Chapter 29
Twenty-Nine
“Can you walk?” Lory asked Tabi when they reached the next bend in the path.
The wheezing sound coming out of Aiden with every breath had been something she could ignore while they’d dodged immediate danger, but now that they were sure Nyla hadn’t followed them, she needed to make sure he was all right enough not to collapse under Tabi’s weight.
“I can try.” Tabi gestured at the step-like rocks on the side. “Set me down here.”
Aiden’s stifled grunt gave away more than he probably wanted them to know about how much pain he was feeling.
Gently unloading Tabi onto the flat rock closest to them, he sat down next to the ashling, bracing his elbows on his knees and hanging his head. While Tabi rubbed her thigh where Lory was sure a wound had cleaved open two minutes ago, Aiden took slow, even breaths, his ribs slowly expanding.
“What happened?” Lory barely dared ask, but she’d gone blindly through most of her journey at Ashthorn; demanding answers seemed to have become a skill relevant to survival rather than mere interest.
Aiden lifted his head, gritting his teeth and sucking in a sharp breath followed by a cough.
“Nyla followed me up the mountain.” His shoulders sagged slightly as the pain seemed to lessen for a moment.
“No idea what she’d planned to achieve by confronting me, but before I got any answers, Tabi interfered. ”
The ashling straightened, rolling her shoulders and her eyes. “I didn’t interfere. Seemed like the natural path to pick when I realized what was going on.”
“So, you followed her following me?” Aiden’s bitter chuckle spoke of a lifetime of being dependent on himself that had hardened him to the acceptance of other people’s help—all but Khayrivven because, apparently, he worshipped the young captain the way he would a god.
“Sure. I knew that, if anyone stood a chance at finding Lory, it would be you. So, I followed the person I knew was following you.”
The two shared an unreadable glance until Lory lost her patience.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” She fingered the mechanism of the brooch, trying to get the blade to retract. “I’d thought you were all safe and sound at Ashthorn.”
Aiden gave her a bitter grin. “Who’s ever safe at Ashthorn?”
Surprisingly, Tabi seconded his statement with a nod.
“When the Triad called a formation to tell the entire school, we’d get a free pass to kill the Flame-born among us if we were willing to travel to the Amrin Mountains, there was no question we’d go.
.. Not to hunt you, of course,” she clarified with that self-assured tone that had always made Lory like the woman, and a brow rose on her deep umber face.
Lory was still standing there, processing, while Tabi flexed her arms and legs, taking inventory of her injuries. Beside her, Aiden lowered his head again, his breathing slowing.
“Thirty-eight people volunteered, Ricca, Nyla, and Solen among the first,” Tabi continued.
“So, we decided to join the party and make sure you get out alive.” The smile on her face was like a warm embrace, and the gold flecks in her eyes sparkled silver in the moonlight.
“Thal is somewhere around, too. I’m surprised he got his ass out here at all, the coward. ”
“They put them on horses long before you returned from—” Aiden paused, his eyes finding hers over his laced hands, informing her that Lu’Shen’s wasn’t common knowledge and that she’d better not mention it now.
“From that mission with Falcrest,” he finished, flinching as Lory crouched in front of him, carefully checking on his wound through the gap in his shirt.
“I’m not going to ask how you got here so fast,” she mumbled to Aiden.
“Especially after Falcrest already set a brutal pace with the horses. You were still at Ashthorn when we left, and there is no way we wouldn’t have seen you had you followed on horse to arrive in time to participate in my pending murder.
” The humor in her voice fell flat as Aiden shot her a forbidding look.
All right—no questioning the mode of transportation he’d used, then. After Khayrivven had hinted at Lenya being able to travel that fast, she wouldn’t be surprised if Aiden had an ace up his sleeve, too.
Carefully, she wiped the blood with the edge of the tear in the fabric, then sighed a breath of relief when she found the wound wasn’t deep enough to kill him.
“I’ll need to disinfect this with the elixir in my pack,” she informed him, already pulling down and opening her bag, clipping the brooch to her belt, and digging for the flask.
She was halfway through it when Tabi placed a hand on her forearm, stopping her. “Let me.”
Surprisingly, Aiden didn’t flinch when Tabi placed her fingers on the open wound, and a shimmer of light emerged from beneath her skin.
“What are you doing?” Lory was as much alarmed as she was fascinated by the rainbow glimmering between Tabi’s palm and Aiden’s damaged flesh.
I’d have to kill you if I told you, had been Tabi’s response when Lory asked about her magic. Whatever was happening here had to be significant.
“Just a moment longer,” Tabi murmured at Aiden, whose unnaturally pale face turned even paler, but he didn’t move, as if he was perfectly aware of whatever was going on.
When Lory opened her mouth to ask, he cut her off, “She’s got matter manipulation powers, but unlike others, who command metal or rock, she commands the functions of the body and its processes.”
“Including the flow of blood and growth of bone, skin, and tissue.” A hint of pride resonated in Tabi’s voice, even when she was murmuring her confession.
A powerful weapon—perhaps one of the most powerful she’d ever heard about. That’s why it was confidential.
“No one in the lower ranks at Ashthorn is supposed to know,” she amended. “I’ve been secretly training with Dunveil and with Nahrit, but to understand my limitations and to learn what good I can do with my skills as much as what damage.”
Lory didn’t even want to consider the destruction Tabi could cause with her powers, focusing instead on what good she could do right now.
And while they were at it… “You healed yourself?” She reached for Tabi’s leg, checking on the smooth skin beneath the torn pant legs.
“While Aiden was carrying you out, you healed yourself.”
Tabi nodded, a hint of shame on her pretty features, but Aiden spoke before she could apologize, “And right she was. Having someone like her available up here is more important than having an ice wielder. She can restore all of us, while I can only block an attack or harm an opponent.”
“Nyla got me with a surprise attack, or I’d have knocked her out before she could lock me in her roots.” More shame reverberated in every word, and something about it let Lory guess that, in the Ngala family, mistakes weren’t easily forgiven.
The rainbow in Tabi’s hand faded as she lifted her palm, revealing smooth, pale skin surrounded by clotted blood. A miracle; that was what Tabi’s magic was.
Dropping her bag, Lory sat down on Aiden’s other side and rubbed her temples as if that would make the headache-inducing situation this hunt had become go away. “What do we do now?”
An answer was the last thing she expected, but true to himself, Aiden supplied at least an idea. “How about survive the night? Hide somewhere and alternate keeping watch while we rest? The world will be a different place when the sun is up once more.”
Hard to believe, but Lory indulged him with a nod, anyway.
“You sure they won’t make you kill or torture me if they find out you helped me? Lenya mentioned something of the likes to Khayrivven.”
A sideways glance from Tabi told her the ashling hadn’t put two and two together about her relationship with the worst hardass instructor in all of Ashthorn.
“Falcrest,” Lory corrected. “When he told Falcrest to take me into the wilderness.”
With a toothy grin, Tabi reached around Aiden’s back, snatching one of Lory’s hands from her temple. “Don’t say you and Falcrest—”
While Lory tried not to blush, even when the darkness would mask the pinkish tint of her cheeks, Aiden bobbed his head.
“Falcrest and Vednis all the way.” He grimaced.
“It’s sickening.” The rumbled laugh coming out of him might have been the first real laugh of his she’d ever witnessed, and it was a thing of beauty—even when, internally, she was begging for the ground to swallow her whole.
“It’s not like that.”
But Tabi cut her off. “I bet he’s a god in bed—I mean, have you seen that guy train shirtless? The way he moves…”
Aiden flailed his arms, expression a bit helpless. “Grateful as I am for you healing my wound, Ngala, I swear to the Guardians, if you speak one more word about Falcrest’s performance in the bedroom, I’ll freeze your tongue over.”
That earned him a wicked chuckle from the most dangerous matter manipulation wielder Ashthorn had to offer, her grin a sharp line of shimmering white in the night, and Tabi’s voice dropped into a low, seductive register that made the hair stand up even on Lory’s neck.
“I bet a frozen tongue feels amazing on your favorite parts, Frost.”
The look on Aiden’s face was priceless, and for a moment, Lory forgot the dangers lurking in the darkness and that death would be waiting for her before the forty-eight hours were over. Only for a heartbeat.
“No one warned us that we’d have to hurt you if we helped you,” Tabi finally said, grin fading as she glanced out into the night.
Trees were swaying in the soft wind, a morning tapestry around the sharp rocks defining their surroundings.
“I guess they’ll never know we did, and if anyone asks, it was you who saved us, not the other way around.”
The warmth entering Tabi’s tone made the fear in Lory’s stomach melt. She wasn’t alone out here, despite everything Khayrivven and Lenya had said.