Page 191 of Blade of the Nightking

He turned back to his work, adjusting his grip on the rabbit. Beneath the slick sheen of blood coating his knuckles, dark bruises still mottled the back of his hand.

The cuts had healed. The break had not.

His lips compressed into a thin line as he worked, the pain apparently nothing more than an annoyance to be endured rather than a reason to stop.

"Your hand..." I startled.

He grunted. For a moment I thought that was the entirety of his answer. Then, without looking up, he said, "My healing magic is not like yours."

"The cuts are gone⁠—"

"Bones take longer." He flexed his fingers as though to demonstrate, only to have the motion stall halfway. I didn't miss the brief tightening around his eyes before he bent back over the rabbit and pulled away the last of the hide. "A few days." I watched him set the pelt aside. "I've had worse."

I chewed the inside of my cheek as he reached for a sharpened stick to skewer the rabbit, then struggled to guide it through the carcass.

I shouldn't have cared. I certainly shouldn't have wanted to help.

This was the Dark Prince. The villain of every story. The male responsible for countless deaths, who was currently leading me across Elantis to break a bond he despised so he could exact terrible revenge upon the world.

If his hand hurt, good. He deserved far worse than a little pain. And yet⁠—

"I could try," the words tumbled out before common sense could intervene. "To help. I mean—your hand…" I trailed off and rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly.

Perhaps I hadn't healed the concussion after all. That would certainly explain why I was offering assistance to the most dangerous male on the continent. Maybe I had lasting brain damage.

Rìan looked up, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. Then, after a long moment, "No."

He switched hands and forced the skewer through the flesh.

I bristled. My kindness was something he neither deserved nor appreciated, and somehow his refusal left me feeling foolish. "You do realize there may be more fighting in the days ahead? That we might have to defend ourselves before we reach the next well?"

He leaned forward to rotate the rabbit cooking on the coals. "Then we'll wait it out," he said. "Two days at most until the bones set."

Bones. Plural.

I scoffed. "You want us to wait two days in the Wildlands?"

"We're not in the Wildlands."

The words stopped me cold. For the first time since waking, I truly looked around.

The forest stretching beyond our camp was nothing like the tangled nightmare we'd escaped. A soft bed of pine needles blanketed the ground beneath me while tall conifers sighed gently overhead, their branches swaying in the cool morning breeze. To one side, a rocky ridgeline rose sharply above us, shielding the campsite from the worst of the elements while concealing the smoke from our fire from anything that might be passing by.

"Where are we?"

"The Mirrorlands."

I stared at him. We'd crossed into the Mirrorlands?

A ripple of unease slid through me. "How? Did its wards fall?"

"No." That was all. No explanation. No elaboration. Nothing.

"But..." I struggled to make sense of it. "I don't understand. With the Firstborn returned, every Court has strengthened its wards. Lady Elyndra will know hers have been breached."

Something moved across his face then, gone before I could decipher it. "Indeed."

My frustration immediately returned. I pushed myself to my feet, and planted my hands firmly on my hips. "You're going to let me heal your hand," I said through clenched teeth, "and then we're going to keep moving."