Chapter 3
Rider
My wolf snarled as I raced through the Black Tower’s left wing toward the infirmary. There were too many hunting teams down already, and now Kit’s…
The gate guard had caught me just before I’d headed up to my suite to send my spirit to the Garden, but his words had sent me running in the opposite direction.
“Serious injuries” translated to “might not survive” in guard-speak, and I needed to assess the damage no matter how much my wolf heaved inside me, desperate to get to the Garden.
Protect, he snarled within me. Now now now.
He didn’t care about the Gray or even that Kit was my cousin. In his mind Kit would either live or die, there was nothing he could do about it now, but he sure as hell could protect Sage if he got to West in time.
But I couldn’t shirk my duties as the Lord Commander of the Black Guard just because my wolf was fascinated with a woman.
She wasn’t my mate, damn it. And she never would be.
I clenched my jaw and swallowed back my wolf’s growl of frustration as I reached the infirmary. The copper stench of blood and the sour reek of healing herbs hit me before I’d even shoved the door open.
Inside was controlled chaos. Blood streaked across the pale stone floor from the bailey entrance to the center of the room and had splattered on the floor beneath the tables where Kit and Lewin lay.
Kit was unconscious with Owun, one of the two guardsmen assisting Flint this evening, securing a splint that immobilized Kit’s wrist, while Lewin moaned and gasped as Evrat, the other guardsman assigned to the infirmary, stitched a gash on his arm — another, larger injury on his thigh already bound in white linen.
Near the door, both Grefin and Payne sat on the floor, Grefin holding a bloody towel to his head while his calf oozed blood, and Payne leaning against the wall, his complexion too pale — although given the state of his mate, I wasn’t surprised to see the man in shock.
Then there was Sawyer, slumped on the floor staring at Flint with a stunned expression. The boy’s feet were bare, he didn’t have his sword, his hair was damp, and there was no logical reason for why he was in the infirmary.
Sure, he liked Kit, Payne, and Lewin, but I doubted anyone in the guard would have told him in the middle of the night that the team had been injured. Hell, given how much the guardsmen seemed to hate him, I doubt anyone would have told him in the middle of the day, either.
The boy was a problem for later.
“Report,” I ordered, crossing to where Flint worked on Kit.
“Everyone will live,” Flint said without looking up from stitching a gash in Kit’s chest. “But Kit and Lewin are down for at least four rotations. Maybe more. And Payne doesn’t leave tonight. He had a close call.”
Flint stopped working and looked at Sawyer. The boy went still. They stared at each other in some kind of silent conversation and Flint raised an eyebrow.
Sawyer opened his mouth, closed it, and looked at the floor. Flint’s jaw tightened. He wanted the boy to do or say something. That much was obvious. But Sawyer was probably still terrified of me after I’d made him run on the trail until he puked.
I bit back a sigh. Whatever he wanted the boy to say, it could wait. I didn’t have time for whatever was going on, and I could deal with it in the morning. I had to get to the Garden before Sage did.
But Flint huffed and gave Sawyer a pointed look. “Sawyer has the sight. Payne was poisoned with shadow venom and Sawyer foresaw that he’d die.”
“Because we fought bears,” Payne said. “I still don’t know how I got poisoned.”
The boy had the sight?
I went cold and had to fight to keep my breathing even.
I knew Sawyer was fae-touched because Talon had said so when his shadow had attacked him by the running trail a few days ago, but this— This was the worst possible gift. The sight meant madness, visions bleeding into reality until he wouldn’t be able to tell which was which.
I hadn’t witnessed it firsthand, but all the stories talked about seers who couldn’t stop screaming about disasters that they couldn’t change and others who stood frozen in place, trapped in their visions. And those had been fae.
The only one to survive the gift without going crazy had been a woman and only because of her bonded mates.
Sawyer was human. And a man. The Goddess wouldn’t give him any bonded mates, and his mind was more fragile than a fae’s since humans weren’t supposed to have magic.
Fuck.
But that wasn’t my biggest problem. While Sawyer had potential, he was just a single guardsman.
No, Payne said they were attacked by bears, except Payne had been poisoned. “And no one saw a serpent?”
Shadow monster activity had increased, but we were fucked if they were also undergoing a transformation of some kind.
“I didn’t see a serpent. Kit or Lewin might have.” Payne’s gaze slid from me to his mate lying on the table, his expression tight with worry.
“I didn’t see one either,” Grefin groaned. “But everything happened so fast. Those bears came out of the trees like an ambush.”
Shit. This wasn’t good. The fact that an experienced guardsman like Grefin felt like the shadow bears’ behavior had changed was beyond concerning.
Ambush. The word stuck in my mind. Shadow monsters didn’t coordinate. They hunted, they attacked, they fed—but they didn’t plan.
Except first there’d been the increasing numbers, then the daytime attacks that never used to happen. And now five bears attacking an experienced team like they’d known exactly how to strike.
Something was changing in the Gray. Something was making them bolder. Smarter.
And we had no idea what.
My wolf heaved under my skin, jerking me a step toward the door and reminding me that I didn’t have time to deal with any of this right now.
Goddess be damned!
At least Kit and his team would live. That was something. Except now I was down another hunting team, which meant cutting lieu time for the rest of my men. Again. They were already stretched thin, and morale was shit even before this latest disaster.
My wolf clawed inside my chest. Garden. Now.
Fuck. I needed to get to Sage before—
No. I needed to deal with Sawyer first. The boy had the sight and didn’t trust me. Not that I blamed him.
Even if he did open up, I was the worst possible person to help him. I didn’t have the patience or the skills to help him manage his gift or stay sane.
No. Quill would have to deal with the boy. He had a better temperament for it, and Sawyer was more likely to trust him than me or Talon.
We needed to know exactly what Sawyer had seen in his vision: how he’d known Payne was poisoned, if he’d seen anything about those bears that explained their behavior, and any other detail that might explain what happened.
And more importantly, Quill needed to teach him fae meditation techniques, so maybe, just maybe, we could keep his mind from shattering.
I clenched my jaw against a growl, my wolf now pissed that the boy was not only endangered by the Gray and the other guardsmen, but by his own magic.
Sawyer shifted, his posture tense, his arms crossed over his chest, and his mouth pinched tight like he was bracing for whatever came next.
“You’re dismissed.” I jerked my chin toward the door, indicating he should go. “Meet Captain Quill here tomorrow after the fifth bell to discuss your… gift.”
He flinched at the word gift and stood. “I can’t control it, Lord Commander.”
“You might never,” I told him.
His shoulders inched down, some of the tension in his posture relaxing, and I realized he’d been afraid that I’d demand he use his abilities to protect the guard, something I’m sure the humans would have jumped at.
And knowing the humans, they wouldn’t have understood his ability and would have punished him for not being able to do what they wanted. No wonder he was so reluctant to say anything.
“Here. Tomorrow.”
I hated that I was assigning him something to do on his second lieu day, but he was still being punished for threatening to murder his fellow guardsmen even if they had deserved it.
A conversation with Quill while confined to the Black Tower would probably do him good since he might not get much conversation out of Kit, Payne, and Lewin, given the circumstances.
“Yes, Lord Commander.” He hurried out of the infirmary, and I turned my attention to the others in the room.
“Nothing said here leaves this room,” I said, making sure to catch the eyes of both of the human guardsmen assisting Flint.
They didn’t know Sawyer like Kit’s team did or even Grefin, and the last thing the boy needed was his gift becoming fodder for barracks gossip, especially given how we were still dealing with the fact that he’d come through the ring after dark and pissed off everyone in the guard.
Owun and Evrat exchanged glances, but I couldn’t tell what it meant. It would be a Goddess-given miracle if it meant they were starting to accept the boy. He had, after all, saved a fellow guardsman’s life.
“Sawyer’s fae-touched abilities are not up for discussion.
Foresight isn’t something that can be controlled or commanded,” I continued, keeping my voice hard enough that they’d remember this.
“It’s not a gift. It’s a curse. The visions come when they come, show what they show.
The fact that Sawyer managed to change what he saw and save Payne’s life is nothing short of a miracle. Don’t expect it to happen again.”
The guardsmen nodded their understanding, and Owun opened his mouth like he wanted to ask something, then shut it, clearly thinking better of it.
“I’m just glad he saw something,” Payne said, his expression tight with exhaustion. “I don’t even know where I was bit.”
“No shit,” Grefin said. “Never thought I’d be grateful for the runt.” He winced as he adjusted the towel on his head, blood seeping through the fabric.
“Once I’m done here, you’ll need to strip,” Flint said. “If we can find the bite, maybe we can figure out how big that serpent was.”
“It had to have been small,” Payne replied. “That’s the only way I could have missed it.”
Grefin huffed. “With the way things went down, I would have missed anything smaller than a hound.”
Which was saying something, since Grefin was an experienced guardsman and usually kept his head in battle.
My wolf heaved inside me, reminding me that I’d stood there for too long. Fine. Everyone would live and everything else could wait.
I stormed out of the infirmary, back into the silent halls. At this hour, anyone who wasn’t on the wall, out in the Gray, or in the infirmary was asleep, something I should be doing. But first, I needed to make sure a stunned, stunning redhead was protected.
I hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time, to the top of the Black Tower.
A hint of light, only really visible because of my wolf-enhanced eyesight, shone through the skylight above, illuminating the floor’s unusual design.
The hole in the center guarded by a railing offered light to the library below, a small-scale reproduction of some of the towers in the White Tower in the fae realm.
I shoved open my suite door and marched through the sparse sitting room to my equally sparse bedroom.
With a growl, I dropped onto my bed, and sent my spirit to the Garden, praying I hadn’t wasted too much time and there was a chance we could convince West not to say anything to the High Priestess about Sage’s marks.