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No one immediately answered; we were all too busy exchanging similar glances, amazed he could be sitting up and talking and using both his arms.
He didn’t need an explanation though. He’d already started piecing everything together. “One moment, it felt as if that damn carriage had blown my entire chest apart, and the next…”
He glanced down at his chest, only to visibly jump when he saw the ragged bits of cloth that had once been his tunic along with blood still smeared across his torso.
He lifted his hand to touch the area, but instead of gaping wounds, his fingers only encountered smooth flesh under the layer of blood.
“How is that even possible?” Yasmin murmured, shaking her head as she gaped over how quickly he’d healed. Even the wounds on his face were gone. “Not even Vienne mended that fast after she was brought back.”
“Brought back?” Urban jerked his face up, focusing immediately on me.
His eyes widened when he took me in. Then he winced. “Oh, damn. Is that my blood on your mouth?”
Lifting my hand, I wiped at my mouth again.
Urban cringed some more. “Sorry about that,” he offered. “That must’ve been quite unpleasant for you.”
I could only shake my head and laugh. He’d just had his chest ripped apart, arm nearly severed at the shoulder, then died, and healed back together again, but he seemed more worried about getting a little blood on me.
“It was worth it,” I said solemnly.
His eyes warmed with pleasure and a small smile bloomed across his face, before he glanced around at the others guiltily as if he hadn’t meant for them to see his adoration. Clearing his throat, he turned back to me. “Well, thank you for bringing me back from the dead.”
I started to nod, but Soren burst in with, “She did it at my request. You saved me by pushing me out of the way, so I saved you back by letting her kiss you. So…we’re even now. I don’t owe you anything.”
Urban sent him an incredulous glance, before he shrugged and glanced toward Brentley. “We should get everyone back to the castle. Not that I think it’s much safer there. But I feel like a sitting duck out here like this.”
Brentley nodded and helped Urban to his feet, while I retrieved my daughter from Yasmin. Allera tried to help Urban walk, but he shooed her away before taking his first experimental step. After a few hobbling shambles, he nodded and announced he was fine.
“I can feel myself mending and getting stronger with each step.”
“Too bad my own wife can’t heal my twisted ankle so quickly,” Soren grumbled, shuffling along with an even worse limp than Urb
an’s until Brentley had to lend his own body in support.
“Do you think this was the work of the dark magic bearer?” Nicolette asked as we slowly started our caravan back toward the castle, every single one of us on edge and alert.
“Well, who else could it be?” Yasmin said with an impatient roll of her eyes.
“But who knew we were headed this way?” I said, shaking my head and trying to figure it out. “It was an impromptu outing; we barely spent any time planning it. How would anyone know to set up a trap there…at that time?”
Allera and Brentley exchanged worried glances. “We were actually talking about it all morning. Anyone in the castle could’ve overheard us and had time to leave that little present in our path.”
Soren snorted. “But who would care so much to go to the trouble of killing you two?”
“Are you kidding me?” Urban gaped. “The next man in line to the throne and the princess of High Cliff, whose very existence is keeping two kingdoms aligned. Yes, who indeed would concern themselves with such lowly nobodies?” Rolling his eyes, he pointed back toward the carriage we’d left behind. “That was the work of Lowden magic. Graykey family magic, specifically. They would just love to disrupt any alliance High Cliff has with Donnelly, and killing Allera would do that. That’s who was behind this.”
“But I thought Father executed everyone from the Graykey family line,” Allera said, shuddering and glancing back toward the carriage as well.
“Most of them,” Urban confirmed on a nod. “All the dangerous ones. But Father was still trying to track down a few who escaped when we left home, ones who hadn’t been involved in the war at the time, but ones who just might be determined to wreak revenge on anyone in our family for what we did to theirs.”
“Great,” Soren sneered. “So you brought the trouble with you when you came to Donnelly. Always lovely to hear.”
Urban shot him a scowl but didn’t have a response. Instead, he glanced my way, and worry littered his features, as if he agreed with Soren. He fully believed he’d personally brought danger into our lives.
Up ahead, a small group of soldiers pounded down the path toward us on horses.
“Oh joy,” Yasmin announced dryly. “The cavalry finally arrived… Nearly a quarter of an hour after we encountered trouble and nearly lost our lives.”
