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It had been three days since the trial had ended. Three days since Lyrastra had brought Draven back to me, still breathing but not much else.
Dripping wet, the pair had sunk to the floor of the gallery–Draven’s weight pulling the serpentine woman down. Rychel and I had been there in a heartbeat, with the rest of our small group close behind.
Gawain and Hawl had carried Draven out of that hellish gallery and back to our suite where the best healers in the court had been summoned to attend to him. Rychel and Javer looked on all the while, their gazes hawkish for any signs of treachery or foul play.
When the healers had failed to ascertain just what was wrong. When none could come up with a reason for why Draven was breathing but hadn’t opened his eyes, my hope had flickered like a candle. Gradually, everyone departed one by one.
When the suite was finally empty, I had crouched by Draven’s bedside and touched him, calling my powers forth as best I could.
I had healed him once before when I hadn’t even been trying to do it.
Surely, I could do it again.
A piece of his heart was missing. His fuckingheart. Selwyn had used clods of earth and moss to close the breach. The healers had peeled the mess out again, cleaning and stitching the wound.
Now jagged stitches traced a path across Draven’s chest, holding his damaged flesh together. A puckered scar was forming around the wound.
His features held a weary pallor, the vibrancy of life drained from his normally sun-bronzed skin. Shadows danced beneath his eyes. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead, glistening in the light.
His breathing was shallow and labored, yet steady. His heartbeat was shockingly regular.
One of the healers claimed he had entered a kind of stasis and simply required time to heal.
The rest said he shouldn’t have been alive at all. Not with the injury to his heart. Not with the concoction of bloodwraith they had found traces of on his skin. Even a Siabra, apparently, could only endure so much.
As for how he had managed to get onto the bridge still standing, fight the harpies, summon flame from his hands?
They had no answers. None that made any sense at least. One had used the word “miracle.” Another had muttered that he would have made a fine emperor.
Would have.
So, they had left. And I had stayed.
I had touched his skin, tracing the stitches gently with my fingers. Then, putting my palms against his chest, I had summoned whatever part of my powers had healed him once before.
I had felt something come.
Tendrils of power flickered forth from me and into him.
For a moment, I had been hopeful.
Then the tendrils had curled up like wisps of smoke from a dying candle and vanished.
I tried again. And again. And again. Until I was drenched with sweat and exhausted.
Each time dealt the same result. It was as if my magic had hit a solid wall of stone and been repelled.
I threw myself against the wall, over and over, not caring when my body was bruised and battered.
Until Breena and Hawl had finally found me panting and crying on the floor of the bedroom in the dark like a child and forced me out of the room. Made me eat some of the food Hawl had somehow managed to find the will to cook. Made me bathe and dress. And then, Hawl had shoved me none-too-gently out into the hall where Crescent had stood waiting.
I had followed the stitcher in silence as he took us above to the city on the surface and led me towards the only creature who could possibly need me as much as Draven did.
In a field just outside of Noctasia, Nightclaw stood waiting for me.
With Hawl’s help, I had arranged for him to be rehomed. An old hunting lodge as well as the grounds around it had been set up for his use.
The former gamekeeper, a benevolent woman named Tiana who was the opposite of Master Rodrick in every possible way, had been charged with his care and had embraced her new role. She had woven a bed of soft grasses for Nightclaw to sleep in and had arranged the delivery of fresh meats and tender greens from city markets every day to supplement Nightclaw's newly rekindled hunting skills.
