AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“This looks like some kind of poison.” Ever so slowly, Raz’s eyes lifted to mine.
“Who did this to you, Anaria?” he asked in the softest voice I’d ever heard him use.And where are they, so I can kill them? he didn’t add, though I heard his intent like he was sharpening his dagger on a whetstone.
“You don’t want to know.” I struggled up onto my elbows, staring at the gruesome wounds on my legs. The ones I could barely feel. The ones that should have completely crippled me, because thatwasfucking bone gleaming on my left leg.
I’d thought they were healing, but that wasn’t at all true. No, they were just…numb. A shiver of real fear went through me.
Those looked worse than they felt.
“Actually, we both want to know.” Zorander came to a stop behind Torin. “How could you even walk like that?”
Torin stroked the owl shifter’s head. “She didn’t just walk. She got that enormous brute down two floors of the Citadelle. And up on his feet, though I don’t know how.”
When I glared at her, all she did was smile sedately back. “I would have never promised you another favor if I thought you were going to sell me out.” To his credit, the owl seemed to agree with me when his head swiveled away from her.
“Fine,” I huffed. “The Oracle has a brother. Corvus. Another Old God. He’s hideous, because of course he is, and trapped in a cave north of the mountains, on the edge of the Wastes. Somewhere called…the Hammer.”
“Gods, Anaria…”
Any other day, in any other situation, seeing Zorander’s mouth drop open might have been amusing, but tonight…Tonight I felt the same way. “So two gods, instead of one, which complicates matters, I know. His power is…”
I stared down at my brutalized legs, finally putting two and two together and not liking what I came up with.
“His magic is corruption.” I swallowed hard. “The Oracle’s is chaos.”
“Corruption, huh?” My heart sank at the expression on his face. “I’ve never seen this before. I…” Raz held his hands out over my legs, and this time, they shook. “I can’t fix this.”
“Oh.”Oh.
I’d gotten so used to Raz healingeverything,I’d never wondered what might happen if he couldn’t. And these wounds were bad. Bad enough to get infected. I glanced up at him, my stomach turning to lead. Bad enough that once this numbness wore off, I wouldn’t be able to take a single step.
We had the horses, though. I could ride.
“I’m no healer,” Torin finally said. “But I know of one.”
“No one touches my daughter except someone I trust.” Adele’s smile smoothed out into not a smile at all. “And I’ve never trusted you, Torin.”
“North of Nightcairn Castle, there’s a healer who can heal anything. Even old magic like this.” Somehow, Tavion had heaved himself onto his side. He’d even stopped bleeding. Mostly.
“Two days, Anaria. Can you last for two days?” His eyes met mine, filled with a fierceness that made me want to look away.
I didn’t.
Instead, I heard every desperate, whispered thing I’d said in that room and down those steps, every plea and foolish hope he’d whispered back.
We’d battled our way out of that city so we could look at each other, like this, across an expanse that seemed to shrink by the minute.
“I can last. Iwilllast.”
“Good,” Raziel murmured, scooping me up out of the dirt, while Zor and Tristan pulled Tavion to his feet. I pretended I didn’t hear his low moan of pain or see the way he swayed when Tristan let him go.
“We leave tonight and pray to all the gods the Oracle isn’t right behind us.”
“I’m not praying to either of those fucking monsters.”
“Fair enough.” Raz traced his lips across my forehead and hugged me tight against him. “I thought I might have lost you today, princess. Don’t ever do that again.”
“Not planning on it.” I tensed up when he lifted me onto a horse.His horse. “I can ride. I’m not helpless.”
