34. Zari
Chapter thirty-four
Zari
“ D aeden!” Hazelle screamed, her hand still on her sword. She’d meant to draw it, to fight against the smoke. Now, she and Zari ran toward where Daeden and the soldier had collapsed in the grass.
Already, the purple smoke receded, its deadly job done.
Once more it had sown chaos, bringing the war closer to re-igniting.
Everything had happened so fast. Crimson soldiers had charged, only to be halted by a wave of purple smoke that choked them.
Those who survived it at first had started shooting and throwing grenades, which exploded uselessly in mid-air.
The fallen soldier was none other than Tobias. That poor kid. How had he gotten mixed up with the Crimsons. A second, more panicked, thought crossed Zari’s mind. If Tobias was here… where was Javen?
One of the two wounded moaned. It was impossible to tell which.
Hazelle stood still, staring down at them both.
Already, Zari had scanned both bodies. Tobias seemed in more stable condition than Daeden.
“Go to him!” she commanded Hazelle. “Put pressure on the soldier’s wound!
” If the blood flow was staunched, if Tobias carried silverbane, then maybe he’d survive.
As for Daeden, if she could find the bullet, if she could perform basic battlefield first aid on a fae…
A thousand ifs, and only hope to carry her through .
“He… he shot Dae!”
“And Daeden nearly killed him.” A simple reminder that her friends had not been on the same side of the war as her. “Pressure on his wound. If you want peace, this is how we keep it.”
Yansin had warned her. If either Tobias or Daeden died, the Accords would end. That smoke, and whoever made it, had once again tried to plunge the country into war.
Her face drawn, Hazelle knelt by Tobias. His labored breathing was the only sign he lived. Flashes of that terrible night in the capital played in Zari’s mind. Still, she calmed herself, taking deep, steadying breaths.
The fae looked to her, determined. “Tell me what I need to do. For his sake, and the Accords.”
Whatever revenge Hazelle might have wanted against Tobias had already faded. Zari’s voice remained steady as she relayed orders to Hazelle. Triage, pure and simple. Get the wounds bandaged. Get the patient’s vitals steady.
As she pressed the ripped fabric to the wound, Hazelle spoke to Tobias in a low whisper, something calming and sweet.
Had she already forgiven his act of violence against her cousin?
Did she recognize Tobias as the soldier who she’d been so smitten with on the train, when things had all seemed so much less dire?
Zari turned her attention back to Daeden. She told herself this was the hospital, that a doctor would soon be on his way, pretending in order to stay calm. There was no doctor, and Daeden’s wound wouldn’t stop bleeding.
She dug through the first aid kit in her purse, cursing the fact she’d not packed more supplies. Zari called to Hazelle, “In the soldier’s belt pouch, is there anything that looks like a dried plant?” Surely Captain Javen would have ensured his soldiers were prepared.
Searching through his pockets, Hazelle pulled a small bundle out. Before Zari gave her instructions, she yelped and dropped it. “Silverbane? Do you mean to burn me?”
“You can’t touch it? ”
“No fae can!”
Zari bit her lip, now understanding just why Javen hadn’t helped her harvest the herb. Turning toward Tobias, Zari reached for the fallen bundle of plants. She carefully placed the leaves on the still bleeding gash.
Proper triage and allotment of priority are important aspects of smooth and efficient medical coverage in the battlefield, her textbook had said, but the textbook hadn’t mentioned silverbane nor how to treat a fae’s injuries. Clearly, there was much it had left out.
If silverbane healed mortals wounded by fae, might a different plant help a fae? Zari scanned the surrounding grassy field, the ruins, the hillside littered with corpses.
Tobias gave a great, shuddering sigh, and his eyes flicked open. He stared up at Hazelle, who gazed back down at him with a confused expression.
“Hold him steady,” Zari told Hazelle. She couldn’t waste any more breath than that, as blood still streamed from Daeden’s wound. Zari cursed, I don’t know anything about magical healing.”
Tobias struggled to sit up, despite Hazelle’s best attempt at holding him down with her one arm. He cleared his throat. “Cadevesh,” he said. “You should try cadevesh.”
The old folk tales said cadevesh was beloved by the fae and deadly to humans. A rhyme played out in Zari’s memory, a sing-song tune accompanying it.
Cadevesh’s blooms are the Queen’s blessed own,
but silverbane saves a life, once grown.
Leave the fairest flowers to the fairest folk,
stay far away from its cloying smoke.
Zari looked up at the weedy plants pushing between the stone rubble in the courtyard.
She spotted gorse, heather—and there!—a single cadevesh plant, its white flowers opening under the moonlight.
Wasting no time, Zari hurried over and knelt, tugging off a few of the broad, flat leaves before returning.
Already, Daeden’s breathing shallowed, each exhale softer than the last. As her fingers brushed over his blood-slicked skin, the heat of the infection burned her. Laying the leaves on top of the wound, Zari closed her eyes .
“Please,” she whispered. “Let this be enough.”
The night wind whistled around her. She took a breath, waiting. Hoping.
Faintly, a bell chimed, and laughter seemed to ring out. Zari opened her eyes searching for the sounds. Nothing had changed. Hazelle still held Tobias nearby. Daeden still fought for every breath.
“It’s going to work soon,” she told him.
If it didn’t, if she failed… Hazelle would be left with no one. Tivre would lose someone he cared for. The world would be a sadder, darker place without Daeden’s easygoing joy in it.
His lips parted. He whispered something she couldn’t quite hear. Hazelle turned her head and called to him, “You’re going to be alright! Zari is with you, Dae.”
“By the Maiden,” he murmured. “By her light and her blade. I do not wish to die.”
“You won’t.” Zari squeezed his hands before applying another cadevesh leaf. “I’m here.”
A chill spread from the leaf, as if it was made of ice. Silvery light danced over her hands, spread over the leaves and the wounds. The strands grew thicker, like quicksilver, racing across Daeden’s body.
The bleeding stopped. Daeden sighed in relief.
His breathing steadied and his skin cooled to a normal temperature.
He was going to survive. The knot of worry in Zari’s chest eased, replaced by the steady calm that came from years of tending the sick and injured.
She had seen men slip away too quickly, and she had seen them claw their way back.
Tonight, at least one life had been saved.
“Get away from him.” That cold, familiar voice sent shivers down her spine.
Javen.
Zari lunged for Tobias’s pistol. Her fingers wrapped around the handle as Javen approached, the lit cigarette in his mouth illuminating his harsh-angled face.
The wind had whipped his perfectly styled dark hair into tousled disarray, but other than that, he looked completely unharmed.
Once more, he’d arrived after the deadly smoke.
Could he have been the one to cause it? Zari leveled the gun at him. “What do you want?”
Smirking, he said, “Pull the trigger. I dare you.”
“Murderer!” Hazelle sprang from her knees in a whirlwind of fabric and flying golden hair.
With a snarl, she hurled a rock at him. It smashed into his temple, hard enough to knock the cigarette from his lips.
As blood dripped from where the rock had made impact, he remained motionless, staring at her.
Hazelle was already reaching for another stone, her chest heaving, eyes blazing with rage.
“Ha-Hazelle?” A stutter crept into his tone. “What are you doing here?” Pain flickered in Javen’s blue eyes, stripping away his usual severity and leaving him looking startlingly young, no older than Zari herself.
The shift in him was enough to make Zari lower her gun. It did nothing to stop Hazelle’s rage. She drew her sword, the movement graceful as a dancer’s, and charged at Javen. “You promised to keep Dae safe. Now you train men to kill him!”
Moonlight flashed along her blade as she swung the sword, stopping just an inch from his throat.
Javen didn’t flinch. He stood utterly still, as if carved from stone. However he knew Hazelle, he had trusted she wouldn’t strike to kill, despite her anger.
“She loved you!” Hazelle’s words tumbled over each other in a storm of grief and fury. “Celene loved you and you murdered her!”
“I didn’t kill her.” With the flat of his hand, he pushed down Hazelle’s blade. Tears glittering on his face, Javen’s lip twisted in a familiar snarl. “You lost your sister to Blood Ember, and I lost my wife and child. ”
“Your… child?” Hazelle asked. A sob broke her words into fragments. “Why would—”
“Because the Queen always gets what she wants.”
Zari’s mouth went dry. Celene, Hazelle’s eldest sister.
Javen had been her husband. He knew Hazelle because they’d been family.
The realization struck like a blow, made sharper by the fleeting regret she’d glimpsed.
Some part of him still cared for Hazelle.
If that ember of emotion remained, perhaps, just perhaps, there was a chance they could all survive this.
Carefully, she spoke. “Captain Javen. Please, get Tobias to a medic. Let us be.”
Her words had no immediate effect on him, until Hazelle looked up, her eyes wide, to whisper, “Please.”
“So Daeden can hunt me down when my back is turned?” His jaw twitched, all vulnerability gone from his expression.
“I’d stop him.” Hazelle shook her head. “Daeden would sooner break than hurt me.”