7. Chapter 7
Lunette
Three small wooden pails sat in their familiar spots, containing the worst of the leaks. I no longer had to think about where to place them. Rain hammered the shutters as the ash bread finished rising on the hearth, filling the cabin with the warm scent of flour and salt.
Louie had stopped by earlier, waking me from a deep slumber.
He was soaked to the bone and eager to yap about the attack that had sent smoke into the air while I was warding.
He said the traffic on the road below our ridge had been a royal convoy from Tir Larethia.
That explained the mage powerful enough to shock me from a distance.
He’d bragged that his papa might let him join the scavenging once the storm passed, like a boy dreaming of his first hunt rather than looting bodies. Another child eager to learn how to pick through the leavings of violence. Another parent who would pretend it was simply work.
I’d nodded at the right places, but my mind had stayed with the men scattered out there beyond the ridge—someone’s son face-down in the mud, someone’s father staring blindly up at the sky. War made everything personal for someone.
I wasn’t fool enough to act on my urge to help. A woman found alone would be a prize for a different kind of hunger. Human vultures circled every road, every conflict in the borderlands. It wasn’t safe, even with my magic.
The truth of that was heavy but not heavy enough to crush the shameful, stubborn relief.
For once, disaster wasn’t knocking on my door.
I appreciated the break. I’d slept most of the day away to ease the ache behind my eyes.
And tonight promised a feast of cheese, eggs, and the last greens of summer.
Simple food, bought with my labor, not wrestled from the dead.
Muffin perched on the table beside me, tasseled ears twitching, ready to clamp his tiny mouth over an egg and drain it dry the moment I turned away.
He had the morals of a highway robber and the appetite to match.
I couldn’t fault him—it was a veska’s way.
I’d already set one aside, and when I offered it, he purred, long body curling around his prize with satisfaction.
No one was around to judge my voice as I hummed an old tune my mother once loved while preparing dinner for one. It filled the silence I’d grown used to since my parents’ deaths—the echo where other voices, where warmth, kindness, and family, used to be.
Sometimes I wished for a voice to join my humming, a quick hug while I bent over the hearth, someone to share my joys and worries with. But there was no one in Selmont. So that wouldn’t happen unless I found an escape route from the borderlands or the gods delivered someone right to my doorstep.
Agitated by something, Muffin ran past me, scratching and growling at the door.
I ignored him as I pulled the bread out of the fire.
But then a frantic neigh cut through the clatter of the storm.
My heart jolted. No one rode into my part of the forest at this time of night—not unless death was chasing them.
My eyelids fluttered shut, the predictable script of the night already playing out in my mind.
Important things always came in threes. My parents said that the gods loved the unbalanced number, that it was one way we mortals could see their hand playing in our world.
Performing multiple healings in one day then warding the village the next had already drained me.
This unknown emergency would mark the third time I’d have to drain myself in so many days.
So, the gods were right on schedule with their meddling. Whatever Fate had in store for me couldn’t be much worse than my everyday life.
…unless it was a raider looking for easy prey.
No, it couldn’t be. I’d felt the proof of the ward’s strength only last night. Trusting in my magic, I wiped my hands and pushed the door open to find the clearing alive with nature’s wrath.
Wind wrenched the door from my hand. Icy rain drenched the front of my threadbare linen dress almost instantly. Fallen leaves whipped through the air in the clearing around my cabin. There was so much debris blowing about that I didn’t spot the black horse until it snorted.
Foam dripped from its mouth as the poor thing panted, chest heaving with each desperate breath. The creature lurched closer, its ornate saddle and padding shimmering with gold decorations in the dim moonlight.
Slumped over the saddle horn was the stallion’s rider.
His face was barely visible beneath the dark, wavy hair spread across it.
I could make out broad shoulders, a cloak soaked with rain, and the glint of steel armor and chainmail.
As if his grip had finally given way after a long struggle, the rider tumbled from the stallion’s back.
He slammed into the mud below with a resounding crash, plastering the already stressed horse with a shower of mud.
The spooked stallion danced sideways, nostrils flaring. Taking a step forward, I steeled myself, preparing to soothe the beast as best I could. Instead of calming at the sight of me, it stomped backwards and fled back into the howling storm.
I’d been outside for only two or three minutes, and my skin was already turning to ice. If I was freezing already, this warrior must be more than halfway to death.
“Benevolent gods, help us,” I breathed.
I dashed over and dropped to my knees, mud soaking through my dress.
The warrior had landed on his back. He wore a full suit of armor, which was a lucky thing, because the steel covering his body was probably the only reason he was still breathing.
His entire side was sticky with blood. A quick glance showed that something had hit him with such force that it had slammed through the cuirass into the chainmail below. My fingers brushed aside hair to find his throat.
The faint throb of life fluttering against my fingertips sent hope and a strange jolt shooting straight up my arm. It was startling in its intensity. My breath hitched and pulse stuttered as if my body had been waiting for it.
Magic. This man was a mage.
Self-protective instincts screamed at me to leave him. A stranger, especially one wearing armor, meant danger. Yet something about him felt…inevitable, like Fate had heard my blasphemous thoughts and decided to offer me a challenge.
But that didn’t mean that this man would be a blessing. He might mean my death—or worse.
And he was so large. Fate, apparently, also didn’t believe in moderation.
He had to be more than thrice my weight in all that steel. But his ragged breath wheezed between the sounds of the storm—frail, helpless, human. My hands moved before fear could talk me into callousness.
I needed to get him inside, warm and dry, as soon as possible. But how? I didn’t have a cart to load him onto or even his horse, and my arms would give out if I tried to drag him all the way there.
A blanket. Inelegant, but workable. I ran inside past Muffin. A few seconds later, I ran back out into the storm and flattened an old blanket out on the ground in front of him. If I could get him onto it, I could tie it around my hips and use my legs to get him inside.
My hands flew over his body, removing what pieces I could. I thought for a moment about undoing the laces holding his cuirass in place but dismissed the idea. The armor would protect his wound while I dragged him through the mud.
“I’m Lunette,” I said, hooking my arms under his shoulders to hoist him onto the blanket. “Rule number one,” I murmured, forcing steadiness into my voice, “is no dying.”
The list was short. I had a lot to do.
He, of course, said nothing. But clarifying my expectations gave me something to say so my mind would focus on that instead of worrying. Silence left too much room for panic.
As soon as I started moving, my head throbbed from yesterday’s warding, and my muscles quivered from the two emergency healings the day before that.
Inch by agonizing inch, I pulled him the ten feet across the yard.
The blanket had saved the strength in my arms enough that I was able to heave him up the two steps onto the porch and over the threshold, marking our passage with a trail of mud and blood on the floorboards.
By the time I kicked the door shut, I was shaking. Wrestling him onto my narrow bed was an impossibility, so the floor would have to do for now.
The storm sounded like a howling monster as it snarled around the cabin. Muffin greeted the newcomer with a growl from his perch then scrambled over to sniff at his feet.
The hearth’s warm glow revealed more about the man I’d just dragged into my home. The biting cold had painted his lips blue. His lightly tanned skin matched mine; his hair was a dark chestnut brown, not black as it had seemed in the dim of the night outside.
Typical of Fate and her brother, the god of tricks, to send a man worth staring at only when he was unconscious and bleeding out. A cruel sense of humor, indeed.
My traitorous heart fluttered anyway when I brushed away the hair that was covering his face. Even half-dead, he was the most roguishly handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on.
Concentrate, Luna.
If I let him lie there, he’d be all the way dead by morning.
I stripped his cloak and tunic away, wincing at what I found.
His injury was worse than I’d thought. My fingers, still numb with cold, struggled to untie the tight laces of his cuirass.
I tossed the chest half aside. At the clatter of steel hitting the floorboards, Muffin jumped and let out a high-pitched squeak from where he was supervising on the table.
I used my legs to lift then heaved the back half of his cuirass out from underneath his bulk. Now I just needed to get the chainmail off. I was panting and sweating even though my skin was still cold from the storm.
Last bit then healing.
I lifted his chain shirt from his waist. I couldn’t help but stop when I reached his injury. I’d seen wounds of all types. This one made my hands pause anyway.
The chainmail was embedded in his flesh. I slowly peeled the metal sticking into skin, muscle, and bone away. Whatever had hit him had grazed the lung or worse. But I couldn’t tell with my eyes due to all the blood from his damaged liver.
“Sorry for stripping you,” I muttered, wry humor surfacing with my fear. “I promise I’m not after your armor, coin, or virtue.”
Twice I had to stop—once to feed the fire, once to steady my spinning head and grab bandages—before the last ounce of steel finally clattered to the floor. I caught my breath while I studied what I was working against.
The cold slowing his body was probably the only thing that had kept him alive this long. With my healing, lots of care, and a dose of luck, he might survive this. But it would be a near thing. I would have to pour as much of myself into this healing as I could to make it a slight possibility.
“All right, soldier.” I giggled, half delirious from the exertion. “Remember rule number one. Now, rule number two: no killing your hostess.”
I’d only found one dagger on his belt, but that didn’t make having a huge man in my cabin any less of a threat. I hid it in an old trunk, along with my knives. A bit of caution might save my life if this man were the type to get violent while half out of his mind with pain or the inevitable fever.
Given how much magic closing the worst of the wound would take, the likelihood of my fainting right next to him was almost certain.
Passing out, often for hours after using too much magic, was a major downside that would leave me completely vulnerable.
I might not even be conscious to bind his wound afterward.
Still, I accepted the risk because it was unthinkable to let a man die when I could prevent it.
Pesky morals, indeed.
I clenched my jaw and worked the clean bandage underneath his back so it would be ready to tie in place.
“Here we go,” I whispered, and pressed my hands to his skin, magic at the ready. As I pressed on the wound, his blood bubbled up against my palms.
I wished I knew his name.
Just… stay alive. Please.
I grew lightheaded from trying to keep my trembling arms steady.
My power rose slowly, reluctantly. The fraying threads tugged from around my heart, each one burning as it slipped free.
I willed them into him, stitching warmth into the torn places where his life flickered until it felt as though I were unraveling myself.
It quickly became clear that I didn’t have enough in me to do much more than stop the bleeding from killing him outright. In my present state, it would take a full week or more to get him back on his feet. It was a good thing he was unconscious. What I was doing to him was probably excruciating.
As Fate would have it, the thought was premature. A strangled groan suddenly tore from his throat.
Oh no.
His body arched under my hands as I struggled to hold him in place. Then his lashes fluttered, and for the barest moment, dark eyes so blue they were almost purple fixed on mine.
One heartbeat of staring back was enough to strip away every scrap of emotional armor I wore. I felt seen. Like he was able to absorb every detail of my being—past the rain drying on my skin, past the freckles sprinkling my nose and cheeks, down to what made me me.
Another shock rippled through my body, lighting up every nerve ending, making goosebumps rise across my arms and neck. Except this shock seemed to have affected him too, because his eyes softened even as his entire body shuddered once beneath me.
I stared back as my own eyelids grew heavy, my magic tugging me down. My vision swam as the world tilted. As I collapsed forward onto his chest, surrendering to magical exhaustion, I swore I saw shadows at the edges of my vision, wrapping around me like a pair of arms in an embrace.