Chapter 24 #3
He was tall, thin, and lanky with round spectacles like Damond’s, cleanly cropped black hair, bronze skin, and dark eyes offering genuine kindness only true healers were capable of.
Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t sure his kindness would extend to me showing up outside his door without warning. Even if multiple lanterns were lit through the curtained windows, and he was clearly awake.
“Hello,” I greeted him awkwardly. “I’m Fera.”
“I’m… Abram.” He blinked down at me. “Can I help you, Fera?”
Abram . I recalled Finn mentioning him while discussing Caz’s leg injury. He was the son of Nestor, the main physician in the Winterton Caves.
“Sorry to bother you, Abram,” I said earnestly. “Do you have any pain management serum?”
His thick brow furrowed. “For what?”
I needed a good excuse. I had to assume Abram reported everything back to Elias.
“It’s my cycle.” I shifted on my feet while my cheeks heated in embarrassment. “The cramping is terrible.”
His jaw slackened like he didn’t know how to respond to a topic he was unprepared to discuss at this hour. Good luck to him relaying this interaction to his commander. “Of course.” He cleared his throat. “Please wait here.”
I folded and unfolded my arms while waiting, unsure what to do with myself. All I could think about was sending Shera off as quickly as possible.
Gods, please don’t let it be too late.
“Here you go.” Abram returned and offered me two small vials of clear liquid.
“Two?” I asked.
“Sure.” His discomfort was gone. “I have an older sister. She often comes to me for the same thing.”
“Thank you.” I backed away, gravel crunching beneath my boots, hands folded in genuine thanks. “Good night.”
He gave me a short nod. “Rest well, Fera.”
The moment he closed the door, I sprinted toward the nearest gate, then crept along buildings or walls to remain unseen by drowsing, patrolling guards.
“ Leaving the fortress ,” I told Shera. A few steps past the door, I paused and glanced back upon noticing that the buzz of power I knew to be Simeon’s wards was more like a weak hum, much quieter than before.
“ I’ll be there ,” Shera answered, breaking me out of my concerned daze and back to the task at hand.
Branches smacked me in the face, crunched and snapped beneath my boots as I ran faster than ever before. Cold nighttime air bit at my eyes as I ran, but any tears I cried were for him. For his pain. The possibility that he might be free from it was almost too much to bear.
I skidded to a stop when violet eyes glowed at me beneath the moonlight.
“Are you that eager to see me?”
“ Usually, yes. ” I took the vial from my pocket and discarded the liquid before rinsing it with water from my canteen.
The moon and stars were bright in the cloudless sky, and I felt equally bright with hope.
Even as I unsheathed the knife from my hip and hissed out a heavy breath as I dragged the sharp blade across my palm.
“Ary, what are you ? —”
“ I think my blood is the key to breaking Gavin’s oath. ” She watched me bleed into the open vial. “ Can you take this to him? ”
She shifted back to sit. “ I promised not to leave you. ”
“Please. For all he’s done for both of us.”
The more I squeezed my palm, the more the sharp sting turned to a throbbing ache. I clenched my teeth to keep from wincing.
“ Can you find him, Shera? ” I asked her more urgently this time.
She stood up and began to restlessly pace. “ I can try, but my magic requires something of his in order to track him. ”
I hadn’t brought the sweater. There was only one more thing of his that I possessed.
Suppressing a groan, I unfastened the clasp behind my neck and removed his ring from the chain.
Even if surrendering this ring left me with the same hollow, empty feeling I’d had while living alone in Warrich before he stormed into my sheltered world and breathed life back into me, I would do it.
If this was the only way to free him, I’d let it go.
“Does this work?”
Shera rubbed her cold nose against the ring in my palm. “ Yes. ”
I sniffled and ran my finger across the tarnished metal, now stained by my blood. I memorized the smooth curve of it, how it started off cold but warmed beneath my touch. Kind of like him.
With the vial wrapped in my note, I threaded the strap through his ring, then wound it all together using the makeshift collar around Shera’s neck. I couldn’t risk the message falling into the wrong hands, so I kept it simple and vague. If she got to him, he would know it was from me.
My blood will free you , I wrote. And because I couldn’t get rid of the irrational panic in my chest, I added, Live.
“Go,” I ordered, before I grabbed and held both her and that ring against my chest like they were all I had.
I sucked in a ragged breath when my umbra leapt off into the night, gone from sight within seconds. My palms flattened against my chest, colder and much emptier than before. The longer I stood staring in the direction she’d gone, the more I doubted myself.
My knees hit the dirt as I stared after Shera.
I had only told him to live .
Why hadn’t I begged him to come back to me, too?