I kicked him lightly with my boot, his body moving gently, but he didn’t wake. I kicked him again, just a bit harder, and this time I heard a light groan. Sasori and Ilyas were quick to my side.
“Roll him over,” I said.
My Vessels quickly pushed the man to his back, his limbs flopping uselessly. As his arm hit the ground, his fist popped open, revealing three completely spent crystals. Sasori picked them out of his hand and wordlessly handed them to me. The remnants of Earth Magic clung to them.
An Earth Mage.
I knelt next to the man, who still hadn’t uttered another word or opened his eyes. I lightly slapped his face in an attempt to wake him, but when I pulled my hand away, I hissed.
Blood covered my fingers from wherethey touched his ear.
Mage Sickness. Fuck.
“Get him back on the horse and to a Healer. Quick!” Ilyas and Sasori sensed my urgency and Ilyas quickly gathered the man by his shoulders while Sasori grabbed his legs.
“Oomph, he’sheavy,” Sasori said as they lifted him off the ground and waddled over to the horse. With a little help from me, we were able to sling him across the back of his horse, his legs dangling from the opposite side of his head.
“Lex, if it’s Mage Sickness, there’s nothing they can do,” Ilyas said in a hushed tone.
“I know,” I ground out. “But we have to try. Obviously whatever he came here to say was important, otherwise he wouldn’t have burned himself out trying to get here.”
Ilyas only nodded his head before patting me once on the shoulder. Deep down, I knew he was right. But I couldn’t watch him die without trying to do something. I justcouldn’t. It reminded me too much of my time before Ilyas and Sasori.
I shook my head to get rid of the thoughts and made to lead the horse, but I was stopped by a weak hand pulling at the back of my black tunic. I sucked in a breath and whirled to face the sick man.
“Help,” he whispered, his eyes still closed.
“Yes, we’re going to get you help. Try and stay conscious if you can,” I told him earnestly, gesturing for Ilyas to manually open the gates from inside the guard house.
“No . . .we. . . need . . . help.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“Isrun.”
The name was oddly familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. I looked at Sasori and mouthed the name to her. “Do you know where that is?”
She rolled her eyes at me.
Petulant. She’d pay for that later.
I raised my eyebrows at her, and she replied with a smirk on her full lips. “Yes, it’s a little farming village just inside the Borderlands.”
Borderlands . . .
“A borderland?” I asked the man. “What happened?”
A feeling of dread pooled in my gut before the man even opened hismouth. I had heard that we sent a small convoy of Mages there earlier this month due to some suspected rebel activity.
Rebel activity . . .
“Are the rebels there?” My question was urgent, and my voice rose.
The man didn’t answer for a minute, and I thought he may have passed out again.
“Yes . . . save her . . . please.” He was fading fast and just as Ilyas finally opened the gate leading into the city, I heard him utter another word like a prayer. Just a name, but it struck me to my core. “Faylinn.”
Well, fuck.
