Chapter 11 #3
Wylder’s chest vibrates a little when he speaks, but I’m not listening to the conversation in the room. I’m focused on the steady rhythm of his heart beating beneath my ear.
Wylder is alive. He’s okay. He’s here, and he’s holding me, and he’s okay.
At least…
I sit up and swipe a hand over my cheeks. “Are you okay?"
"I'll survive." His expression is guarded, his eyes sad.
What did that mean? Is he sad because I’m sad? Because Asher and Orion have told him about Henrik? Or because there’s more, and he’s really not okay?
A healer looks in the door. She's older, dark-skinned, with braided hair and the kind of focused expression that suggests she understands my concern.
"How is he?" I ask. “How is he, really?”
She looks at Wylder, and he nods. “It’s fine. There’s nothing you told me that I won’t tell them.”
“Very well. The tissue damage from the lash was extensive. We've healed the majority of that and within a day or two it will be fully healed.”
I let out a long breath and rest my head on his shoulder again. “Thank the goddess.”
"However.” The pause she takes while she regains my full attention makes my heart skip a beat. “There is still a matter of concern."
The room spins a little around the edge of my vision, but I try to rein in my panic. “If the burns are nearly healed, what's the concern?"
She folds her hands in front of her. "The magic that caused the injury left its own damage. Not to the tissue, but to the magical infrastructure underneath. We haven't been able to address it yet. Nothing we've tried so far has made any difference to that layer of the injury."
I look at Wylder. He's watching me with an expression that says he already knew this and was waiting to see how I'll take it.
"It's only been a few hours,” he says.
“I don’t understand. What’s the magical infrastructure? What’s damaged?”
“It’s my soul.”
I blink. “What does that even mean? How can your soul be damaged? How do we fix that?”
The healer gives me a smile. “Right now, the most important thing is for Wylder to rest and allow his body the chance to stabilize. If we push more magic at the damage before that happens, we risk compounding it. We’re going to give it time before we start trying anything further."
I check with Wylder, and he seems content with that, so I get on board. “All right. Thank you.”
“My pleasure. Let me know if you have any other questions, otherwise, you’re free to take him home. I’ve entered all my findings into his file in the Order databank. Any healer from your chapter will be able to review my notes and continue treatment as needed.”
Asher's hand lands on my shoulder, warm and brief. "We'll check in with Freya and Cormac, and give you two some time.”
A moment later, the room goes quiet.
I look at him for a long moment, taking in the bandaging and the pallor of his skin and the careful way he's holding himself to avoid aggravating the pain he's clearly still in, and my eyes well up again.
“Poppy, no. Don’t cry, babe. It’s going to be fine. I’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
“I hate this. I dragged you into the whole Life and Death Brigade stuff, but it never hit home until today. You could die. Orion and Rowan could die. Asher did die.” I swipe at the tears, and I swear I feel my heart break in two. “Henrik died.”
He pulls me back to his shoulder and rubs my back. “I’m genuinely sorry about that. He seemed like a really good guy.”
My throat is clogged with emotion, so I just nod.
He holds me for a long time without trying to fix it. One hand moves slowly up my back and then down again. He doesn't tell me it's okay, or that I shouldn't blame myself, or any of the things that are probably true but would bounce right off me.
He just holds me, and I cry until the grief loses its sharp edges and softens into something duller and exhausted.
Henrik had been genuinely delighted to meet another descendant. He'd come down into that chamber to help. He'd reached out to touch the wall to give us more information and…
“When the spirits converged on him, I fought so hard. I burned everything I could reach, and it wasn't enough. I couldn’t save him.”
"You did everything you could." Wylder's voice is low, close to my ear. "I didn’t need to be there to know that."
We sit for another long moment before he speaks again. "Did you find anything before it all went wrong?"
“Yeah, we learned quite a bit, actually.” I recap the highlights of my vision and how the lockstones can be repaired, but we don’t know how. “And the key is real. They were arguing about hiding it here in Europe or making the dangerous trek to the New World with it.”
I run that part through my mind and…
I sit up and gasp. “Ohmygoodness.”
“What is it?”
I meet those beautiful green gemstones and my heart hammers. “I was so distracted by the fact that we can repair the lockstones I missed the importance of the last sentence I heard of that argument.”
“Which was?”
“Enough. Stop speaking about me as if I’m not here!” I run rough fingers through my hair as my mind spins. “Wylder, the key isn’t a thing. It’s a person.”