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When I’d pulled the magic around us, I tugged Teris off the branch. We descended slowly toward the ground, and when I noticed a mud puddle nearby, I had the magic take us to it while we fell. The rainy season was nearing its end, which was a good thing for us in the current moment.
“How much blood and how much mud?” I asked Teris, my voice shaking as he slowly sat down on the dirt next to the mud.
“There’s no perfect ratio. Some of both is good enough.” He was still calm, and it was keeping me calm too by some miracle.
“Will this take care of the infection, though?” I pressed.
“Eventually. I might be unconscious for a day or two while it works, though. I’ll need you to keep an eye out for me—and kill anyone who looks twice at you for me.”
I rolled my eyes, though I knew he was just trying to ease the tension. “Great plan.”
“I know.” He caught my hand and pressed it to his chest. “Close your eyes.”
Though I probably should’ve questioned him, I closed my eyes. There was a quiet, awful sound, and when I opened my eyes up, I saw a slice across his thigh.
He’d cut himself—for the blood.
“Damn you,” I choked out, as my stomach rolled again.
“Please help me cover myself.” His voice was low and calm, despite the slight strain to it. “Stay out of the sky. Fly as low as you safely can. Hold me in your talons—the mud will heal any injuries you give me. If you hear anything strange, hide in one of the memis bushes. Do not get yourself hurt, or you and I will have issues, baby.”
While he spoke, I began scooping massive handfuls of mud and dropping them on his body. He mixed blood into the mud, his eyes closing a little more with each new part of him that was coated.
He was out cold by the time I was done covering him in mud, and my body was shaking fiercely.
How was I going to do this?
How was I going to get him back to the Stronghold?
I forced myself to breathe through the panic, putting two fingers to Teris’s neck and checking for a pulse. It was slow, but it was there, and that calmed me slightly.
Standing up, I gave myself two minutes to pace and worry and cry a tiny bit.
After those two minutes were passed, I clenched my stomach against the terror and shifted, then carefully stepped over Teris and closed my claws lightly around him.
My movements were slow and unsteady as my wings carried me off the ground, and though I immediately zoomed up higher than I probably should’ve, I navigated downward until I was flying in the middle of the massive trees.
We were going to be fine, I promised myself, again and again.
We had to be fine.
Eight
I flewthrough the rest of the night, fueled by fear and stress. When the sun rose, sending beams of light through the trees, my energy was waning, but I pressed on.
And on.
And on.
I didn’t stop to eat, though my stomach growled. I was afraid I’d run into some of the creatures I didn’t know how to control yet—and I saw flashes of the scales of a few more dragons through the trees above my head. Whether they were fae or not, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t willing to find out.
When the sun set again, I knew I had to be less than twelve hours from the Stronghold, but the exhaustion was too much. So a few hours into the night, I landed as softly as I could, near a tree loaded with lilanos. After I’d checked Teris’s pulse and confirmed that he was still alive—though it was a little unnecessary, because I would’ve died if he did—I plucked a few fruits off the tree and sat down next to Teris.
My whole body trembled, my hands shaking as I tried to peel the fruit. It took multiple attempts before I finally managed to get the thick, fuzzy peel off one of them, and my stomach churned as I put a small section of it in my mouth.
I hadn’t been responsible for keeping someone alive since my mother was ill, and that felt like a lifetime ago. There wasn’t even anything to do to take care of Teris, and yet those same emotions had floated back to the surface for me. And now they were accompanied by the fear of unknown threats, new magic, and flying back into the Stronghold to tell a bunch of people who hated me that I’d allowed the goddess to create a bunch of monsters through me.
It was all just too much.
