Page 118 of Destiny of a King

Relief flashed across his face, but it disappeared quickly beneath concern. His fingers moved carefully over the back of her head.

Adira winced when he found the tender spot.

“No blood.”

She heard that too.

Dravic slipped his hand beneath her chin, turning her face one way and then the other as he studied her eyes.

“You stay right here,” he ordered as he helped her sit more securely against the broad tree trunk.

Dravic looked toward his men, then back at her, plainly torn between his responsibility to them and his refusal to leave her. The fighting was nearly over, but he still had a duty.

“Fiora!” Dravic roared.

The fairy sped through the fighting, ducking and darting her way to Dravic.

“Stay with her,” Dravic commanded.

Fiora’s eyes widened when she saw Adira. “What happened?”

“She struck her head. Do not leave her.”

“Have no worries, I will stay with her.”

Though Fiora could be a pest, Dravic had come to realize she was a loyal pest.

He gave her a nod and turned to Adira once more. She managed to smile, faint as it was. So, it did little to ease the concern in his eyes, but he was king and duty called. He had to go. He rose, retrieved his sword and turned toward the aftermath of the battle.

Bodies littered the snow. Several of his warriors were injured, one sitting against a rock while another bound his arm. Seger was already moving among the men, assessing wounds and calling for those still able to help.

Dravic’s gaze swept them. “Who have we lost?”

Seger looked toward him.

Something in the Hunter’s face had Dravic moving before he answered.

Dravic saw the men gathered several yards away and knew before he reached them that something was terribly wrong. They parted at his approach, revealing Cadby stretched out on the snow, one of the Hunters kneeling beside him.

Blood covered the front of Cadby’s tunic and spread beneath him, staining the snow a deep red. His eyes were closed and his face had lost nearly all its color, while each breath seemed to require more effort than the one before it.

Dravic lowered himself beside him. “How bad?”

The Hunter looked at him and simply shook his head.

There was no need for words. Dravic had seen enough men die on battlefields to recognize when death had already laid claim to one of them.

His gaze settled on Cadby. The man had ridden out of Caerith with him without question, had followed him into Driochmor and fought beside him only moments ago. Duty demanded it, but it was loyalty, not to a king, but to the kingdom his warriors fought, and bravely. Now there was nothing Dravic could do but watch as the last of his warrior’s life slipped away.

Cadby’s chest rose faintly, held for a moment, then slowly fell.

It did not rise again.

A heavy anger settled inside Dravic. He had lost men before, more than he cared to remember, but familiarity never made death easier to accept. It only added another face to those he remembered.

Dravic started to rise when an unexpected chill swept through the clearing, sharp enough to make him pause. It was more than the bite of winter air. The cold seemed to move through him, leaving an unsettling sensation in its wake.

“My king… look.”