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I pointed at each label on her jars. “You can’t possibly deny your own handwriting.”
Rheih clucked her tongue again. “To you, they are ingredients because when it comes to healing you’re as dull as a pair of rusted scissors.”
“And to your sharp wits?”
“Medicine.” Rheih waved her hand in the air like it was obvious. “Magic does you good, but it can only stitch as well as your knowledge goes.”
My cheeks heated, thinking of Gwyn and what the healers had told me after we first returned. “Gwyn …” I trailed off not knowing how to pose the question.
Rheih squeezed my hand in a rare display of gentleness. “Do not blame yourself for that. You did what needed to be done to save her life and you succeeded.”
“But had I known more, she wouldn’t have been left barren?” Gwyn had been nauseous the entire journey back and grew weaker each hour. By the time I had reached the healers and Riven, she wascold and mostly unconscious. They called for a Dark Fae with a small gift for healing. He confirmed that Damien had left Gwyn’s womb disconnected from the rest of her body, but inside. So new to my gift, I had fused her wounds without it and the organ had begun to rot.
Thankfully the healers saved her in time.
Rheih stepped around the table and grabbed me by both arms. “I will only say this once because I know what it is to have a mistake weigh on you. But had I trained you, the result would’ve been the same. There was no saving that organ—not even with your gift—but you could have known enough to remove it first and prevented the rot.Thatis how you sharpen your gift. You need to learn all the rivers and caverns of the body, just as a healer does. Knowing the limits of your power will only sharpen them.”
My breath caught in my throat but I nodded. “Could you? Teach me, I mean.”
Rheih placed her hands on her hips and assessed me from boot to braid. “I’m not sure you have the stamina. This isn’t swordplay.”
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “I think I would manage.”
Rheih pushed several gray hairs back into her mane of curls and nodded. “I will call you for your first lesson in a few days’ time. Go get some rest.” She pointed to the door and started crushing an ingredient with her other hand.
I grabbed my second wineskin and nodded in farewell. I hummed to myself down the tunnel in complete darkness, all my earlier anger having cooled to a quiet stillness that was closer to peace than anything I had felt in months.
There was a soft noise behind me, like a leaf brushing against stone. I slowed, listening for the sound again and was hit in the back of my head. I was unconscious before my body crumpled to the ground.
CHAPTERNINE
“WE SHOULD UNTIE HER HANDSbefore she wakes.” The voice was familiar but I couldn’t place it. For once, I hadn’t woken to a piercing ache in my skull but instead found my mind was hazy and slow like an empty port creaking in the morning fog.
The second voice was sharp and short like a dagger. “Don’t touch her. Keera will break my nose for what we did.”
Gerarda.
“Youdid.” The first voice again. Even with my eyes still closed I knew it was Vrail. “I had no idea you planned onkidnappingher!”
I peered up at them through my lashes and saw Vrail’s round face was flushed and sweaty while Gerarda merely shrugged. She flipped a hiltless Elvish blade through her fingers. “If you’d known, you would have told her or that miserable gloom that follows her around.”
I swallowed to clear my throat. The air tasted of brine, meaning we were near the sea. My heart quickened, thinking Gerarda had been foolish enough to bring us back to the Order in search of the Shades, but the air was also tinged with the scent of sulfur—we weren’t anywhere near the capital, but somewhere on the western shores of Elverath. As far from the Shades as we could be.
I stretched my fingers through the bindings and felt the damp grass underneath me. There was no ash in the sky or snow on the ground, so wherever Gerarda had taken me was not the frigid city of Volcar, but close enough to taste the first hints of its fiery mountain.
Vrail and Gerarda were still bickering. Neither noticed when I opened my eyes fully and squinted from the rays of the suns. High above us, gulls floated in the sky like droplets of water, disappearing between wisps of cloud that stretched across the blue expanse.
I tried to sit myself up but failed. My body was heavy and my arms were bound tightly behind me at the wristsandthe elbows.
Gerarda’s dark eyes landed on me with the sharpness of a hawk and she stopped flipping her blade through her fingers. A small smile crept along her lips as I struggled against her bindings.
Always a perfectionist, I thought to myself. I shot Gerarda what I hoped was a hard enough look to force her compliance. “Untie me before I stab you.”
Gerarda raised her brows at Vrail before turning back to me with a fully formed grin on her face. “I doubt you’ve ever escaped a kidnapping by issuing empty threats.”
I ran my tongue along my fangs. I had built a reputation for never issuing a threat I didn’t intend to keep. Gerarda knew that, her remark was just to irk me. “The last person who kidnapped me got punched in the jaw.”
Gerarda’s lips had moved beyond a grin to something more feral. “Try it.”
