Page 57 of Fate of the Sun King

“Hang on,” Nadir says. “I’m getting you out of here. I’m so sorry, Lor.”

I want to tell him it wasn’t his fault and I shouldn’t have followed that child, but I thought he needed me. I was only trying to help.

I open my eyes, the sky and the stars spinning above me as we continue running, gentle flakes of snow cooling my face.

And then everything shifts. One moment, we’re in the middle of the city, and the next, we’re in a forest where leaves and branches hang overhead, so thick they nearly block out the night sky. I blink, not sure what just happened. Did I pass out? How did we get here so quickly?

We finally stop, and Nadir lays me down on a soft patch of grass. I feel his hand on my cheek, his fingers gently probing my limbs and torso for signs of damage. He touches the back of my head, and I whimper as pain flashes across my skull.

“We need to get her to a healer,” he says. “Now.”

And, once again, my world goes black.

CHAPTER TWENTY

NADIR

THE WOODLANDS

I pace the length of the room, but this cottage is like the head of a pin, and there’s nowhere for me to go as the walls close in. The healer, whose door I nearly split in two, sits at the side of the bed where Lor lies still with her eyes closed.

“It appears they gave her something. A sedative of sorts,” Alder, the elf healer, says. “Does she have magic someone was trying to suppress?”

I stop, turning on him, a caustic warning curling up the base of my spine.

“No,” I lie.

He offers me a skeptical look but doesn’t push the matter and turns back to Lor, continuing to dab her forehead with a cloth soaked in a potion of herbs he swears will help. I wish we could return to the settlements. Everyone knows the best healers live in Heart, even without their magic.

Elves are much smaller than High Fae, and Tristan and Mael sit at the tiny kitchen table, the furniture practically dwarfed by their frames.

Etienne wandered off somewhere after we arrived with his shoulders hunched and an even deeper scowl on his face than usual. I’m trying not to lash out at him for his nearly fatal mistake, but I’m finding it difficult to harness my temper. It was an accident, and he probably feels bad enough about it already, but I’m so angry I want to rip apart the sky.

Alder tends to Lor, mumbling something under his breath as he touches her here and there, once again examining the bump on her head. He’s assured me it’s a minor injury and it shouldn’t cause any permanent damage.

“Can you wake her up?” I demand. “What’s wrong with her?”

He looks up at me with dark green eyes, a tenderness I don’t deserve crossing his expression. Then I feel a hand land on my shoulder.

“Come for a walk,” Mael says. “He’s doing everything he can.”

I shake Mael off. “No. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay, but then stop yelling at him.”

I glare at my friend, but his patient smile doesn’t falter. He holds up a glass of a dark green liquid clinking with balls of ice. “Have some Armata. It’ll settle your nerves.”

I take the glass and drain the entire thing in one gulp before I hand it back to him and roll my shoulders. “Nope. Didn’t work.”

I start pacing again, and Mael sighs as he returns to the table. Tristan is watching his sister intently, his pale face contrasting with the dark circles around his eyes. He was a huge asset tonight. His control over his magic, despite how little he’s used it, is impressive. He helped me destroy those bastards without the slightest shred of mercy. In fact, I think he enjoyed it a little bit.

It makes me wonder if maybe we could be friends someday.

His gaze slides to me as though he can hear my thoughts, his expression shifting in a way I can’t interpret before he looks back at Lor.

She groans softly, and I’m at her side in an instant, dropping to my knee and taking her hand.

“I think the poison is wearing off,” Alder says. “It appears it was meant to incapacitate her for only a while. The effects should abate completely soon enough.”