Chapter 16 #2
My back hurt, I had a throbbing shoulder, and it felt as if a sharp stone had pierced my left arm, but apart from that, I was uninjured. The nausea returned with a vengeance, and I heaved once before I could rein myself in.
“Shit,” Thain cursed and threw himself over me. He was heavy, and the impact wasn’t gentle—the little air inside of my lungs was forced out by his stunt—but I was thankful for his protection.
I was too terrified to protest that Thain was using his body to shield me as three of the attackers advanced on us, and I clutched his tunic so tightly that my hands were shaking.
Thain attempted to keep his face straight, but I could hear the wince he was suppressing, and something warm and wet dripped down on me. “Are you hurt?”
“Don’t worry about me! We have to be clever now.”
Blood. It was his blood dripping on me, and I screamed. I yelled for Antas, for Fig, for Ireas, which was certainly not the clever thing Thain had meant. But I wasn’t rational. We needed backup. Where were my men?
“Shh, darling, here goes nothing. On my sign, you’ll run as fast as you can.
Don’t look back. Find the others. I’ll buy you time.
I fear I can’t do anything else anymore.
” Thain’s voice was strained, but in the back of my mind I registered that he’d issued his orders so loud that the mercenaries must have picked it up too.
Since I didn’t want them to overhear even more, I toned my voice down to a whisper, which sounded more like hissing. “No, Thain. I can’t leave you alone! You might get killed!”
“Sweet thing, do as I say, please. You have to be safe.”
“Hand over the woman, and you might keep your life,” one of the mercenaries commanded. His tone made my skin crawl, and I shuddered.
“I’ll give you something all right.” Thain rolled off me and lifted himself up to his knees, still shielding my body with his, all in the blink of an eye. His reflexes were faster than I’d ever seen before. Our eyes met for a second, and he silently urged me to flee. Or did he?
I hastily stood up, and my head spun as dizziness and a sudden loss of all energy consumed me. In my attempt to stop the world from turning, I stumbled and landed back on the ground. Had I hit my head harder than I thought?
My vision doubled, and I fought against fainting. I couldn’t run like that—I didn’t even make another attempt to rise to my feet. The only sound I could hear was blood rushing to my ears.
The surrounding air turned uncomfortably hot, and it was as if something sucked out the meager rest of my energy.
Pulling myself to my hands and knees, I panted as an insufferable heat threatened to burn me from the inside out. With my last remaining strength, I raised my head by a few inches, just in time for me to see our attackers igniting into flames—Thain must have wielded his magic!
Feeling cautiously relieved and unable to stay conscious any longer, I surrendered as I drifted into peaceful oblivion.
Upon waking, I discovered someone had placed me in my bedroll, and the night sky stretched above me. I must have been out for hours.
Back at home, I’d always made fun of women who fainted at the slightest strain, and now I’d suffered more blackouts in a few weeks than ever before in my life. It was embarrassing, for sure.
Exhausted and drained, I briefly yearned to go back to sleep, but the recollection of the confrontation with Perran Feroy’s mercenaries came rushing back into my mind. I jerked up and met Antas’ eyes looking down at me.
“You’re awake. Finally. How are you?”
“Not important. How are the others?”
“They’re all here except Dion, who has not returned from his excursion yet.
He should arrive soon, though. Ireas’ arrow wound is deep but not worrisome enough for you to be concerned, and we’ve done our best to treat Thain’s injuries.
He got seriously hurt but will recover sooner rather than later.
Despite his own wounds, Ireas insisted on treating him, and the effect was almost immediate.
Fig and I haven’t gotten a single scratch.
And before you ask, none of the mercenaries survived. ”
A sense of relief washed over me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. “But?”
Antas was worried and downright flustered, an expression I’d never seen on the man for whom the word stoic must have been invented. “You’re aware that Thain and Dion don’t get along, of course.”
I nodded, thinking back to the stories Thain had told me earlier, and I wondered how their animosity was connected with Antas showing nerves. I briefly feared Dion might have betrayed us, but that wasn’t true, right? It couldn’t be.
“Well, with the ambush and—something else in mind, there’s a good chance Dion will escalate when he hears about it. There are things you don’t understand yet, and I promise you an explanation, but only after we are sure that Dion won’t hurt Thain.”
“You think he’s such an unstable asshole that he’ll attack Thain for real?
And for what? Not liking someone is one thing, but fearing that they’ll harm a companion is something else entirely.
” Shock settled over me. I wasn’t aware the men thought Dion was completely unhinged and still didn’t intervene.
Antas’ answer was swallowed by the voice of the man in question booming over the clearing. “What?”
“That’s our cue. Do you feel well enough to stand up?” Antas asked and offered me his hand. Worriedly, I accepted his help and followed him toward the noise.
After a few moments, we found ourselves amidst a heated discussion between Fig and Dion. As soon as I came into view, Dion’s head snapped around. He left Fig standing mid-sentence and stalked toward me with big strides.
“Are you hurt, Jama?” He grabbed my shoulders, letting his eyes roam over my body to check for wounds. It was clear to me that he was in an extremely volatile state, more so than usual. There was something primal about his posture.
“The moment I leave, you get attacked!” Dion sounded angry as if I’d personally arranged the ambush just to piss him off.
“Just a scratch on my left arm.” I couldn’t wrap my head around why his reaction was so intense, but I tried to soothe him nonetheless.
It was a mystery to me how I could have ever believed that I truly knew this man.
“And I fear I hit my head when I fell off the horse because I was dizzy and fainted. But I’m fine now. ”
Dion narrowed his eyes, and the usual irritated muscle in his jaw twitched.
“About that,” Fig said, keeping Antas from walking away toward the camp where Ireas and Thain were sleeping.
I glanced at Fig, and Dion spun around to look at him. “What?”
Dion was on the edge while Fig’s gaze focused on him as if he were handling dynamite. A premonition of something dreadful was building up in my stomach, and my senses screamed at me to leave. Because one fact was certain: things were very, very wrong.
My eyes stayed fixed on Fig. I was aware of my volatility, and I despised it, but no matter how hard I tried to calm down, I was too far gone. I’d lost all control.
For a long time, I’d managed to keep my temper in check, but it became harder and harder not to explode the longer I dealt with my shit instead of just pushing it away.
The mission earlier today also had done nothing to provide some release, and the guard had vanished from the face of the earth as well.
On top of everything, I felt Jama’s blue eyes studying me as if I was dangerous—I mean, she wasn’t exactly wrong, but I despised that she was looking at me like that.
She was bewildered about what was going on, but I could tell she was aware of how close I was to losing any resemblance of restraint.
“Dion, while Antas and I check on the other two, would you be so kind as to explain to Nayana what an Amplifier is and what it means for her? She’s one, as it turned out,” Fig said, and I stared from him to Nayana and back.
I opened my mouth and closed it again before gaping at Fig like a fish. I couldn’t believe what I’d heard just moments ago.
There hadn’t been Amplifier in ages, and now the tiny woman we’d picked up almost randomly was supposed to be one? Feeling her gaze flickering from Antas to Fig, then to me, her cluelessness was palpable, and all I could do was nod. I was perplexed.
The implication hit me like a bucket of ice water, and for a few seconds, I was utterly lost.
However, as a very unpleasant and persistent thought crossed my mind, the cold numbness transformed into a dark fury, which crashed through me like a rising storm growing in my chest, destroying everything in its wake.
“Which type?” I stared at Fig, and my fists shook.
I hadn’t even realized that I’d balled them in the first place.
Fig hesitated, but there was no need to listen to his answer to know.
The way he had his arms crossed over his chest, his choice to keep Antas close instead of allowing him to leave, and his strategic positioning of Nayana between me and the camp allowed for only one conclusion.
“It’s fucking fire, isn’t it?” I snarled at the two males before my gaze pierced Jama. “You’re a fucking fire Amplifier, aren’t you?”
“I don’t even know what that means!” Nayana glowered at me defensively, and her eyes were dull with confusion.
“Yes, Dion. It’s fire. Now calm the fuck down.” Fig’s sudden use of profanity mirrored the extent of my own emotional instability.
“This is it. I’m going to kill Thain. I will fucking end him!” The growl escaping my throat resembled something more animalistic than anything else, even to my own ears.
I spun on my heel and stomped toward the campsite when Nayana did something stupid.
Instead of moving out of the way as every sane person would do when someone with murderous intent stormed their way, she stayed put and even dared to place her hands on my chest—I barely registered how gentle her touch was—in an attempt to stop me.
“Dion, for the gods’ sakes. I have no idea what your problem is, but please listen to me. Thain got heavily wounded while he was protecting me! Without him, the mercenaries would have taken me away. Just leave him alone!”
Maybe she thought that her information would soothe me, but her words had the opposite effect.
Her speaking his name fueled the fire inside my chest, and they also added an extra layer of self-loathing because it hadn’t been me who’d protected her—which was bad enough, even if I totally disregarded the whole fire predisposition disaster.
It was too much, and it had to stop now.
Something simply snapped in my brain, a red film slid across my vision, and like in a trance, I pushed Nayana out of the way.
I barely noticed that she lost her balance and fell to the ground. I was too far removed from reason. “Thain! You are so dead!”
“Enough, Dion.” Antas’ voice cut through the red mist as he appeared in front of me like an immovable mountain.
“Out of my way, uncle,” I growled, more beast than anything else.
“I can’t let you hurt one of your own, Dion, and you know that.
Get a grip on yourself. We’ve put up with your temper outbursts until now, but this is crossing the line and will stop immediately.
” Antas expression and tone, his stance, the way he stemmed his hands into his sides, and his eyes staring at me with an unyielding force of will—he was the spitting image of his brother, even in the way he bared his teeth at me and ordered me to stop, just like him.
Eyes widening, my instincts kicked in, and before I could even try to distinguish between the reality I perceived and the one that was actually real, I stumbled a few steps back, my gaze fixed on the ground as fury morphed into panic.
After a fraction of a second, the comprehension that it was my uncle who stood before me—and not his brother—sat in, and my racing heart slowed down, each beat steadier than the last. My mind had played a trick on me, supported by Antas’ changed mannerisms, and it had worked—and had probably saved Thain’s life. For now.
Yet, I was far from calm. Fury was still coursing through my veins, and I grasped at the tiniest shroud of self-control I could find as Antas’ attention shifted to something behind me.
I circled halfway around my own axis and noticed Nayana staring at me with wide eyes, her cerulean eyes so dark they were almost indigo. I zeroed in on her, observed how she clutched her left wrist as she shook like a leaf and moved to stand in front of her in an instant.
In response, she flinched and retreated a few unsteady steps, staying at arm’s length from me.
A slap in my face couldn’t have stung more, just as the fear written in her eyes twisted my insides, as its presence was no one’s fault but my own.
I’d pushed her away, and by the way she held her wrist, she’d gotten hurt. Fuck.
Seeing Nayana injured by my hand was enough to sober me up completely and instantly. My composure returned, and I resembled less and less of a rabid animal going for the kill.
“Naya.” My gaze honed in on the wrist she was cradling. “I’ve hurt you.”