Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
DARBY
Darby opened her mouth to protest, but Fransten had already moved on.
She swallowed, turning back to the captain.
She had begun gathering magic the moment Fransten had beckoned her over, and she could feel the energy buzzing inside of her, begging to be used as she studied him.
His face, covered in a thick layer of dirt, blood, and sweat, was slack and lolled to the side in an unconscious stupor.
Up close, she could see a wide gash that ran from the corner of one dark brow all the way down to his jaw.
Whatever had caused it had just narrowly missed his eye.
The fact that this man is still alive is a miracle.
She ran her hand over his hair, letting it linger as she established a link to allow the magic to travel into his body.
Entering from the head was risky, as the sudden rush of magic could negatively affect his brain if she didn’t keep in under careful control, but given the state of the rest of his body, starting from the top down would offer the quickest relief.
She started slowly, directing the magic in a slow trickle around his brain and down to the back of his head where his skull and spine met.
Once the path was set, she pushed more through, wrapping it around his spinal cord to numb the nerves.
“You’re going to help him?”
Merry stood by her shoulder, his gaze focused on his captain.
He must not have understood what Dr. Fransten meant. How do I tell him that the man who saved his life is under a death sentence?
She pressed her lips together, focusing on her current task while searching for the correct words to say.
Prior to her internship, Darby’s studies at the Academy had included how to speak about treatment with family and friends.
The goal was always to appear sympathetic but remain impartial and avoid giving false hope—something much easier to talk about in a classroom than it was to put into practice when face to face with real emotions. “I’m doing what I can for the pain.”
“But you’re not going to try to save him?”
“His injuries are extensive. Even if I was able to help him heal, there’s still the quality of life to consider. I will do everything in my power to keep him comfortable.” The response would have made her instructors proud, but the words left a sour taste in her mouth.
We both know it means I’m going to let him die.
“Please.” Merry tore his gaze away from his hero and looked up at her. His eyes were full of unshed tears, wide and pleading. “You have magic. Can’t you do something?”
“I’m not Deus. Not even magic can regrow a missing arm or leg.
” Darby swallowed against the hard lump that formed in the back of her throat.
“And I’m already almost at my limit as it is.
” She mentally brushed against all the threads of magic that extended to the patients she had seen already that morning.
“Take mine. Use whatever you’re using on me and give it to him.” Merry set his jaw. “I can handle the pain without it. You can—”
A nurse interrupted him, placing a hand on his arm. “Excuse me, sir? I need you to come with me. All non-emergency cases are to be moved to the recovery rooms.”
Merry hesitated, looking once more at his captain as the nurse gently pulled him away. “He saved all of us. You have to help him.”
Darby blinked away her own tears as she took a deep, steadying breath and rolled her shoulders back.
She pushed a little more magic through the link before setting it in place.
It might have been her imagination, but the captain seemed to be breathing just a little easier.
She touched his hair again, whispering softly to no one in particular.
“I’m sorry I can’t save you. I wish I could. ”
She jumped back and nearly yelped with surprise when his eyelids fluttered open at her words.
She looked down into pools of molten chocolate, darker even than the mochas that Henry loved to make.
They were bright and intense, swirling with resolve and the unusual clarity that often preceded death.
The captain opened and closed his mouth several times, and when he finally spoke, the words sounded like they had been forced through a pile of loose gravel. “The boys?”
“Boys?” Darby’s mind jumped to Merry’s words as she quickly put the pieces together.
“He jumped on it. Covered it with his own body and told us to run.”
“I don’t know about all of them,” she answered honestly. “But I just treated Merlin Wyss, and he’s going to be just fine.”
The captain let out a heavy exhale, which turned into a ragged cough. Fresh blood dribbled from the corner of his mouth. “Thank you.”
“I think the thanks goes to you.” Darby used the corner of the sheet to wipe away the blood. “You’re the only reason he was alive at all for me to treat. I’m just sorry I can’t do more for you.”
His eyelids fluttered closed, exhaustion evident in the lines of his face and his words as he started to fade. “He’s alive. It’s enough for me.”
His words sat in the back of Darby’s mind, rubbing against her consciousness like an ill-fitting shoe.
She checked on him periodically throughout the rest of the day as she attended to the rest of their patients, though the continued presence of the magical link was enough to tell her he still lived.
His spirit was obviously as tenacious as it was brave and selfless, and the longer he continued to defy expectations, the more she couldn’t get his words out of her head.
He sacrificed himself for his men, and this is his reward?
She hazarded a quick glance over at the captain’s still form, reassuring herself that he still breathed as she sanitized a tray of surgical tools for Fransten.
With the chaos of the morning now somewhat settled, the doctor had demoted her once more to prepping and fetching.
She tried not to let it rankle, but it was a disappointing blow.
I would have thought my performance today showed that I am capable of doing more than preparing instruments. What more will it take to prove myself? For heaven’s sake, they let Lacey stitch someone up on her own, and her focus is ocular medicine.
As if conjured by her internal dialogue, a light, falsely saccharine voice crooned, “Shouldn’t you be putting those man arms of yours to good use and rotating a patient or something?”
Well, that’s just spilling iodine on an open wound.
The bane of her academic existence approached, all delicate blonde curls and feminine curves and big blue eyes with long eyelashes that had left many of their male classmates falling at her feet.
Darby could not have cared less about her appearance, if not for the fact that behind her angelic looks Lacey hid a keen, sharp mind that seemed to specialize in creating barbs that drew attention to their disparity in appearance at every turn.
Darby spread her lips into an equally false smile. “What do you need, Lacey?”
Lacey gave her a once-over, one perfectly shaped brow rising with amusement.
“From you? Nothing. Dr. Aulers needs Fransten for a consult.” She straightened the sleeves of her blue medical jacket, eying Darby’s and clucking her tongue.
“Honestly, Darby. You look like you’ve been elbow deep in a bucket of blood.
I’m surprised Fransten has you out here cleaning scalpels; you can’t even keep your uniform clean. ”
Darby bit back the retort on the tip of her tongue. Lacey wasn’t wrong—her sleeves and the front of her jacket were stained with blood—but she also hadn’t been the one literally holding men together in some cases.
“Dr. Fransten is finishing up with a patient right now. I’ll let him know.”
“No need.” Fransten appeared from behind the curtain that had been set up in one corner of the room to give the semblance of at least some privacy.
He dipped his hands into the bowl of warm water that Darby had placed for him, since the sink was now hidden behind two rows of patients.
He scrubbed the blood from between his fingers.
“You can tell Aulers I’ll be right there. ”
With a wave of her fingers, Lacey disappeared back into the hall. Fransten approached Darby, drying his hands on a towel. “The patient will need another dose of anesthetic and then transfer to a recovery room.”
“Yes, sir. Happy gas?”
He shook his head. “We’re nearly out. I’d rather use you while we can.”
Her tired body protested at the thought of using more magic. Even with as careful and efficient as she had been, she was nearly at her limit and her eyes started to cross if she thought too hard about the tangle of magic strings she was holding. But rather than complain, she nodded.
“Understood.”
Fransten looked at her sympathetically. For all her frustrations at his strict limitations, the brilliant doctor was a decent mentor who did truly care about the people under his care. He patted her shoulder. “If it’s too much, we’ll find another way.”
She immediately straightened. “No, no. It’s fine. I just worry about what will happen when my shift is over.”
She might have the finesse and concentration to keep dozens of magical links flowing, but she wasn’t nearly strong enough to support them from such a distance as her home would be. It was hard enough moving to the next room.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
” Fransten sighed, rubbing a hand over his tired face.
“It may be that we’ll need fewer doses of it by the end of the night.
” He looked around the room, his gaze lingering on the captain for several long moments.
He turned back to Darby with a questioning look. “He’s still with us?”
She shrugged, pretending to be suddenly very interested in the arrangement of surgical tools on her tray. “He seems to be the stubborn type.”
“Shelton.” Fransten’s voice was kind, but it held an edge of warning.
She looked up guiltily.
“I understand that it’s hard to lose a patient, but keeping him alive artificially is only prolonging his suffering and draining you faster.”
“I’m not—”
“You’re not mixing healing magic with your anesthetic?”
Her jaw worked back and forth. When she didn’t answer, Fransten spoke quietly.
“As unfortunate as it is, death is a part of life. Sometimes there’s nothing we can do.”
“But we didn’t even try!” The angry answer burst out of her before she could stop it. Darby immediately looked back down at her hands.
“There was nothing to try. Medicine has taken great strides in the last century, but it’s not as if we can cobble together bodies or build him new limbs.
We are still limited; we can protect life but not create it.
He’s too far gone; there’s not enough of him left to save.
The least you can do is allow him to die with dignity, rather than prolonging the inevitable.
You can’t save everyone, Shelton. The sooner you learn that the happier you’ll be. ”
Darby nodded as he left, more because it was expected of her than that she agreed with him.
Her eyes stared ahead, unfocused, as the plans and scribbled drawings on her desk swirled in her mind.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as she lifted her gaze to the captain, all at once making a choice that could have disastrous consequences if it went wrong.
It went against every bone of her rule-following, achievement-focused self, but she couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.
Fransten might not be able to save him.
But I think I can.