back.
Sweat was dripping down her back as she sweltered in her armor. The screams of the recently wounded had given way to the moans of the dying, and yet she refused to give up.
“I don’t want to die,” Eilidh whispered.
Aemyra couldn’t feel her hands she was so terrified. “I saved you once before, I’ll do it again,” she ground out.
Seeing that the bleeding was slowing, but fearing that it was because Eilidh had none left in her body, Aemyra forced a smile to her face.
“I need you, Eilidh,” she said firmly. “You are Kenna’s true successor. When I take my throne, I want you to bless my rule.”
Eilidh’s tears tracked down her dirty face. “I’m sorry, I was so stupid.”
Aemyra forced a desperate smile. “You weren’t stupid. You were brave. Just think what a story this will be one day.”
There were two horses pulling a makeshift sled piled high with corpses, and several soldiers searching for fallen comrades. Aemyra spotted a head of bronze hair stained black with grime.
“Thear!”
He whirled around, the relief on his face only momentary as he noticed who was lying beside Aemyra. The warrior sprinted toward them, armor clanging with his speed.
“Fucking Hela, why is she…” His eyes were wide as he took in Eilidh’s injury.
“Do you have magic left?” Aemyra asked.
“Some, but I have no knowledge of healing.”
Aemyra nodded brusquely. “Just do as I say. Put pressure on the wound where my hands are.”
Thear did as he was told, a fresh spurt of blood leaking from Eilidh’s body. Wrapping her arms around his waist, Aemyra undid his belt buckle.
Aemyra pressed the belt between Eilidh’s teeth, doing her best to remain detached. She couldn’t go to pieces if she had a hope of saving her.
“This is going to hurt. If Cailleach is kind, you will lose consciousness, but if you don’t—bite down as hard as you need to,” Aemyra said. “And try not to move.”
Eilidh’s breathing grew even more shallow and Aemyra slid her hand over Thear’s. His eyes widened as she guided his fingers under Eilidh’s skin.
“What are you—”
“Be quiet,” Aemyra ground out, trying to locate the individual bleeders like Orlagh had taught her.
Thear’s index finger just underneath her own, she stopped as she felt blood gushing from a tiny hole in time with Eilidh’s pulse.
They couldn’t fail.
“Cauterize it,” she said. “Concentrate your fire into the very tip of your index finger and release only enough until you feel the skin turn sticky.”
His lips pressed firmly together as he summoned his magic, the heat searing the back of Aemyra’s nail as well as Eilidh’s innards.
She screamed through the belt, but remained still.
“Good,” Aemyra said, immediately moving on in search of the next tear.
By the time they made it to the third bleeder, Eilidh had fainted. By the sixth, Thear’s magic was drained. Aemyra pulled the warrior’s hand from Eilidh’s body swiftly, already hailing the healer now running toward them.
Thear slumped, large hands eclipsing Eilidh’s, unwilling to leave her side.
“Needle and thread,” she demanded, her index finger and thumb pinched together so the healer could pass it to her swiftly.
Tearing the cat-gut thread off with her teeth, Aemyra looked down at the blood-soaked stomach and blinked to clear her vision. She might not have been using her magic, but she was bordering on exhaustion. She didn’t have time to make this pretty.
“You’re going to have one hell of a scar,” Aemyra muttered as she pressed the needle through flesh.
Glad Eilidh was unconscious, Aemyra remembered how it had felt to have someone stitch her flesh back together.
Fiorean had been gentle.
The bite of a needle, a dull ache in his skin, a twisted forest beyond a cracked window…
Gritting her teeth, Aemyra shoved the vision from her mind. This was not the time.
Her practiced hands making short work of the stitches, Aemyra passed the needle back to the healer, who had already begun bandaging Eilidh’s stomach.
“You’re incredible,” Thear said breathlessly, his amber eyes roving across her sweat-soaked face.
Aemyra rubbed her bloodstained hands on her breeches to dry them. “My mother was incredible, I’m just doing what she taught me.”
Getting unsteadily to her feet, Aemyra scanned the battlefield as Thear lifted Eilidh into his arms. Not trusting to wait for the wagon.
They stopped beside the body of a Covenanter, Aemyra resisting the urge to kick the corpse in anger. His iron pendant was as dull as his lifeless eyes.
“Sometimes I wonder if they think their crusade is as righteous as mine,” Aemyra mused.
“Aemyra?”
The insistent tone of Thear’s voice had her turning. Clutched in his bloodstained hand was a snowy linen handkerchief.
“Eilidh was holding this,” he said. “Why was she even on the battlefield?”
Fear once again ripped through Aemyra’s gut as she slipped on the gore-stained grass in her haste. She ripped the handkerchief out of Thear’s hand, praying she was wrong.
She wasn’t.
Clear as day, embroidered upon the delicate fabric, was a thistle. And the initials MD.
Margaret Daercathian.
“For the love of Cailleach, no,” Aemyra breathed, clenching the handkerchief in her bloodied fist.