Chapter 38
Amaris
Lanterns swung as the wind picked up, and the fires within hissed and extinguished as the beginnings of a storm filled the sky. The first drop was gentle, then a stream of rain poured over Luana Bay.
Clinks and gunshots rang through the air as blades clashed and pistols were fired. Amaris slipped through the smoke of gunfire billowing in a lazy cloud around the gardens, obscuring herself. She didn’t allow herself to stop and think. If she did, she feared she’d turn back.
She waited for someone to burst through a shrub or come barreling down one of the garden paths, but it was eerily empty.
She’d heard the whispers when she’d run through the manor.
Deavopan? Bazrath? Deavonian Accord? None of which she knew the meaning of.
It wasn’t until she slid to a crouch behind the half stone wall circling the gardens that she allowed her mind a moment to consider.
How will I even know who Luana’s soldiers are versus the enemy?
She doubted anyone had had time to change into their uniforms.
The reek of iron filled her nostrils. Poking her head around the wall, the chaos of the battlefield unraveled around her.
Navy tunics with swashes of red scattered the grounds, breaking past the defenses.
Amaris immediately spotted what was likely the Luana forces—the men and women dressed in fine attire.
The hems of dresses were ripped, and coats and vests were thrown to the ground.
Duels broke out, and cries were silenced with the slash of a blade.
Soon enough, bodies would begin to scatter across the grounds.
Her eyes scanned the terrain. Not twenty yards away, a woman in a black tunic lay in the grass.
She was still alive, her chest moving erratically with rapid breaths.
Amaris stayed low, moving into a crawl through the mud and long grass.
The soldier’s breath grew shallow when Amaris reached her.
She fought the voice in her head shouting that she wouldn’t make it.
The soldier would live if she had anything to say about it.
“Where are you injured?” she whispered as best she could over the sound of battle and the thundering overhead.
“My leg,” the soldier cried hoarsely.
Amaris slipped a finger over her lips, her eyes wandering to the fighting around them.
She needed to be quiet, or they’d both end up dead.
The soldier nodded, crinkling the hood spilling around her auburn locks.
With only a few remaining lanterns scattered in the night to guide her, Amaris followed the woman’s leg down to her foot, at least where her foot should’ve been.
All that was left was a bloody stump with frayed tendons.
“What’s your name?” Amaris whispered as she pulled a belt from her satchel and secured it around the soldier’s thigh.
“Ediva.” She winced but bit down on her screams as Amaris tugged against the leather.
“Stay here. I’ll find someone to bring you inside.”
“Don’t leave me,” Ediva begged, fear in her eyes, not of death, but to be alone when the end came.
More people were out there who needed her help.
“I can’t,” Amaris muttered.
Before Ediva could latch on to her shirt, Amaris rolled away and crawled deeper into the chaos.
After getting out of her earshot, she bit her sleeve, forcing back the tears.
She couldn’t think about her. All she could do was tag, treat, and move on.
She shouldn’t have asked for her name. She’d never left a patient before, always seeing their care to the end, but not tonight.
Amaris froze as a fight broke out with a navy-dressed soldier charging up the slope.
The ring of metal through her ears sent her teeth chattering as he met his opponent, a woman with her teeth bared and blood spilling down her bare shins where she’d torn her skirt.
Amaris kept moving, looking for someone else to help.
They’d practiced mass casualty events when she’d been in school. The goal had been to save as many as possible but to know one’s limitations. Amaris had tried saving everyone then, but tonight she was the only mystique for miles. It had to be her.
A man lying sprawled out in the grass caught her eye. He was face down, but she watched his chest rise. She got him on his side, turning him onto his back. She let out a small yelp and fell back. His navy tunic was sliced down the center, with blood smeared into the fabric.
She swallowed, but nagging guilt built up as she started to turn away. With a breath, she went against common sense telling her to move on. She opened his tunic to reveal a large gash, exposing his intestines. An evisceration, she noted, but before she could dress the wound, his eyes shot open.
He lunged, pinning Amaris’s arms as he straddled her. His guts spilled from his abdomen. Yards of gooey organs poured onto her chest. She fought the urge to vomit as they rolled onto her neck. She tried to let out a scream but only managed an awful gag.
The man leaned into her face, completely unfazed by his bowels between them.
Amaris wiggled and attempted to break free from his grasp, but for a dying man, he was strong as hell.
A line of bloody spit dripped down his lips to land on her cheek.
Her eyes widened, but he took a single breath before more blood spilled from his lips and his eyes rolled back in his head.
A sword had skewered his body, and Amaris shrieked as a boot kicked him off her.
“Amaris?”
She was still in the grass, blood and intestines scattered across her shirt as her vision focused in on Theodoric’s face. His hands reached around her, pulling her to her feet. Her throat dried, even as raindrops pelted her lips.
“What are you doing out here?” He was angry, storms immediately filling his eyes. Gone were the golden drops of sunlight, taken over by the soldier within.
He’s alive. Amaris displayed her bloody hands before them.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, but she couldn’t speak.
She only stared at her hands, the blood seeping into the chapped ridges of her knuckles and the lines of her palms. Her gaze didn’t move as Theodoric’s fingers grasped a stray hair coated in blood clinging to her cheek.
His thumb grazed her skin, wiping away the red before it stained.
Amaris stared at the blood dripping down her forearms, her heartbeats drowning out all around her.
Theodoric kneeled, untucking her shirt as he slid his hands around her abdomen to feel for cuts. His hands were rough with calluses and strong as they wrapped around each limb and felt for injuries.
“Amaris!” He shook her.
She dragged her eyes to meet his. He’s alive.
I’m alive. His shirt was ripped in two, and blood splattered across his face and chest. She swallowed, the gravity sinking into her bones.
He wasn’t a soldier as she knew him, none of them were.
An assault rifle wasn’t slung over his shoulder.
He was only several inches from a man when he took his life.
Her hands ceased their trembling, and they began searching for any visible injury.
She brushed the hair from his forehead, coated in sweat not blood.
She was rendered speechless, unable to form a thought as she scanned his bare chest for any life-threatening injuries.
Her fingers scoured every inch of his chest, arms, neck, and face.
There wasn’t a single cut. She tried to gaze at the wounds on his back, but he stopped her and grasped her shoulders.
“I’m not wounded,” he whispered.
Amaris shook her head, snapping back to reality.
“You better not be wounded.” It was like earmuffs were ripped off her ears and everything hyper-focused.
“Fuck, if I’m running out here just to see everyone splattered dead in the grass, I’m unleashing hell on this realm,” she said, fire turning to rage in her eyes.
She was focused. She was a paramedic.
“Not that it isn’t a joy to see you alive,” Esaias called, “but we have more pressing matters.” He jabbed a thumb toward an incoming horde of navy-suited soldiers fresh from the beach.
“You shouldn’t be out here.” Theodoric pulled her closer.
She could barely smell his salt and leather, masked by the reek of sweat and blood. “We removed the barricade and—”
“You did what?” Theodoric burst out.
“People are out here. I can’t leave them to die!”
The cry of battle loomed closer.
“Theo,” Esaias warned.
“Get back to the manor.”
“I won’t,” Amaris declared, planting her feet in the ground.
“Theo.” Esaias grew more impatient.
“You almost died, and I won’t allow anyone else to harm you,” Theodoric insisted, but Amaris stood her ground, even with her heart skipping in her chest.
“You’ll have to drag me back before I leave this battlefield.”
Theodoric’s eyes trailed down her figure, making note of her crossed arms and anger in her eyes. She swore he smiled, but the slight feather of his cheek distracted her, and he lunged. Grabbing a hold of her waist, he lifted her over his shoulder.
“Put me down!”
“When you’re inside—”
“Theo!” Esaias’s yelp was sharper than the blade he plunged into a soldier’s chest.
Theodoric tossed Amaris behind him and brought his arm up to shield them.
His sword met the next blade. The muscles of his back tightened with his push forward, opening another wound.
His blood mixed with the sweat and rain and trickled down, soaking the waistband of his pants.
The soldier’s white teeth were a vibrant contrast to his deep-umber skin.
He gritted against his strength. Theodoric brought his leg up and kicked the soldier in the chest, leaving a muddy boot print across his blood-smeared tunic.
But the man only stumbled before swinging his sword again.
Their feet were ever moving, circling their prey, neither yielding.
Theodoric didn’t tire. His breaths were even as he danced the duel. His eyes met Amaris’s. There wasn’t worry but a direct order to get inside. She shook her head as he finished the soldier with a single swipe of his sword to the neck.
A booming erupted from the bay, leading to the screeching of a cannonball overhead.
Before Amaris could run, Theodoric was on top of her, shielding her body from the blast. It hit the wall and sent several chunks of stone raining down.
He grunted as pieces of debris scattered around them and pelted his back.
Her breath had escaped her when he’d pressed her into the grass, but his warmth against her further ceased her efforts to breathe.
His hand tightened around her middle as another cannon fired.
His heart thundered against her, and she knew if she could feel his, then he most certainly felt the skipping and tumbling of hers.
“Get inside,” he demanded. “Stay close to Adelaide.”
“She isn’t there.”
As he lifted his body from hers, breath filled Amaris’s lungs. Their gazes both turned to the beach. Adelaide was supposed to be getting the boat ready. A startling realization hit. She was either still fighting down there or dead.
“Go back to the manor,” he said, his eyes darkening.
Before she could protest, Theodoric spun, and his blade pierced the chest of another soldier, who collapsed to the ground. As he removed his sword, the silver shine was replaced with crimson blood.
Amaris couldn’t move. Paralyzed. Was it fear or shock?
She couldn’t pull her eyes from Theodoric’s stance.
He unsheathed his dagger, and his sword clashed with his next victim.
His sleeve ripped and curled around his wrist. The muscles in his arm tensed with each swing of his sword.
With another jab, he pierced his next attacker’s heart.
She couldn’t leave. Esaias and Theodoric were both engaged in combat and maybe wouldn’t get to Adelaide in time. She could be injured.
Theodoric stayed close as Amaris crept up the path toward the gardens.
She’d find a different route to the beach, staying far off to the side so as to not raise suspicion.
When she no longer sensed his lingering footsteps, she dared a look back.
He was fighting three soldiers, all armed and circling him.
One had two cutlasses trained on Theodoric, while the others hesitated in their approach.
With a roar, they charged. He parried each strike and hit skin with each of his own.
There was no flinch or cry as blood splattered his face.
He didn’t halt when their bodies fell around him, nor did he stop when more soldiers raced to meet his blade.
Amaris stepped back, her legs jelly beneath her. Esaias joined him back-to-back. They moved swiftly, each an extension of the other. Where one faltered, the other guarded, neither giving up the other’s blind side.
Amaris wished for a weapon she knew how to wield, for her bow that remained hidden beneath a tarp in her garage.
She gripped her satchel, her mind for medicine the one true weapon she had.
She wasn’t on Earth anymore or walking the streets of Gainesville.
Automatic weapons or bows with a scope had no place in Magoria.
She felt utterly useless, but she had to try.
She crouched and crawled through the grass, hiding from view as she went to the side arch she’d passed through what felt so long ago. She’d get to the beach and find Adelaide.