Chapter Eighty-Two
Take Me Home
He carried the weight of mercy. She carried him back to where he belonged.
Viktor searched for The Midnight.
“Call to me, brother. I need you.”
Before him—the monastery of Westport, tents strung up off the east end. The smell of incense hung heavy, prayers whispered low. Heat pressed from the canvas, air thick with dread.
“I’m here,” The Midnight answered. “It is you who calls to me.”
Just—like that?
Viktor focused ahead.
“Stay with me when I go in there. I’m forgetting everything Saecily told me.”
The Midnight’s voice was steady.
“You’ve not forgotten. It still lives in you. Breathe. Find it.”
Then:
“I will stay.”
Viktor laid his hand atop his pack, feeling the jars inside one last time before he approached the door.
Amerei reached for him and he drew back.
He couldn’t let her see this.
“Gabriel,” he said, turning around.
He dug a few coins from his pocket and laid them in his friend’s hand.
“Go to the courier. Imperial grade parchment. Amerei will need it to dispatch Xavien.”
Gabriel waited for Amerei’s nod. Then he said, “I will.”
“If the courier won’t sell it to you,” Viktor went on, “tell him it’s for me.”
He lifted Amerei’s hand and kissed it.
“Go with him, love,” he said, a gruff edge to his voice. “Make sure he gets the right thing—been too long since he’s set foot in a court.”
She grinned and started for the horses.
Viktor drew in a breath to speak to Gabriel, but his friend already knew.
“How long do you need?” Gabriel asked.
“I’ll find you.”
Their eyes held a moment longer—unspoken words between them: Keep her from the ruin. Protect her.
He laid his hand atop the canvas flap.
“Don’t you dare let her inside this tent.”
“Understood, High-Captain.”
Gabriel moved with precision, helping Amerei into the saddle, nodding once to Viktor.
Viktor faced the tent. Drew in one last, long breath. Stepped forward.
Inside.
Darkness.
The air thick, oppressive, carrying smoke and the sour tang of infection.
Streams of sunlight through the seams the only light.
Five cots.
A man scorched from chest to fingertips.
A woman with her hair burned away.
A boy scarred with welts across his back.
Another woman burning with fever.
Viktor’s throat tightened—a child.
A beautiful little girl. Her curls untouched. Her skin aflame.
From the back of the tent came a healer and two others.
She was scarcely older than a girl. The boys with her, even younger.
“I sent for ambervast an hour ago,” she hissed, her voice hoarse. “Leave it at the door.”
Her dark hair clung to her neck, sweat beading across her brow. She wore a leather apron, her instruments still bloody.
She drew a rag from the basin, draped it across the feverish woman’s head. Without looking up, she commanded, “Get out. I just got them to sleep.”
Viktor didn’t move. He stepped closer.
The boys’ eyes widened in warning.
He didn’t care. He met the healer where she stood.
“I said get out!” she snapped, voice breaking at his nearness.
“Who left you,” Viktor asked, his words edged with protective steel, “to tend to them alone?”
The girl shut her eyes, knees buckling as she fought to stand. Her hands shook against the basin.
“My master is in Rhidian,” she said. “He doesn’t even know.”
“You’ve carried more than your share.”
He took the rag from her quivering hands, his tone rough.
“Now, I command you—rest.”
“What right have you—”
“I am a Ruakite.” He looked at her. “Sent to ease your burden.”
The girl stared up at him, eyes hollowed with exhaustion.
Then her body gave way—she threw her bloodied arms around him, face pressed into his leather armor. Her tears broke free.
He slowly laid one hand against her shoulder, her body shuddering beneath his touch. What horrors had she witnessed, left to tend to the wounded alone? He whispered an Aerdanian prayer for the abandoned. For the brave.
“Tory Seraphim,” he said simply, his voice low. “And you—tell me your name.”
She looked up at him, bravely wiping her tears.
“Lyra,” she said. “And these are my brothers, Tavian and Theo.”
Viktor gave the boys a nod.
Lyra slowly pulled away, turning toward the wounded.
“I gave them the last of the ambervast an hour ago.”
She drew in a shaky breath.
“They’ll wake when it wears off.”
Viktor’s gaze swept over each broken body, jaw set as if to shoulder their pain himself. His answer came firm, assuring.
“Then I’ll have to work quickly.”
She nodded, trembling. “Tell us what you need.”
Before he could even ask, The Midnight’s presence surrounded.
“Sea glass,” he said. “I sense some three doors down.”
Viktor handed the boys a couple of coins.
“Bring me sea glass from the village market.”
“Yes, sir,” they said eagerly.
Sunlight broke into the tent as they hurried through the door.
Then darkness again.
Lyra’s voice cracked with something like laughter through a mess of tears.
“Tavian is sixteen and a godsend. Theo is fifteen and… he’s an extra pair of hands.”
A faint, gruff laugh escaped Viktor. He was once that younger brother—happy to let Adamar play the eldest.
The boys returned a moment later. Theo carried the sea glass with cautious hands.
“Careful,” Tavian warned.
He laid it in Viktor’s open palm.
The smooth, greenish shards were veined with pale white, gleaming faintly even in the dim tent. Born when lightning struck sand and fused it to stone.
Viktor leaned down to the woman burning with fever.
“An infection brews in her blood,” The Midnight explained. “Leave it. Draw out only the heat from her skin.”
Viktor closed his eyes.
He saw as The Midnight sees: heat rising from the woman’s skin, pouring into the stone like mist.
Rising.
Falling.
Rising.
Falling.
Fire rippling through his skin.
“Leave the infection,” The Midnight urged. “You’re not ready.”
“Will she die from it?” Viktor demanded, as if daring The Midnight to answer otherwise.
“Tory…” The Midnight murmured. “Aerdanians may lack elvish medicine, but they know well how to treat a fever.”
The Midnight called him Tory—the name striking like a blade turned familiar, cutting through his fury and fear.
Viktor’s head bowed, not in defeat but in solemn surrender.
“She is not whole,” he told Lyra, “but she won’t suffer from the burns any longer.”
He reached into his pack and handed her the larger jar of lachlaren.
“Spread this over the scars. To bind the wound.”
Lyra took it from him, doing as he asked.
He moved quickly from cot to cot—the boy’s back no longer seared, the man’s burns eased to scars, the woman’s skin cooled though her hair would never return. Each touch cost him, but he did not falter.
And still, his eyes drifted toward the child. She lay asleep, perfectly still. Safe from the terror. If only for a moment.
He carried the sea glass to her cot. Knelt at her side. Lifted her into his arms.
And Lyra didn’t stop him.
“You’ll take on her pain,” The Midnight warned.
Viktor’s jaw clenched, his grip fierce as he drew her close.
“I don’t care.”
He pressed her face against his chest, curly locks spilling over his hand. Heat surged from her skin into his arms, burning through muscle and bone before sinking into the stone.
His body shook with the onslaught, each breath a streak of fire tearing through his veins—but he held her tighter, unyielding, until at last the agony broke.
She was healed.
He laid her back onto the cot with a care that belied his strength, drawing the blanket to her chin, folding her small arms around it. He bent and kissed her hair softly.
“Her parents are both dead,” Lyra whispered as she knelt beside him with the jar. “She’ll live with her aunt now. Here in Westport. I sent her home this morning to get some sleep.”
“Who is her aunt?” Viktor asked, brushing strands from the child’s face.
“?na,” Lyra answered. “From the village bakery.”
Viktor nodded.
He knew ?na. A gentle soul.
Lyra finished applying lachlaren to the little girl’s arm, then stood. Viktor walked with her to the front of the tent. Tavian and Theo, silent with wonder.
“Rest now,” Viktor told them, his palms on their shoulders, steadying them as if to bear the weight himself.
They nodded, looking at their sister. Her gaze was on her patients.
She held her breath. Tears fell.
“You’ll find me on Dunes Way,” Viktor said. “Issachar’s house.”
“I know it.”
The slightest smile touched her lips.
He turned and she seized him, clinging with desperate strength. One last fierce embrace.
“Thank you, Tory Seraphim.”
He kissed her crown.
“Rest.”
Into daylight once more, salt and sea on his tongue, the wind warmed by the sun.
Gabriel rested against the fountain while Amerei sat before him, legs folded to one side, braid draped over her shoulder as she traced figures into the stone with chalk. A circle of Aerdanian children gathered around her, their laughter soft in the square.
She lifted her gaze to Viktor—and smiled.
“Take me home, Tory,” she called.
As if she already knew where his heart would lead.