Chapter 1
Sage
I scrambled out of the tub, sending water sloshing over the side. I had to hurry. Kit and his team were in the infirmary of the Black Tower right now.
Payne was dying. Right now.
And no one knew.
I threw on my shirt, not bothering to dry myself off or bind my breasts, added my jerkin, and half hopped, half staggered into my pants before running out the door.
My jerkin was just going to have to be thick enough to cover the soft swell of my chest because my soul screamed that every second counted.
I bolted through the maze of halls back to the stairwell near the great hall. There were probably stairs closer to the infirmary, but I didn’t know anything about this wing of the Black Tower and couldn’t afford to get lost.
Hurry. Hurry.
I had to save him.
With his healing magic, Flint could save Kit and Lewin. He had to. But no one knew Payne was poisoned.
I reached the main floor and raced down the wide hall, away from the great hall, past the quartermaster’s rooms, and crashed through the infirmary doors into a nightmare.
The metallic, sour, rancid reek of blood, sweat, and I don’t know what else filled the room, making me gag. The guys were covered in gore and mud, and blood was splattered everywhere. So much blood.
My gaze landed on a trail leading from the door that opened out to the bailey to the tables and all the bloody footprints stark against the pale stone floor.
Kit’s torn jerkin and shirt lay in a bloody heap on the tiles a few feet from the table where he lay, his ruined body pumping blood everywhere. Lewin lay on the table beside him. More blood. I jerked my attention to Grefin and Payne and the blood streaks on the wall near them and on the floor.
Flint barked orders at the two other guardsmen, who rushed to obey, while Kit screamed in pain, Lewin moaned, Grefin rambled about the bears, and Payne hissed, “Save him,” over and over again.
Father, I’d never seen anything like it, and my stomach roiled at the true horror of being a guardsman.
This was what I was training to do, to fight monsters so powerful they left elite swordsmen like Kit and Lewin in bleeding agony.
Bile burned the back of my throat and a chill swept over my still-damp skin. I never wanted to face even a glimpse of what I’d seen in my vision, that flash of those shadow bears attacking Kit, Payne, and the others.
But if I and the men of the Black Tower didn’t face those horrors then it would be people like Sawyer and the cook at Herstind Castle, and her son Dodd who did.
They wouldn’t stand a chance. They’d be slaughtered without any hope of survival, and the only way to prevent that was for someone to stand up and fight.
“I need two drams of wistellel,” Flint barked, jerking me out of my stunned shock.
Shit. What was I doing? I couldn’t just stand there like an idiot.
I opened my mouth but had no idea what to say. It would take too long to explain… if anyone would even listen to me. I was a nothing nobody sacrifice who was more trouble than he was worth. As far as anyone knew, I was useless, particularly in this situation.
I glanced at Payne. His complexion was gray, but that could be attributed to shock.
His mate was dying, and I had no idea if fae men who took mating vows had a similar magical link like the men who were mated to a fae woman.
Even if anyone was paying attention there were no clues that Payne had been poisoned.
“Save him,” he prayed. “You have to save him.”
“He’s losing too much blood.” Flint grabbed Kit’s severed hand from Payne but didn’t pause to look at the man before using his magic to reattach the limb.
Lewin screamed, his breaths turning into short, sharp gasps.
I was running out of time.
“Damn it.” Flint jerked away from Kit and placed his hands on Lewin.
I rushed into the room, heading for the cabinet filled with jugs of medicine. I had to get Payne the antidote before Kit knocked over the rolling table.
My bare foot hit a blood pool, slipping out from under me, and I windmilled my arms, fighting to keep my balance, as I careened toward the large, wooden cabinet.
“—splint that hand.”
I toppled over, cracking my elbow on the stone floor and sending pain jolting through my body. My knees slammed into the bottom of the cabinet, shocking more pain through my aching muscles. Inside, the glass contents rattled, sending my heart into my throat, but somehow nothing fell over or broke.
“How the fuck were there five of them?” Grefin moaned.
I scrambled to my feet.
Kit was going to scream any minute now and knock over the table.
The cabinet had two large doors, and I threw both of them open and stared at all the neat rows of jugs and jars and glasses.
There were easily over a hundred containers, each neatly labeled in small but clean writing, and half a dozen different sized glasses, some with etched lines on the side indicating different amounts.
Shit.
Which one was the antidote? How much did I give him?
“Please,” Payne said. “Save him.”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t have time to read every label. I saw the guardsman pull out a jug and start to pour it into a glass. I knew which one I had to take. I just needed to remember.
It was…
Which one was it, damn it? I didn’t have time to figure this out.
On instinct, I blindly reached out and grabbed a jug and glass. The label listed the jug as an antivenom.
Please let it be the right stuff.
I started to pour but realized I never saw the amount, and the glass I’d taken from the cabinet had three lines etched into the side.
I didn’t know if the antivenom was dangerous. Too much of some medicines were also deadly.
Shit shit shit.
I couldn’t just pour and pray. I needed someone to tell me how much.
“He needs to drink,” one of the guardsmen said.
My pulse lurched. That came just before Kit’s scream.
With jug and glass, I scrambled back across the room to Payne’s side, barely missing the blood pool I’d slipped in before.
“You’re poisoned,” I told him as I held up the jug and glass. “How much?”
“Save him,” he moaned, his gaze locked on Kit as if he hadn’t heard me.
“Payne,” I snapped.
His attention swung to me, slowly, too damned slowly, and his eyes were unfocused. “Sawyer?”
“You’re poisoned.” Please, listen to me. “I don’t know how much to give you. I—”
Kit screamed, wrenching Payne’s attention back to his mate. The rolling table crashed to the floor, sending medical supplies flying, and the guardsman trying to give him the medicine grunted and stumbled back.
Now.
I had to save Payne now.
If I was going to change the future, I had to do it now.
I filled the glass to the top with the antivenom and shoved it against Payne’s lips. “Drink.”
“What the fuck are you doing, runt?” Grefin dropped the towel he’d been holding against the side of his head, grabbed my jerkin, and tugged, making me stumble back.
The antivenom sloshed over my hand, and I wrenched back to Payne and shoved the glass to his lips.
“Please. Drink,” I begged. “You’ve been poisoned.”
“We fought bears, not serpents,” Grefin snapped.
Payne groaned and his dazed gaze dropped to meet mine.
“Please,” I insisted, trying to will him to understand that I’d explain everything once he drank. He had to drink. “He needs you.”
“Shit,” Payne gasped, and he grabbed the glass and downed the medicine even as his legs gave out and he collapsed to the floor.
He dropped the glass and clutched his chest, his eyes wide, his breathing suddenly sharp and shallow, and my pulse lurched.
Was I too late?