34. Chapter 34 #2
She shook her head, the motion weak. “It matters. My word as a lord is good. I will marry you. First I just need…” She sighed heavily. “I just need to rest. Everything feels so heavy.”
Her eyes fluttered shut, and Elion’s smile turned into panic. “Dhara? Dhara!” He shook her gently with the hand on her cheek.
“She’s lost too much blood,” one of the healers murmured. “And she’s still bleeding. We need to work quickly.”
Everything turned into a flurry of chaos as they began stitching and binding the wound. My hands clenched and unclenched unconsciously, wishing they still held a sword. Even against the overwhelming tide of Viltov’s armies, I hadn’t felt this helpless.
So, I turned away and tried to find another way to make myself useful. Elion would watch over Dhara as the healers worked. I was sure of it.
My limbs were leaden and my eyes were heavy when Erix found me helping drive a tent stake into the ground.
While the clans were often quick to tear down and set up their temporary homes after spending lives on the move, with veritable cities springing up in the space of a few hours, battle had left everybody harrowed and tired.
With many wounded, there were fewer hands and the work was slow. So, I helped where I could.
Still, the mallet I was using to drive the stake into the ground missed its mark, and I frowned as it thudded uselessly into the sand. My eyes were nearly crossed with exhaustion, and it grew so dark I couldn’t see.
A shiver in my stomach preceded a warm hand on my shoulder.
Erix’s touch drove some of the exhaustion away, and I shot to my feet—too quickly—before wavering.
He held both my shoulders, and I leaned into the support gratefully.
Still, I wasn’t the only one who had battled with the suffering brought on by war for the past hours.
“Alza?”
Erix’s posture was slumped compared to the usual fierce set of his shoulders, but it was not the utter collapse of grief.
“She will live,” he assured. “Although I’m not sure she’ll ever bear my weight again.”
My eyes burned. It was too much. Too much loss. And yet we would have to weather more. I looked down at the mallet in my hands before glancing around as if trying to find some other way to help—to keep any more blood from running out like water I was trying to hold in my cupped hands.
“You won’t be able to help anybody if you collapse of exhaustion,” Erix pointed out, sensing the direction of my thoughts clearly enough.
Just as I could sense the heavy despair in him.
His exhaustion was tinged with guilt, and my soul ached with the knowledge that he blamed himself for the loss of the Heart.
“All right,” I agreed. “We will rest, and tomorrow we will figure out what comes next.”
Erix took my arm and led me through the chaotic outline of an encampment to a familiar tent. He had somehow set it up before coming to fetch me, and a rush of warm gratitude washed over me. As we ducked inside, I found our sleeping mats laid out side by side.
I instantly drifted toward mine, ready to collapse into Erix’s arms and escape into unconsciousness for a few hours, but Erix stopped me, dragging me over to the far corner where he had stored a full water skin.
Carefully, he poured some onto a cloth and reached for my hand. I gave it to him, before reaching down and realizing it was still covered with blood, now dried and sloughing off in copper flakes. I swallowed as he gently wiped it from my skin. I was shocked it didn’t leave stains.
Once my hands were clean, he reached for my face. The cloth came away with more dried blood—I had nearly forgotten the cut on my eyebrow.
“I’m glad more of this wasn’t yours,” he admitted quietly. The whispered words seemed somehow louder than all the clash of battle had been, in a way quiet only is after screaming chaos.
“I wish it were enough to sate the desert.”
He swallowed, and I traced the movement of his throat—the pulse that still fluttered there, proving he had survived.
“I fear she will only be angrier than ever. Her Heart isn’t just broken but lost. And we both know that the passions of this youngest sister can be unforgiving. I fear I have only hastened our end.”
Words I spoke to Aderyn once echoed in my head. A promise that as long as we still lived, there was some tiny shred of hope. And I was stubborn enough to hold on to even the barest possibility of survival.
“Tonight the world can end, and tomorrow we will get up and fight again.” I echoed my own words.
“As long as I’m here with you as the world ends.”
Although it did not completely break through the heaviness in my chest, a smile threatened the corners of my lips.
I plucked the damp rag from Erix’s fingers and set it down before leading us over to the bed rolls.
Then, I laid down beside him and wrapped my arms around him.
He molded himself into me in return, tucking my head beneath his chin and breathing deeply into the top of my head.
The scents of blood and sweat clung to his skin and clothes, but beneath it, lingered the salty freshness of the ocean where it met the shore. As we melted together, I pondered that at least we could make these two halves fit into a perfect whole.