Chapter 15 #2
Danek looked around. Kienna didn’t have much for blankets and no fireplace to warm the room. He could trick the mind into feeling hotter, but it wouldn’t give true effects. With the sun gone, Moira might not be able to pull warmth in either.
“Start the process,” Kienna urged.
“I’ll have to skip this part—”
“Try,” she said again, scooting to the side of the bed where Danek kneeled.
She put her hand on his, a sudden heat passing into his skin.
Her fingers glowed with a faint orange, the K on Kienna’s thumb illuminating.
Danek jerked his head back to determine if his mind was playing tricks on him or not.
She wouldn’t acknowledge him, only stared at the old man with resolve.
Danek parted his mouth, but what would he say? His eyes drifted to her wrist, where the charm sat. The Elvish were confident that her magic was cut off. Was the warmth because she touched him? If so, he knew he was in trouble.
Kienna’s round eyes flitted up to his and—dammit. He’d always been in trouble.
She kept her hand on his as he summoned magic to his fingertips.
It came out blue at the core, like Starfire, rimmed with orange and pulsed like a heartbeat.
Slowly, Calder began to sweat. Kienna released Danek’s hand and pulled the blankets over his body.
When the sweating stopped, Kienna offered Danek some fruit—those lavender sky plums he fell in love with the last time he was in the city.
He savored them before returning to work, pulsing his magic through the body until he could mentally find the broken bits.
The man’s liver was mangled, speckled with disease, and turning a gnarly shade of green.
Danek hadn’t expected the amount of energy needed to pull this ailment out of him.
Kienna steadily supplied fruit and water, but it wasn’t enough anymore. Danek panted. “I need a minute.” He sat back against the wall.
Kienna kneeled near him, resting her head on the bed.
Danek’s eyes fell to her hands again. Connak mentioned her hands, but he’d forgotten amidst the old man yelling and crying.
Looking now, he saw her fingers were a mess.
Her nails were gnawed to the quick, skin raw and flaking where she’d picked it bloody.
Some scabs had reopened, the fingertips swollen and red like they’d been scraped across stone.
Danek didn’t bother to ask. He pushed a wave of energy into them, watching as they cleared. For once, a scolding didn’t follow. Kienna only sat. “Do you have nightmares?”
“Of course I do,” he said, his knee brushing against hers. “My mind is far from untouched by everything…especially since remembering our lives in River Storm.”
Kienna perked. “You remember?”
“They came back with my ascension into…this.” Danek waved his hands up and down to indicate he meant his Elvish form. “It’s suffocating sometimes.”
“How do you handle it?”
“Not pick at my fingers.” Danek glanced back at Kienna’s hands.
Her thumbs were already grazing against her cuticles.
He reached out to stop them. “I run. And I climb. Moving my body helps. I can’t outrun the memories, but I can calm them.
Plus, they remind me I used to be human, even if it was a trick from the king.
I don’t think there was anything wrong with that part of me. ”
Kienna scooted against the wall next to him and lay her head on his shoulder.
He turned and buried his face in her hair.
She smelled of fir needles coated in honey.
Her body relaxed, twitching. Sleeping, maybe.
Danek leaned forward to check. Her eyes were open, staring blankly at Calder’s chest rising and falling. “I wish I could feel numb.”
“These things should bother us. People died. If it doesn’t haunt us, then we’ll be able to justify the war, and I don’t think we should ever feel good about hurting others.”
Kienna nuzzled her head a little deeper into him before pulling away. “You’re a good man, Danek. Do you have more in you to start on his liver again?”
Danek nodded, motioning toward the bed. He was still exhausted, but Kienna’s touch was enough.
He pushed more energy into Calder’s body.
Slowly, the unconscious wincing subsided, and he appeared to be resting.
They needed to be resting. Danek had a final round of healing the liver before he could move on to the rest of the body.
For Kienna’s sake, Danek prayed this worked.
Prayed this man would resist the urge to drink ever again.
He was clearly important to her, and Danek was tired of seeing Kienna disappointed by those closest to her.
“You should sleep,” Danek said, reaching for the cup of water and chugging it. Kienna shook her head, sitting against the wall again. Danek sat next to her. “What’s the last thing you saw in your dreams?”
“Dren cutting off a woman’s head.”
Danek tilted his head. “Why?”
Kienna lifted her chin toward the ceiling. “Do you remember the day we went to the castle for dinner?”
Danek nodded.
She continued. “I had an execution that day.”
“Right,” he said, remembering that day in full color.
She’d been covered in blood when she arrived at the barrier, but she refused to talk about it.
She told him about it now, with every detail, leaving nothing out.
The way she had to burn a woman’s arm to get her to stop fighting, how she shook the entire time as Dren sliced the head straight off, and blood sprayed everywhere.
How she’d had a vision afterwards of the entire city rolling with heads.
“Connak’s been begging me to tell him about this, and I get he’s been there.” She paused, eyes searching the room to find the right words. “I don’t think he understands how bad it got. Sometimes, I think neither did any of you, but at least you were there your whole lives, you know?”
“Being the Starborn wasn’t as good as it was chalked up to be, then?”
Kienna shook her head and stifled a yawn.
Danek reached up, pulling her head gently back onto his shoulder.
As she rested there, he summoned a melody to play like a whisper in the wind.
He needed that energy to finish Calder’s healing in a few hours, but Kienna would be of no use to help him if she were dead tired.
It only took minutes of her head nodding off his shoulder, and then she jolted before her breathing stilled, and she was sound asleep.
Danek sat there in the melody, listening to her and the woodcarver finally resting. He breathed in her scent, letting her warmth sink deep into his bones. A peaceful wave fell over him, knowing he could do that for her.
Moira saw him sitting with his legs stretched out while Kienna rested on his lap.
She brought her a pillow and relieved Danek so he could continue healing the woodcarver before the old man woke.
He had to leave as soon as he finished eating; otherwise, he feared he’d never leave, and Connak would be down another man.
Danek would have given Kienna more than anything she needed that day.
Relief flooded him when the small log cabin in the Malintale appeared. Danek blinked slowly as he walked inside, dazed. Connak was already there waiting for a report, but Danek slumped into the cot and closed his eyes.
“Did everything go well?” Connak asked.
Danek turned and opened his weary eyes once more. “I think I love her.”
Connak’s jaw twitched, and then Danek fell asleep.