49. Chapter 49
Isla didn’t remember them moving from the open sands, through the ravaged city streets, and back into the Scholars’ building.
From the moment Vaelin had been struck, all of her attention had narrowed on him, and the thin heartbeat beneath her palms as she kept pressure on the jagged hole the spear had ripped through his torso.
Not having to remove the weapon was something of a boon, given that more internal damage could be done by removing a foreign object from a wound.
And yet, she couldn’t stop the shaking of her body when she pictured the way the spear had disintegrated into wisps of shadow after punching through Vaelin’s flesh, muscle, bone…
They were in the infirmary now, Vaelin unconscious on a cot, Aurelia holding pressure on the wound while Isla snapped orders at the healers Asmarin had sent to assist her.
Isla was only vaguely aware of Evric peppering her with demanding questions and protests, letting his voice slip into the back of her mind where it could be ignored.
Her eyes trailed over Vaelin from head to toe, mapping his wounds.
Despite the chest wound being her most immediate concern, he was bleeding from multiple blows.
He’d been riddled with holes during the battle, though she’d never once heard him cry out.
The white linens on the cot were soaked through with bright, red blood already, and Isla’s hands shook as she struggled to unstopper a bottle of myrrh.
Steady hands took the bottle from her, handing it back, now open.
Isla raised her eyes to meet Lyra’s, nodding sharply in thanks as she turned back to the cot.
“Cut this off,” Isla barked at a Novice, motioning to Vaelin’s clothing and all but flinging a pair of shears at her.
She moved like a leaf on the wind, rotating between the bedside and the nearby table of supplies.
Her eyes flashed over them, cataloguing.
“I need yarrow. Bandages. And water. These need to be irrigated before we close,” she said over her shoulder to Maya and Zina, who had just arrived and were staring wide-eyed at Vaelin’s condition.
“Quickly,” Isla snapped, and the young women jerked into motion.
“Isla…” Aurelia’s voice carried an unfamiliar uneasiness when it came to healing that scraped at Isla’s heart as though it was a raw wound.
“I know,” Isla said, tersely.
Zina returned with the water first, and Isla took it from her hastily, sloshing some over the rim.
“Move,” she barked at the Novice who had just finished removing Vaelin’s clothing, and with no further warning, upturned the contents of the bowl, drenching Vaelin, the bedclothes, and the floor.
Vaelin didn’t so much as stir. Red water ran in rivulets along the stone floor.
Swallowing the bile that threatened to climb in her throat, Isla snatched a clean bandage from Maya’s arms, hastily cleaning the worst of the sand from the lacerations.
So many punctures. They dotted the muscular ridges of his abdomen and arms, and Isla’s breath caught as her eyes landed on one slice that had come dangerously close to a life-sustaining vein in his neck near his collarbone.
“Apply that yarrow the second I’ve cleaned the wounds,” she said.
“Then your turn,” she said, eyes flicking to Aurelia, who nodded in understanding.
With what little strength she had remaining, Aurelia would coax the worst of the wounds to close — not all the way, but enough that the bleeding could be halted. Hopefully.
Isla breathed as she worked, fast but with an unconscious precision, the Novices moving in her wake as instructed.
The scent of the yarrow and myrrh mingled with the metallic tang of blood and the pinched scent of sweat and body odour.
Isla revelled in it. She may have felt wildly out of her depth during the fight with the Hollowborne - but this - this was her battlefield.
Evric was shouting somewhere in the back of Isla’s head, demanding answers. She ignored him.
“Switch,” she muttered at Aurelia as the Novices finished their task.
The second Aurelia’s hands lifted from the wound, renewed blood surged.
Isla slapped her hand over the opening, her own heartbeat thudding hard in her chest. Blood pooled on the floor beneath the cot.
Her eyes snapped to Vaelin’s face, slackened as if in sleep.
“Maya, his pulse,” she said, and the young Novice pressed two fingers to his neck.
“Someone fucking tell me if he’s going to be alright!
” The temperature in the room surged suddenly, the lanterns flaring and Isla snapped her eyes to Evric’s.
He stood rigid, hands curled into fists, embers sparking in his eyes.
He looked furious, a vengeful flame-imbued God — but beneath it, she saw the sheer terror that licked eagerly at the flames.
“Evric, get out,” she said quietly.
“Over my dead fucking body,” he shot back.
“If you won’t get out, then back off and let me do my fucking job.
” Isla snarled, as savage as any fae. Evric’s eyes flared with a combination of surprise and fury.
Isla held his stare and after a moment’s hesitation, he snapped his jaw shut and stormed from the room.
Drae watched him go, silent where he leaned against the wall.
Isla looked to Maya expectantly. The Novice jumped slightly as she said, “It’s there, but weak. Thready.” Isla nodded curtly.
A warm glow settled over his abdomen as Aurelia poured her magic into Vaelin’s body and Isla watched as the smaller wounds began to knit closed.
“It’s stronger,” Isla heard Maya say from her spot by Vaelin’s head, and Isla closed her eyes, loosing a breath, allowing herself this one beat of relief.
She opened her eyes, glancing down at the wound she covered, slowly loosening the pressure she held.
This wound, much larger than the others, hadn’t sealed - but she hadn’t expected it to.
But the bleeding had slowed, something internal - something vital - had been stitched back together.
The size of the gash had shrunk some, too, the flesh reaching as though straining to close.
“I need him on his side,” Isla said to the Novices, and together, they rolled his body so that Isla could examine the exit wound on his back.
He was lucky the blow had landed off to the side where his armour had been weak — just below his shoulder blade, between the ribs and out through the front of his pectoral.
Aurelia’s magic seemed to have staunched the worst of the bleeding and the skin had regenerated enough that Isla felt confident she could stitch it closed.
She reached for the needle and thread and a clatter sounded.
Isla’s head snapped up. Aurelia had swayed dangerously on the spot, crashing into the table of supplies and sending them scattering across the stone floor.
Drae had moved out of the shadows faster than Isla would have thought possible, catching Aurelia around the middle before she hit the ground.
In one smooth movement, he had slipped a hand behind her knees and scooped her into his arms. “Burnout,” he said to Isla, his voice rumbling low in his chest. “You’re on your own. ”
Isla blinked, torn by concern for her friend and surprise at the protective ring in Drae’s voice. She nodded. “Of course. Please… see that she rests.” The Shifter nodded curtly, and swept Aurelia from the room.
Turning back to Vaelin, Isla began stitching. When she was satisfied that the wound had been adequately stitched, treated, and sealed with dressings, she instructed the Novices to roll him gently onto his back so she could do the same for the entry wound where the spear had pierced his chest.
When she finished, she checked his pulse, pressing two fingers under his jaw. His heart beat steady and even - not as strong as she might have liked, but far better than the alternative. Unable to help herself, she rotated her hand, brushing her thumb along his jaw line.
“Would you mind brewing me some of that Qishr tea?” she murmured to Zina, listening as her slippered feet brushed across the stone floors as she left the room.
“Planning on keeping vigil all night?” Lyra’s voice asked gently.
Isla didn’t look up, unable to stop herself from drinking in the lines of Vaelin’s face. “Yes,” she said simply.
“I’m sorry,” Lyra said, and Isla dragged her eyes from Vaelin’s face at the hesitation in her sister’s voice. She sounded… young.
“For what?” Isla asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.
“It’s my fault,” Lyra said. “I should have stayed behind the walls. But you needed to know, and—”
Isla held up a hand, cupping Lyra’s cheek gently.
The memory of her magic - her magic - winding its way around her fingers flickered in her mind.
“I did need to know, and I should have listened to you to begin with. This is not your fault. I’m the one who’s sorry, Lyra.
” Isla heaved a sigh, turning back to Vaelin.
“I’ve been so paralyzed by the fear of losing you or Cael… since they died.”
Lyra sniffed beside her, nodding. Isla continued.
“I thought if I threw myself into holding what was left of us together, nothing else could hurt us. The more you both pulled away, the tighter I held. But that wasn’t fair to either of you.
All I ever wanted was to keep you safe - that’s why I wanted to see you married and settled in Rowanmere.
But you would never have been happy. You were made for so much more than our little town.
If the last several weeks have taught me anything it’s how insulated, how sheltered I’ve been my entire life,” she said, the last words tinged with bitterness.
“I’m sorry, Lyra. What you’ve done here over the last two years, what you’ve learned…
you’re incredible. You always have been. I’m sorry I didn’t see it until now.”
She looked up to see her sister’s eyes brimming with tears, struck by the sudden fact that she hadn’t seen her sister cry since their parents had died. As if the eye contact was too much, Lyra’s eyes slid away, falling to where Vaelin’s chest rose and fell steadily.
“You need your wounds treated, too.”
“I’m fine,” Isla said. “Tomorrow, maybe.”
She hadn’t noticed Lyra leave, nor had she seen her speak to the other healers, but when a Novice rolled over a second cot for Isla, placing it next to Vaelin’s, her heart had swelled with gratitude.
Gingerly, she laid herself down on the cot, curled on her side to face him as the flickering lamplight cast shadows over both of their faces.