Page 152 of Fate's Wicked Oath

“I’m here,” I told Faren, scrambling for the potions in my satchel. “I’m here, Faren, hold on.”

Warner arrived behind me, sinking to the floor at the sight of Faren’s wound. “Oh, my friend,” he said. “Oh, Faren, you don’t deserve this.” He cradled Faren’s head in his lap, not bothering to look up as two more Might Knights arrived on the scene.

“Is he—oh,” the female knight said. “Oh, Fates.” She covered her mouth with a blood-speckled hand, tears welling.

The second knight—Lee, I recalled—placed his hand on Faren’s shoulder, squeezing tight. He bowed his head and shuddered.

“This isn’t over yet,” I told them. “We haven’t lost him yet.”

I yanked Faren’s tunic up, holding in a nauseated cry as I took in the full extent of his wound. His blood was slick and hot undermy fingers, and there was an excess of it on the floor around him, a dark and worrying shade of crimson. He’d lost so much, and saving him didn’t seem possible, and yet—and yet—

I grabbed Hattie’s vial of Morta cure. Faren had not been turned, but there was enough black blood on his clothes to infect the wound, and there had to be something to this. There had to be something in the potion that could help.

“Oaths. Magic. Alchemy,” I whispered, uncorking the vial with my teeth.

“What’s she doing?” the female knight asked her fellows.

“All that I can,” I answered.

I dumped the shimmering liquid over the raw scarlet slash across Faren’s stomach. Purple stained his skin and soaked into the wound. His body was beginning to slacken and lose its vigor. We waited for something to happen, but nothing did.

Groaning through my teeth, I went for the second vial—the one with the water of the Well of Fate. I poured half on his wound and half into his mouth, not sure which was needed or if any of it would work, and cursing myself for not asking Hattie more questions when we were in Waldron. “Oaths. Magic. Alchemy.” I repeated it like a spell. Like the words alone coulddo something.

When still nothing happened, I set my palms on either side of the opened flesh and pressed it together, as if I couldwillit shut. As if my desperation alone could mend him. “And love,” I said, thinking of Hattie’s theory. “I love you, Faren. We love you.”

“That, we do,” Warner said, and the other two chimed in with their own wobbling whispers, touching Faren’s head as if to heal him with their contact. “We love you,” they repeated.

“We love you,” I insisted.

Closing my eyes, still holding Faren’s wound together, I imagined my love mingling with the water of the Well of Fate, soaking into his body and giving him the healing he needed. Iwas no alchemist, but I pictured it in my mind as clearly as I could, shaking and tearful and already grieving—but hopeful, too. Hopeful for the both of us.

Because what else was there left to do but hope?

Time ebbed like a tide, and I drifted out of all awareness except for Faren’s body beneath my sensitive hands. The best feeling in the world, in spite of all this suffering.

“What in the Fates?” Warner whispered.

“Thefu—?” the female knight breathed.

“I don’t…” Lee trailed off.

Their voices roused me from my imagining, leading me back to solid ground. Back to my body hunched over Faren, the hard marble bruising my knees, the blood making my wrists feel sticky. I braced for what I would see when I opened my eyes, fearful that this was it: the end of him.

But when I did look, I did not believe the sight.

Faren’s wound was shrinking. Suturing, all on its own. As if the Fates themselves were mending his flesh with an invisible needle and thread.

“It’s working,” I whispered. “Fucking Fates, it’s working!”

“I don’t believe my eyes,” Lee said.

“And you have the best eyes,” Warner remarked.

I pushed through their huddle, pressing my palms to his chest to feel the increasing beat of his heart and the strength of his next breath.

Then he shuddered. Gasped. His forehead creased, as if he were rousing from a terrible dream.

Light brown eyes opened, landing directly on me. “Mariana?” Faren mumbled.