Chapter 35 #2
Perhaps Dalila’s belt might heal him? But I was even more reluctant to put the belt on Raksh than I was to don it myself. What if it made my husband—the true spirit of discord, the one with whom I was bonded—Lab’s thrall? I might be putting us all in deeper danger.
Could I not . . . sew him up? Perhaps if I had not been in a kingdom woven of textile magic, chasing after my aspiring physician of a friend, I wouldn’t have thought of it.
But I had the language of stitches ingrained in my head and I knew from experience that the meteor blade would pierce his skin.
There was a scream and some sort of crash from beyond the steps.
We were running out of time. Hurriedly I untied my waist sash, shaking out the few strands of my hair still clinging to it—the rest of the hank must have been dislodged during one of my brawls.
I ripped off a thin strip of fabric, took a deep breath, and set to work.
Immediately, it became apparent that I was no surgeon.
I had no needle and so I made crude cuts with the meteor blade in rows along the wound, awkwardly shoving the bristled ends of my red and gold sash through the cuts and bringing them together.
I tied it all off and though it might have been my imagination, his breathing evened out.
But still he remained unconscious.
“Raksh,” I tried again, placing my hand on his chest. “Asshole, please. I need you to wake up. I need you to help me.”
Still nothing.
“This is useless,” I muttered. Raksh was not going to help me; he helped no one but himself. That was not what he wanted, what he needed.
Then what did he desire? I recalled his expectant gaze in Sarilaglag’s tavern. The hunger in his voice, his eager hands, as he purred about the grand adventures we would have. Raksh didn’t respond to pleading.
So, I cradled his jaw, turning his face toward me. “I have a story for you.”
He shivered, the ribbons of magic and memory roiling beneath my stitches.
“A great one,” I continued. “Of daring adventures and ambitious cunning. Of a traveler, a sailor, a pirate. One who began life as a mortal and battled great spirits of air and sea, who outwitted an ancient sorceress and overcame impossible odds to escape with her crew and wander the earth, hunting down renowned magical talismans of old. A wondrous story, one that would make its teller, its inspiration, extraordinarily powerful.”
Raksh trembled and his pained expression resembled that of Marjana’s so much that I faltered. But then warmth tickled beneath my fingers. The ragged edges of his wound were slowly knitting together, the stitches fading into his pale blue skin. It was working.
“But you need to awaken and tell this story,” I said urgently. “So you can savor this feat you were created to accomplish, one denied to you for so long . . . Because if you do, Raksh—” My mouth went dry, but I had already come this far. “I will let you make me a legend.”
There was a heady moment when I was convinced that it was for naught.
The stitches had faded into his skin, the wound seemingly healed.
But then Raksh abruptly sucked for air, sitting upright like a jerked rope.
He fell against me just as suddenly, coughing and pressing his brow against my shoulder.
“Breathe,” I urged, patting his back. “Just breathe.” I had no idea how to play nursemaid to a spirit of discord who’d been flayed alive, then stitched up with a celestial blade and a dirty waist sash, but breathing seemed a good place to start.
I helped him sit up on his own and he swayed, blinking his eyes.
Dazed, he stared at his hands. “I feel very strange,” he wheezed. His voice was a guttural, raw thing as though each word was painful.
“Are you—” But I wasn’t sure what to ask. About to murder me? Possessed by a witch queen? “Better?” When Raksh failed to respond or even react, still astonished by his wiggling fingers, I clapped my hands in front of his face.
He drew up ramrod straight as though someone had struck him. “Yes.” Then his expression fell. “No.” He reached out to touch my face, missing by a large margin. “Are you real?”
My heart sank. This was my hope for defeating Lab? “I am. Do you know where you are? What’s happened?” When Raksh appeared only more puzzled, I asked. “Who you are?”
That brought a scowl to his lips. “Yes, I know who I am and that you have entangled me in trouble yet again,” he accused, and the scathing if deeply hypocritical charge was enough like my self-centered demon spouse that part of me did believe him better.
But then the lost expression flickered across his face again and he shivered.
“It is as though I am under the sea. I can see the surface, but swimming feels impossibly slow.” He frowned. “Am I under the sea?”
“No. You are trapped in the palace of a sorceress queen who apparently dwells in a spindle that feeds off revenge.”
“‘You are called Lab,’ ” he murmured. The declaration sounded nonsensical, but I could see understanding—memory—returning to Raksh’s face. “She took me apart.” His hand drifted to his belly. “You—you brought me back.” Confusion twisted in his black eyes. “But how . . .”
“That doesn’t matter right now,” I said quickly. “I need your help. Lab has possessed Dalila, and I need to know how to defeat her.”
He gave me a blank look that quickly turned into panic. “You’re asking me?”
“She’s one of you, is she not?” I pointed out. “Or at least related to your kin? She seemed to imply it.”
“I think she ate one of my kin,” Raksh replied, still frowning. When I wrenched at my turban in despair, he held up a hand, the other pressed upon his brow. “Give me some time, human. Everything is still falling into place.” He paused. “Is running away an option?”
“Believe me, I wish it were that easy.”
Raksh massaged his temple, the rest of his bestial appearance shifting as he fully returned to his human form.
“None of this makes sense,” he complained. “You say she possessed Dalila. How?” I hesitated, not entirely willing to trust Raksh, but my husband knew me well enough, for exasperation crossed his uncanny face. “You were the one who woke me up, asking for help.”
“I saved your life!”
Raksh rolled his eyes, but his voice grew fervent. “Amina, there is no time for this. I cannot confront what I don’t understand. Were you not the one who claimed my withholding information on the peris’ island would doom us both? Do not be a hypocrite.”
“The audacity of you calling anyone a hypocrite.” But seeing little alternative, I caved and told Raksh of the quest Khayzur had sent me on. Of everything I had heard and seen of the queen’s magic. Of the spindle that had stolen my friend.
Raksh was expressionless as I spoke, his black eyes turning cold. Assessing. It was a predatory gaze, but not the usual one belonging to the creature who chased ambition. And when he finally spoke after I had finished, there was a vindictiveness in his voice I had never heard.
“I believe that I know how to defeat her.” He stood, his lethal grace returning.
Removing my outer robe, I pressed it upon him. Raksh wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing and while there were some circumstances where that might be to our advantage, I didn’t believe battling Lab was one of them. “Can we defeat her without harming Dalila?” I asked, clinging to hope.
“I could not say.” He eyed me. “Is that going to be a problem? I’d rather not risk my life for a fight you’re already planning to undermine due to human sentiment.”
The merciless words stung and yet I knew Dalila would have probably advised the same. How often had she accused me of courting danger to all to save a sole shipmate, of letting my qualms about the woven belt stop me from battling Lab at my strongest?
But how could I choose a path that might hurt her? That might kill her after everything she’d sacrificed to save me?
You know what she would choose. Do not pretend otherwise.
“No,” I murmured. My knees shook as I stood up, and not only because of my injuries. “We do what we can to save her though, understand? But if it comes down to it . . .” I swallowed, trailing off. “Let’s go,” I said instead. “We’re running out of time.”