I am swimming as fast as I can.Jump overboard.
“But Roiven—”
Leave him. Jump.
That isn’t happening, no matter how badly my familiar wants me to save myself.
I can’t lift Roiven in my arms, but I could carry him on my back if I can just get him on there. I may be smaller than him, and one-armed, but I was an imperial knight. I’m used to pushing my body past its limits, to doing the impossible.
I lie down beside Roiven and drag his arms over my shoulders. My left hand holds him tight in place. With a grunt I roll over to the side, trying to drag him with me. A burst of pain from Roiven breaks through me like a blinding light, too sharp for him to shut out. As I roll onto my stomach he comes halfway with me, slipping off but still positioned partially on top of me. His breathing sounds thin and sharp in my ear, more a hiss than anything else.
“Hold on,” I grunt. I shuffle, popping my hips up until I can get purchase with my feet. With only one good hand, I can’t grabhis legs to get them around my waist, or hold onto his arms to keep him from sliding.
I push myself up slowly with one arm and both legs, until my back is a table. Blood drips onto the deck beneath me. I don’t know if it’s mine or his, or both. Roiven starts to slide. I fall back down quickly before I can lose him entirely, heart pounding. He believed in me; shared himself with me. He saved me. I’m not going to give up now.
The fire is so close it hurts. Every nerve in my body is telling me to run, to get away from the heat before it’s too late. Even if I can survive it, Roiven can’t.
I rise up again, onto my knees and my elbow. And then, core clenched screaming tight so I don’t topple over, I lift my arm up to grab onto Roiven’s wrist. I grip him so tight my fingers ache. One knee moves. And then the other. With a grunt I take another wobbling, shuffling step on my knees, dragging him from the flames. Another, and another. My knee slips, the trouser’s fabric sopping wet with blood.
The flames are getting closer to my heels. I’m not moving fast enough. I plant one foot beneath me. Taking a deep breath, I push up and get the other foot beneath me too, crouching and bent over with Roiven’s heavy weight on my back. My whole body threatens to give out and the cut on my side screams in agony. But he doesn’t fall off.
I walk, doubled over, half carrying him and half dragging him, as the fire crackles at our feet. Rancor’s deck is long, and blown empty by Roiven’s storm. The ship grumbles beneath my feet, angry but empty of power, aware she’s burning but with no Enchanted to draw on to do anything about me.
Traitor,I hear Rancor whisper into my bones. This Hellion was my home for years before I was given Rampage and assigned to the transport runs.You abandon your Empire.
I am here, Hafgúa says, interrupting the Hellion ship’s fadingcurses. A tentacle shoots over the edge of the ship and hunts blindly toward us. He grips me and Roiven together in his hold and drags us up off Rancor, into the sky and down to the sea, to safety and to freedom.
45
Savasaeirn rests on a long, low, flat stone isle. When the kraken deposits us gently on the shore, the dragon grunts and reaches a paw toward us. Her claws close around Roiven, then drag his limp body to her, leaving behind a trail of saltwater and blood. I stumble after him. Hafgúa tried to carry us above water but the cuts still got wet. The wound on my own stomach is on fire, but I don’t care right now.
As far as I can tell, the Hellion only hit Savasaeirn’s left wing. It’s stretched out over the ground, a wide bloody rent torn into the leathery skin. The wound doesn’t look pleasant, but at least it isn’t a vital organ.
“Will he be okay?” I ask. Nobody answers me. “Witches heal fast, don’t we? Roiven said that.” My voice trembles. Hafgúa’s head rises slowly from the water, the sea rocking around the shore as he studies us from a distance, unable to get too close with how the shore of this landmass slopes away. Unless he crawled up it, but he seems to think that would be undignified.
There is healing, and there is… healing, the kraken says.He will need help.
“Aria. His sister.” But I still don’t know where the other two dragons are. If the Hellions killed them before we arrived, what will I do? I can’t watch Roiven die.
I stumble closer to Savasaeirn and fall to my knees besides Roiven. The rise and fall of his chest is shallow and strained. Blood soaks through his shirt.
Fuck, what am I thinking? I’m not great with field medicine, but I know too much to be standing here like an idiot and watching my husband die.
“We need to stop the bleeding,” I snap, yanking the sling over my head. Savasaeirn turns to look at me as I tug the knot open with my teeth and one hand.
The dragon huffs.
You must tell her what to do, Hafgúa says.It is hard for an ancient to understand this part of you.
“Lift him, just a little. Carefully.” I lay the sling out beneath him as Sava’s claws delicately lift Roiven a foot off the rock, his head lolling back like he’s already gone. The dragon sets him back down. I pull the cloth over his chest and tie it at his side, as tight as I can with one hand, teeth, and the help of my knee.
“Can you talk to the other dragons?” I ask Hafgúa.
No.
“What about Savasaeirn? Could you talk to her, and…”
They are of the sky, not the sea, little knight. I am aware of them. But we cannot speak.
