37. Chapter 37
Afork of lightning flashed overhead, the sound of the wind seeming to grow louder, ringing in her ears.
“You don’t understand,” Vaelin said, his voice tight with anger.
Isla’s anger flashed hot beneath her skin.“Vaelin, I know what he is — what they are. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m a healer. I will not leave a man to die in the dunes. Now grab his shoulders.”
But Vaelin was unmoved by her words, only gritting his teeth tighter, a muscle feathering in his jaw.
Isla made a sound of angry disbelief, reorienting herself so she stood at the shifter’s head. Fitting her arms under the man’s considerable shoulders, she heaved, her heels sinking into the sands. She adjusted her grip, bending her knees deeper, and tried again, grunting.
“We have to go,” Vaelin said, urgency lacing his tone as a renewed surge of winds sent the sands whipping around them. He grunted, presumably at the effort of using his magic to hold the winds at bay.
Isla glared up at him, then paled. Behind Vaelin, the sands swirled, forming an enormous funnel that stretched into the skies, wider at the top, its narrow bottom cutting a path through the dunes like a blade.
Her throat constricted and she watched, horrified, the funnel widening, pulling more of the sands into the vortex.
With the vast expanse of the sands, it was impossible to gauge how far away it was, or how fast it was moving.
Would they even have time to make it back to the ruins?
She pulled desperately at the Shifter’s enormous form again, to no avail. She loosed a sound of frustration, now tinged with panic.
Vaelin’s voice grew more urgent as the cyclone barrelled down on them. “We need to move now.” He placed his hand on her shoulder, no doubt prepared to drag her back to safety.
“I’m not going anywhere without my patient,” she said, her jaw set.
Vaelin stared at her, a furious disbelief painting his features. Then a growl ripped through his chest. “Move.”
Isla stumbled out of the way and Vaelin stooped, fitting his arms beneath the Shifter’s shoulders and dragging him easily in the direction of the ruins.
Relief washed over Isla as she followed.
Mere minutes later, they burst through the door of the building they’d sheltered in, Vaelin all but hurling the Shifter’s limp body against a wall in the main room.
“Thank the Gods,” Aurelia said, hand covering her chest, then froze as her eyes landed on the Shifter’s limp figure.
“Twenty-seven minutes, Vaelin. I was just about to—” Evric stopped abruptly, stepping back as though he’d been physically struck.
Isla watched the change came over him like a tidal wave, astonished.
The relief that had been visible on his face only seconds ago transformed to stone, to disgust, as his eyes roved over the Shifter.
His veins lit with flame, just as they had the day they’d faced the shadow wolf.
Death and violence wafted from him and he suddenly looked every bit the fae warrior she knew he was.
“What the fuck is that,” he seethed at her, his eyes flashing. “You brought a shifter here?”
Vaelin growled at Evric warningly, redirecting the firewielder’s ire away from Isla.
“Don’t worry,” Isla said, returning his glare as she sank to her knees beside the man. “He's already half dead.”
“Well over half, I’d say,” Aurelia said as she joined Isla next to the Shifter’s limp body, her brow knitting as she took in the extensive wounds.
“Get it out of here!” Evric yelled, the cords of muscle in his neck straining visibly.
“We can’t,” Vaelin said tightly, still glowering himself. “There's a cyclone barreling down on us.”
“Good. Ideal, even,” Evric shot back. “We should leave him to rot in the sun. Do not touch him!” he snarled at Aurelia as she reached for the Shifter.
Isla’s eyes widened slightly at the vitriol that dripped from his tone, so irreconcilable with the care-free firewielder who always wore a half-grin.
Aurelia ignored him, unbothered, even as he surged toward her as though he might physically pull her from the Shifter’s side.
Vaelin moved with inhuman speed, catching Evric around the shoulders and forcing him to step back, the men locked chest to chest.
Evric’s eyes burned with malice, sparks in his irises.
The muscles along Vaelin’s neck and back strained as he held the firewielder back.
“Evric…” he growled, his tone low and tense, but Isla did not miss the fury underlying it as he spoke with quiet urgency into his friend’s ear.
He had already made his own feelings on the Shifter known.
“What is his problem?” she muttered to Aurelia.
Aurelia’s expression faltered almost imperceptibly before she smoothed it, her response careful, “He's seen a lot of people die at the hands of the shifters. Friends, family…”
Isla got the sense there was much more to the story than conflict between peoples on opposite sides of a war. Aurelia held her eyes for a beat, as though pleading for her to understand, before dropping them back to the Shifter’s wounds.
Behind them, Evric cursed and a crash sounded as though he’d struck something. Isla winced.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, suddenly abashed. “It must be hard for you, too. Healing your enemy.”
Aurelia was silent for a moment, then nodded her thanks. “It's what we do.”
She looked at Isla then, her blue eyes shining with determination, echoes of all the patients she’d lost haunting her. Isla nodded back, the same losses echoed in her own eyes.
“He might live,” she said, as she tore away what remained of the Shifter’s shirt to reveal more wounds.
Parallel, diagonal slashes split the flesh, blood coating the rich, red-brown skin.
“I don’t want to close anything before it’s cleaned,”Aurelia murmured, her voice low and focused.
Isla nodded. With all the sand and dirt ground into the wounds, the risk of infection was far too high.
“But we can pack the worst of the wounds — see if it gets him through the night.”
They worked together in silence, fighting to stabilize the shifter. They packed his wounds with what little supplies they had, using strips torn from their own extra clothing when they ran out of bandages.
“How long until dawn?” Isla asked an hour later, wiping the back of a hand across her sweaty brow.
“An hour, give or take,” said Aurelia.
Isla looked back to where the bandages already bloomed with fresh blood. A knot tightened in her stomach. “We’ll need to move him at first light. Get him to The City as soon as possible.”
“And how do you propose to get him there?” Evric’s voice, still dripping with hostility, snaked through the air. “I sure as fuck won’t be carrying him.”
Isla blanched, her eyes seeking Vaelin’s. She’d have never been able to move the Shifter without his help.
Evric barked a humourless laugh, rubbing a hand roughly over his face as he looked to Vaelin. “She has no idea. No fucking idea,” he said, something in his tone indecipherable to Isla, then stalked across the room toward the front door.
“The storm,” Vaelin cautioned.
Evric glared at him, eyes flashing. “I’d rather face the sands,” he said, leaving the door he slammed quivering in the wake of his fury.
A beat of silence sounded through the room. Then, Vaelin turned to Isla, his voice wound as tight as a bow string.
“Can I speak with you for a minute?”
He heard the sound of her boots scraping over the sand as she followed him into the small room they had slept in, the click of the door as she pulled it shut behind her.
Vaelin fumed, stalking the room in long, brisk strides, hands fisted at his sides. The fire had long since burned out, and only the barest suggestion of dawn had begun to dimly light the dark room. Isla leaned against the closed door, watching him pace the room, her arms folded across her body.
He steadied his breath, summoning patience.
She didn’t understand. He had to remember that.
She’d never faced the Shifters, never watched people be torn to shreds.
Aurelia should know better… but that was a different conversation entirely.
He took a measured step towards her, fisting and flexing his hands in an attempt to loose some of the tension that inundated his body.
“You do not have the strength for this — neither of you do.” He kept his voice low, hoping she would hear the pleading underlying it. “You will both work yourselves into early graves. And all for a Shifter who would tear out your throat the moment he regains consciousness.”
“I’m a healer, Vaelin,” Isla said, a slight flush rising to her neck, her cheeks. “I cannot walk away from someone who is dying.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that not everyone deserves saving?” he asked, his voice rising despite his efforts. “Not everyone is worth your own health — your own life!”
“And who are you to make that decision? You don't know anything about him.”
“I know enough,” he snapped viciously, stepping back. Then he paused, momentarily struck by his use of the same words Isla had used not long ago to justify her own prejudice against the fae.
Seeming to come to the same conclusion, Isla raised an eyebrow.
Vaelin frowned and moved toward her again, placing his hands against the wall on either side of her head, desperate to make her understand.
“Isla,” he said, and she shivered. “I have defended our borders for decades against the Shifters.
I have watched men and women fall to their claws, their jaws — friends and strangers alike.
When they conduct a raid, they spare no one — no children, no innocents.
Nothing good comes out of Askeldrath. It's a barren wasteland of volcanic ash and hatred.”
“Maybe that's why they're fighting to escape it,” she said quietly.
He froze, her words stunning him. His eyes searched hers. Emboldened by his silence, she pressed on, her voice now the one that bore an edge of pleading, of urgency.
“So often, we take for granted what our realms have in abundance — clean water, fertile lands, temperate climates. People are driven to violent ends when they have no hope, no options to protect their families. Wars have been fought over less. I’m not excusing their actions.
I’m not stupid. I know my parents died in service to the fae, fighting a war against the Shifters.
If I can harbour fury with the fae for dragging them into battle, surely I should lay the crux of the blame at the feet of the Shifters who started this war in the first place. ”
Anger still thrummed in his veins, but it was threaded now with unease, as though she had struck some unseen chord. He swallowed as she continued.
“I didn’t become a healer because it’s convenient. I did it because it’s in my bones, my blood. I’m called to help people, if I can. I don’t get to choose who needs that help.”
He breathed out, long and slow, his eyes never leaving hers as he murmured, “You are…”
She lifted her chin defiantly, challenge flashing in her eyes. “I’m what?”
Infuriating. Mesmerizing. Beautiful.
“Relentless,” he said.
She shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I believe you,” he said, dryly.
She smiled and Vaelin's eyes snagged on her lips. They stood so close, their breath mingling. It would be nothing at all to close the distance between them. With an effort, he dragged his eyes away from her mouth.
“Do not exhaust yourself. Again. Please,” he said.
“I’ll be good, I promise,” she teased. He grumbled low in his throat, unconvinced. And this time it was her eyes that fell to his mouth as she took an uneven breath.
“Vaelin—“ she began.
A unintended hum of approval escaped him as his name rolled off her lips, and he felt himself lean toward her involuntarily. She placed a hand tentatively on his chest, and it felt like a brand — one he’d be happy to bear.
A growl ripped from the other room, followed by Aurelia’s sudden gasp, slicing the quiet.