Chapter 18 #2
“Shut up and hold on tight. I’m trying to save our lives.
” I stretch my legs out as far as I can reach.
My core burns, and the pressure of Caius’s arm wrapped around my midsection grows so tight I struggle to take down air.
It doesn’t matter, though; I won’t need air if I’m dead, and we’re nearly to the top of the canyon.
I watch the wild rhythm of the counter rope as it dances in the night air, back, forth, sideways—I hook the toe of my boot around the rope, then slam my opposite foot on top.
With the rope wedged between my feet I put as much pressure into my toes as I can.
The rope slides between my boots. Time stretches until I realize that we are slowing.
We creep up above the lip of the canyon, suspended between the two ropes.
Caius lets out a laugh. “You had me worried for a minute, Izarrīa.”
“Why did you have me cut the rope?” Heat races across my skin.
Caius adjusts his grip around my waist with a grimace. “I had faith.”
“I didn’t think you were the type.”
“Not in the gods. I had faith in you.”
Butterflies stir in my belly.
“What are you two doing?” Dom shouts from the side of the canyon.
“I said we would meet you at the top.” I tip my head back and grin at Dom. “A little help here?” I ask.
Dom and Cressida grab the hooked poles meant to guide lumber.
They catch the arm of the pulley system and swing us over above solid earth.
Caius releases his hold on the rope, holding me tight against him as we drop to the ground.
My tunic clings to my skin beneath the pressure of Caius’ arm, wet and sticky…
I glance down to find an arrow buried in his flesh, blood pooling between us.
“Caius,” I gasp, trying to inspect the wound, but he holds me to him in a viselike grip.
“What happened?” Dom asks, his eyes roaming over both of us, cataloging our injuries. It’s then that I notice blood also drips down Caius’ opposite hand, pooling at his fingertips and splashing into dark pools in the dirt.
“You’re hurt. Let me help.” I don’t know where to focus. The arrow plunged into his side, or the rush of blood running down his arm. I try to grab his wrist, but he pulls it away.
“I’m fine. We need to go. It won’t be long before the Tǎnkaski guard is on our trail. I’d like to put some distance between them and us while we can.”
My stomach drops. Our benevolent hosts are now our hunters.
They will pursue us all the way to the hatching grounds.
There is no doubt in my mind. The histories Rui had shared with me demanded it.
Our journey had been perilous enough when it was beasts of the forests and dragons of the skies that hunted us; now we had soldiers to contend with.
“At least let me bind the arrow wound.” I cross my arms, widening my stance.
Caius glowers in return.
“Let her do it, Caius. It would be a shame if you bled out on the road,” Cressida scolds.
“Fine,” Caius relents.
I trail my fingers over his bloodied tunic. A shaft stuck into one end, and the tip of the arrow protruding out the other. He’s lucky. It looks like the arrow barely found flesh, just enough to stick into his side. I break off the feathered end and ready to push it through.
I hesitate. “This is going to hurt.”
“Do it.”
Muscle flexes under my palm, but Caius doesn’t so much as make a sound as I push the arrow through.
I shift Caius’ tunic up to get a proper look at the wound.
Blood flows freely from the hole in his side, tracing crimson rivers over his chiseled flesh.
Dom presses a clean cloth into my hand, and I try to focus on the task at hand.
Just as soon as I have finished binding the wound, Caius yanks me forward.
“Let’s go.”
“Your arm—” I try to protest.
Caius lifts his hand, caked in blood that is already drying. “It’s stopped. Now move.”
I stagger, blowing a lock of hair from my eyes, trying, and failing, to get a grip on the situation.
Dom wraps an arm around my shoulders, eliciting a glare from Cressida as she pushes roughly past us. “It’s going to be okay, Ollie.”
Even as I hate the way he babies me I lean into his side, grateful for the stability to ground myself. Dom has always been there, would always be there, my brother in all but blood, and as much as I hate the way he still sees me as the child he grew up with, I’m grateful for his friendship.
Dom guides me gently until we reach the treeline, then, as if he senses that this is the limit to which I will accept his kindness, he releases me, though he continues to walk by my side.
The night stretches on in deafening silence.
We follow Caius’ hulking shadow, weary travelers in the darkness. No one has the heart to speak.
Dawn breaks, sending shafts of pale morning light through the tree trunks, when Cressida jogs up to her brother’s side and yanks hard on his injured arm.
Caius hisses, pausing to spin and glare at her.
“That’s far enough for tonight,” Cressida says, crossing her arms.
The muscle in Caius’ jaw ticks. He looks ready to explode when his shoulders slump, and he drops his head, his dark hair tumbling into his eyes as he nods. “You’re right,” he says softly.
I let out a relieved exhale, not sure how many kilometers I had left in me. Dom slips off his pack before helping Cressida with hers.
“We need kindling and to refill our water skins,” Dom says.
“I call kindling,” Cressida pokes Dom’s bulging biceps. “I’ll let muscles here handle the water.” She gives me a strange wink, then darts out of sight.
“She is so odd,” I say.
Dom watches her go, rubbing the back of his neck. “Don’t I know it.”
He flashes a sheepish grin, then gathers the water skins and heads for the river we can hear just over the ridgeline.
It’s just the two of us now. I turn to Caius and say, “You should let me take a look at the rest of your injuries.”
“It’s fine.” Caius takes a seat on a log, his back turned to me.
I roll my eyes, shaking my head. Even after all this time together, he is still a stubborn bastard.
I sit beside him, resting my pack between us.
I gently wrap my fingers over his shoulder—he winces—and I guide him to turn toward me, and am surprised when he relaxes into my touch.
Steering him by the hand, I extend his arm. It takes everything in me not to react at the spiraling laceration, blood mixed with torn leather, pressed into flesh and crusted over into a macabre miasma that makes it hard to determine where his clothing ends and the wound begins.
“Caius…”
He tilts his chin up, looking out over the forest, and decidedly not at his wounded arm. His throat bobs.
“We need to wait for the others—”
He tries to yank his arm back, but it falls limp as he grunts in pain. Tremors run through his hand as it closes around mine. “I don’t want them to see.”
I swallow the lump that lodges in my throat. This is so much worse than the arrow wound. “We are all in this together now. You’re going to have to trust them.”
“It’s not about trust…”
I inspect his burning eyes, searching for the meaning he won’t voice. It’s about strength. He thinks he has to be strong to lead them, to lead us.
“This doesn’t make you weak,” I say, and the way his gaze drops confirms my suspicion.
I reach out and push his dark hair from his face, bringing his gaze back to mine.
“Leaning on others when you need their help doesn’t make you weak.
It makes you strong. Strong enough to trust those that you lead.
To trust those that you have surrounded yourself with. ”
Caius snorts. “I didn’t choose them.”
But he did choose me…
“You’re right. They chose us. They chose to leave the safety of The Below to accompany us on this crazy quest that may claim all our lives. I think they’ve earned this, Caius.”
I watch his throat work, a decision warring in his eyes, and then he nods.
I feel the tension leach out of his muscles as he relinquishes control.
“It’d be nice if you two helped out,” Cressida says as she drops a pile of branches at my feet.
“Get the fire started,” I command.
Cressida looks about ready to argue when her eyes land on Caius’ wound and her already pale complexion wanes. She nods and sets to work without complaint, a first.
By the time Dom returns with full water skins, Cressida has built a roaring fire.
We set a pot to boil and then begin the arduous process, allowing the water to cool enough to pour over the wounds, picking out bits of debris as the water loosens the scabs from Caius’ flesh, the rope having cut so deep, I catch glimpses of bone.
Again and again, I repeat the process until finally I’m able to cut the shredded bracer from his arm and peel what is left of his sleeve away from the mangled flesh below.
Dom gags and runs out into the woods to retch.
He may have stitched me up plenty of times in the past, but this is so much worse.
Cressida sits deathly still, those eerie animalistic eyes of hers glinting in the firelight as she stares intently at the wound.
I inspect the damage like he is one of my machines, letting my palms warm just enough to guide me.
The laceration runs in a spiral around his arm, the cuts so deep that I know that even with the finest stitches, the scarring will be extensive.
“Sterilize a needle,” I order before proceeding to wash the wound thoroughly. Caius locks his jaw, but remains silent.
Once the needle and thread are prepared, I look up at Caius. “I’m sorry. This is going to hurt.”