Page 106 of Winter Gods & Serpents

“One hundred…twelve…thirteen…fourteen,” she stuttered out.

“Princess, what happened? Look at me,” I demanded, examining thoroughly around her body for injuries.

“It hurts,” she whispered breathlessly.

“Where?” I ran my hands all over her, searching for wounds.

“Everywhere.”

I stilled and glanced over the dead man she’d nailed her sword through. “Did the man touch you?”

She nodded in answer and my eyes drew shut in realization. Empath, he had been an Empath. There was no cure for pain infliction unless an Empath reversed it. Henah help us.

“We have to find Mal, lets stand, look at me. I will help you stand,” I said, sliding my arms around her.

The moment I managed to raise her body up she collapsed in my arms. Whimpers and small suppressed sobs of agony made their way out of her. A thick violet shadow loomed from around her limp body. The first time I had seen any, and the emotion was not even belonging to her. Foreign, inflicted. Pure agony—she was in an agony of pain.

“You are not dying on me, let’s try again.”

I gathered her in my arms looking around the thick Malefic mist behind the wall of shadows. We would not be able to pierce through it.

She shook her head sagging onto me. She would not make it.

“I will take it away.” Putting her down in my lap, I begun taking my gloves off. “The wall around will keep you safe for the night and when that mist dissolves I need you to run to safety, as fast as you can and find Mal to look at you. You will tell him an Empath inflicted you, he will fix it.”

I was not an Empath, all I could do was trap it inside me.

“We find Mal together,” she managed to whisper strongly between ragged breaths.

“There will be no time.”

She shook her head in tight resistance, even between hurt she had the head of a bull. “No.”

“With my life, remember.” Placing my hands on her face, course of magic floated through me. “With my life.”

She flung my hands down and shook her head again, pushing and crawling away from me. Digging her hands in the ground, she straightened herself, still shaking like leaves through spring breeze.

“I need a moment,” she barely uttered between sobs.

Her eyes drew tightly shut, swinging herself backward and forward, clutching her hands in fists and out of the sudden the trembling slowed till she only shivered. The massive cloud of violet shadows thinned and dispersed. She gasped, her lungs filling with air before erupting in a dry cough.

What had just happened?

“Princess?” I slid down next to her, rubbing her back while her lungs almost gave away.

Her hand gripped my arm tight helping herself stand straight, clutching her chest with the other while the cough drew more tears down her cheek.

“I’m fine.”

I took her face in my hands examining her, my thumbs fending away stray tears—her eyes were still almost completely black with the faint glimpse of a yellow halo and she was still taking heavy breaths, but no longer gasping for air.

“What did you do? How did you do that?” I asked in absolute shock.

It was not earthly possible to do what she had just done. Empath infliction placed a mental shield of one emotion, channelling and coursing it endless, till they chose not to. Agony, it would be complete agony of pain, her heart would have stopped from it.

“Do what?” Loose tears still streamed down her cheeks, she sniffled and ran her gloved hands wiping them away almost unbothered. Her body limp and beaten up, yet her expression unwavering same as her words and tone.

“Escape an Empaths infliction, no one can do that.”