A sudden, sharp spike of psychic energy from above makes me freeze.Close.Too close.
“Down,” I hiss, shoving her and Lyren toward a narrow crevice in a massive rock face, a dark split in the stone barely wide enough for a person. “Now. Not a sound.”
She scrambles inside without question, pulling a frightened Lyren in with her. The space is tight, a claustrophobic sliver of darkness. I press in behind them, shielding their bodies with my own, my back to the opening, my wings folded as tightly as possible. Elza is crushed against me, her face just inches from mine. I feel her heart hammering against my chest, her breath a warm puff against my lips.
A massive shadow passes over the entrance to our hiding place. The powerfulwhoosh-whoosh-whooshof Vrakken wings is a sound I have known for millennia, but for the very first time, it fills me with a cold, primal dread.
A spike of pure terror, sharp and stabbing, lances through the link from her to me. The sensation is so potent it feels likea physical blow against my own discipline. In response, a cold, protective fury rises in me, a silent, psychic roar that I direct outwards, a ward of pure possessiveness.Mine.
The sound of the wings recedes. I feel a shaky breath leave her lungs. We are safe.
But then, the wing beats stop.
A soft thud echoes from just outside our crevice. The scout has landed. My entire body turns to stone. I hear the faint scrape of its claws on the rock, its head tilting as its own psychic senses probe the area. The Ghostbloom is masking our scent, but the lingering traces of our passage, the broken branches, the faint residue of our presence—it has found something amiss.
I look down at Elza. I see the terror in her wide eyes, feel her hand clutching the front of my tunic. Lyren is a silent, trembling weight between us. We are frozen, holding our breath, mere feet away from discovery by a creature that will show us no mercy, a zealot that believes it is cleansing the world of a pestilence. And that pestilence is us.
27
ELZA
We run until our lungs burn and the sounds of pursuit are a phantom echo in our minds. The Vrakken scout is gone, but the terror it left behind is a cold, clinging thing. Eoin finds us shelter in a shallow, wind-hollowed cave, little more than a scar in the mountainside, but it is cover. It is enough.
The adrenaline fades, leaving a bone-deep weariness in its place. Lyren, who was so brave and quiet during our escape, collapses against me, his small body trembling. I wrap him in my cloak, murmuring soothing words I do not feel, my own heart still a frantic drum against my ribs.
It is hours later that I realize the trembling has not stopped. I press my hand to his forehead. He is burning up.
“No,” I whisper, the word a denial, a plea. His cheeks are flushed with an unnatural, feverish heat, and when I try to get him to drink some water, he is listless, his eyes glassy and unfocused.
Panic, cold and sharp, seizes my chest. This is not a wound. This is not an enemy I can face with a blade or a strategy. This is a sickness, an insidious fire burning through my son from the inside out.
My hands begin to shake. I place them on Lyren’s forehead, desperately calling on the Purna magic that has become my shield. I feel the warmth gather in my palms, the familiar golden light, but when I try to push it into him, to draw the sickness out, it sputters and fails. The light is weak, my own energy depleted from the battle and the flight. My magic is for mending torn flesh and broken bones, not for fighting this invisible enemy. It is useless. I am useless.
“He is burning up,” I say to the empty cave, my voice cracking with a terror I have not allowed myself to feel since I was a helpless slave. “My magic… Gods, it is not working.”
A large shadow falls over me. Eoin has been watching from the cave, a silent, still sentinel. Now he moves, his steps silent on the stone floor. “Let me see him.”
“Stay away from him!” The words are a guttural, protective snarl, an instinct so deep it bypasses all reason.
He stops, his hands raised in a gesture of peace that looks utterly alien on him. “Elza.” His voice is a low, calm anchor in my storm of panic. “Fear will not help him. I have seen this before. Please. Let me help.”
His use of my name, the quiet plea in his voice, cuts through my terror. I look from his face, which is a mask of grim, focused concern, to my son, who whimpers in his fevered sleep. I am out of options. I am a queen with no army, a healer with no cure.
I give a single, sharp nod, and the hatred I feel for myself in that moment is a bitter acid. I am letting the monster touch my child.
He kneels beside us, and the sheer size of him seems to shrink the cave. I expect his touch to be clinical, detached. But when he places his large, scarred hand on Lyren’s forehead, the gesture is one of surprising, almost reverent gentleness. His brow furrows as he gently pries open one of Lyren’s eyes, then feels the pulse at his throat.
“It is river fever,” he says in a quiet rumble of certainty. “Common in these mountains after the spring thaw. The local children are often afflicted. It is dangerous if left untreated, but I know the remedy.”
I stare at him, my mind reeling. “How… how could you possibly know that?”
He looks at me, and in his starless eyes, I see the vast, lonely expanse of his existence. “I have been alive for a very long time, Elza. I have seen many things.” He rises to his feet. “There are roots that grow by the cold springs in these mountains, and a particular moss that thrives on the northern faces of the rocks. I must gather them. I will return.”
“You are leaving?” The question is a raw burst of my deepest fear—abandonment.
“I will return,” he repeats, and his gaze is so steady, so absolute, it is a vow. And then he is gone, a whisper of movement, and I am alone with my sick son and my warring heart. Is this a trick? A way to escape, to leave us to our fate? Or is it a genuine act of… care? I do not know which thought is more terrifying.
He is true to his word. He returns as the sun begins to set, his hands full of dark, gnarled roots and clumps of a pale, silvery moss. I watch, my arms wrapped tightly around myself, as he builds up the fire and begins to prepare the remedy. He moves with a methodical, practiced ease, crushing the roots with a stone, mixing them with the moss and a bit of water to form a thick, dark paste. The scent is pungent, earthy and sharp.
