Faelost Page 16

  Calm. Stay calm. Breathe. It's the only chance you've got.

  I drew my sword and swallowed my apprehension.

  Hit the right places, use his size against him, and you'll be fine. You'll be fine. Keep telling yourself that you'll be fine and maybe the fear will stay hidden.

  I was going to die.

  Janella held her arms over her head. Her pointed fingernails glistened in the morning sunlight.

  Breathe. Breathe, just breathe. Let your instincts take over. No, not the freeze one. The fight one. You know how to fight, so fight.

  “To the death! Fight!” Janella yelled. She dropped her arms to her sides and retreated to the perimeter of the circle.

  Now I was alone with a beast of a Fae and no experience to draw from. The Foxfae boar riders cheered his name. Morenno-no-no! Morenno-no-no! To my left, my friends looked on in horror. Tears fell freely from Shan's eyes as he raised his hands to cover his mouth. I passed him my remaining fear and stepped toward Morenno.

  Morenno was faster and more agile than he appeared. He swung his greatsword with ease. The first blow caught me off-balance and slipped past my blade to clip my left forearm. I felt a sharp sting, and then nothing. This was easily ignored.

  I spun under his second blow and sliced his calf just above his boot. I meant to sever the tendons at the back of his knee, but I struck too low. He hopped on his other foot and swiveled. A metallic tone hit my ears as his blade cut through the air.

  This blow I parried. The force of my intercept left my shoulder joints reverberating, but I barely had time to notice. The second blow came faster than the first, and was immediately followed by a third. I easily avoided those two, but a fourth strike cut deep into my thigh and the fifth opened a chasm along my ribs.

  I felt that last blow and every breath thereafter. Blood ran down my leg and sprayed an abstract pattern in the mud as I struggled to knock away each successive hit.

  A gash on my cheek, another along my collarbone. I knew I couldn't take much more of this. I could barely breathe and soon there would be more blood on the grass than left in me.

  I needed to strike, quickly and fatally.

  Dark spots swam in my vision, but I saw my chance as Morenno pivoted into an acrobatic strike. It was meant to be a killing blow, but it was clear he was used to larger opponents than myself.

  I somersaulted between his legs and landed wrist-deep in the muck behind him.

  My sword. Where was my sword? Out of reach.

  Damn it, Tessen, now you're dead.

  Perhaps not.

  Janella's greatsword was next to me, planted firmly in the muck. The Foxfae laughed as I yanked on the hilt with both hands and barely managed to lift it.

  It was all right. Swinging the sword wasn't my intention.

  Morenno ran toward me, ready for a final attack.

  I flipped the greatsword and jammed the hilt into the muck. I kicked the blade so it sat at an angle, then slid on my knees past the rushing form of Morenno. He attempted to slow himself and pivot back toward me, but he was moving too fast. His momentum carried him across the mud and into Janella's blade. It was a glancing strike to his flank, a minor injury at most, but it was enough to make him stumble.

  I was now within reach of my own sword. I flipped it off the grass and skated back toward Morenno. He struggled to right himself as his blood mingled with the mud and slickened the grass.

  “No!” Janella gasped. “Get up. You lose to a human and your honor is lost. Our family's honor is lost. Damn it, Morenno, get up!”

  I had no intent of letting him take another swing at me.

  I leapt onto his back, knocking him onto Janella's greatsword a second time. In a single smooth motion, I raised my sword and thrust it into his neck.

  I tumbled away from the planted greatsword as Morenno's massive body shuddered and collapsed. His blood pooled, then ran as rivulets between the thick blades of sweetgrass.

  I won.

  I was bleeding everywhere and probably going to die anyway, but I won. My brother and my friends were free.

  I stayed on my knees as I swiveled toward Janella. My voice was weaker than I expected. “I win. Leave us alone. Go away and leave us alone.”

  Tears clung to Janella's eyelashes as she stared past me at the body of Morenno. She sniffed and raised her chin sharply. “Very well. We will send word to the other clans of the steppes that Rosalia Dannis's champion fairly won an honor fight. She and her companions are to be allowed passage into the Mala Basin.”

  Janella left both her sword and Morenno's body behind as she mounted her boar. She whistled three times and rode off into the east. The other Foxfae followed.

  We were alone in a trampled and bloody circle of mud.

  “Tessen!” Shan ran to me, taking a few extra steps to avoid the dead Foxfae and the bloodied sword. He embraced me and kissed my uninjured cheek. “That was amazing. You're amazing.”

  “Maybe, but I'm dying.” I leaned out of his embrace and sank a little further into the mud. His hands and tunic were red with my blood.

  “Move, Shan!” Marita yelped. She tossed a tarp over the grass and carefully laid me back onto it. “Iefyr, bring your kit and help me. Hurry!”

  Marita pressed her hand against the gaping wound on my lower ribs. Colored spots ignited in the black of my vision. The pain was everywhere now, and the slightest movement or pressure seared like a brand.

  Shan was by my head, pressing a cool, mint-scented cloth to my injured cheek. He kissed my forehead, then my temple, then the corner of my lips. “Stay awake. Please stay awake. You're not going to die. We won't let you. I love you. Stay with me, Tessen. Please. Please stay...”

  His voice grew quieter and quieter and faded to nothing as the remaining color bursts vanished and the world extinguished to black.

  Chapter 22

  They wouldn't let me die, of course.

  Voices swirled in the crushing darkness, but I couldn't summon the energy to open my eyes. I didn't want to, anyway. I hurt less if I stayed in the black. If I couldn't wake, I couldn't see that I was under a leaky tarp on a rain-whipped plain instead of safe at home.

  I slipped in and out of sleep, in and out of vague awareness. The scents of old blood and rain-kissed grass drifted across my nose. I felt a shift in pressure as the rain returned. The air was cold, but my skin was warmed by the continuous presence of at least one of my companions.

  I was adrift in the void, but I knew I wasn't alone. Shan was with me, touching my face and my hands and recalling stories of our childhood. Marita and Iefyr were with me, tending to my wounds and dripping a sweet, thin liquid into my mouth. Nador combed her dainty fingers through the tangles of my hair and repeatedly thanked me for saving her life. I wanted to tell her that I wasn't a hero, that my reflex to grab her was something anyone would have done, but I was caught in the web of the black, a silk-bound fly awaiting a spider named Death.

  Ragan and Rose were with me when I figured out how to move the little finger on my right hand. They didn't notice and continued with their hushed conversation.

  “Are they all gonna react to me like that?” Ragan's voice was familiar, a cozy blanket that covered my shoulders and embraced me without a single touch.

  “I'm afraid they might,” Rose replied. Her fingers brushed across my brow. “I think we might want to take a cue from Shan and keep your face covered until we get out of the Faelands.”

  “Yeah, good idea. You know, it still hurts every time they call me that. Abomination.” The air around my face trembled with Ragan's shudder. “Heard it my whole damned life, and always with such malice I knew they wholeheartedly believed it. Can't get used to it.”

  “I'm sorry, sweetheart. I never wanted you to suffer because of a choice I made when I was too young and ignorant to understand the consequences.”

  “At least you wanted me. Heard from Uncle Cadogan that Dad's first words when he found out you were pregnant with me were, 'Get rid of it.'”

&n
bsp; Rose sighed and reached across me to touch Ragan. “I'd be lying if I claimed he didn't say that. What matters more is that he changed his mind, even before you were born. He nearly killed the physician who came by the day after your birth and offered to give you a quick and gentle death. Mordegan grew to love you, and I didn't object when he wanted to remain a part of your life, even after he decided to no longer be a part of mine. He's still trying to make up for those first words.”

  Ragan leaned back and sighed. “I know he's fond of me, but he's got his own set of insults to deal with because of me. Fae-lover. And worse, unspeakably worse. We had a talk the last time I saw him, back a couple months ago when he was passing through town, and he admitted I was a big part of the reason you two split. You were both afraid of accidentally having another kid who'd go through what I already had. Damn it . . . I was only two years old and you could hardly take me out of the house without strangers and neighbors alike insulting me. Spitting on me. Monsters, the lot of them. Monsters do that to little kids, not real, decent people.”

  “You're right about that.” Rose's hand was on my face, stroking my brow, dancing across the stubbly hair on my jaw. “But, my dear, you became a good person in spite of them. Good person and a good father.” Her fluttering fingers paused as they reached the finely-sutured laceration on my cheek. “Wonderful father to your little boy, but not just him . . . you helped Rin's older boys become the kind and brave young men they are. You're more their father than their true fathers are. Especially Daelis. Can't say that elf deserves the second chance he's been gifted. She deserves better than him.”

  Ragan slowly exhaled. He scooted closer to me and held my hand. “I still love them like they're my own. Not a day goes by I don't feel terrible about leaving them. Couldn't find a better way about it, though. Couldn't stay in Jadeshire, not when I had to keep lying to Rin. Not when every reminder of Alon tore her and me both apart. Wasn't just Alon, neither. We lost three babies. First two were early on, miscarriages, barely enough time to know they were there. Last one was some months after Alon died. That one was different. Little boy, six months along, and poor thing wouldn't have survived even if he'd made it to term. I think it was the fever, the same one that took Alon. Rin was two or so months along with him when that sickness ripped through Jadeshire. Her fever wasn't awful for her, but I think it messed something up so the baby couldn't grow normally. His spine was splayed open and he had too much fluid in his head. His face, though . . . he would've looked like Alon. He was born with a beating heart and gasping lungs. He fought for two brutal hours to stay in our world. Rin and I were holding on for months, but we couldn't get through losing that little one so soon after losing Alon. We tried and we didn't want it to end that way, but it had to. That's when I knew I wasn't ever meant to be anyone's father, not by blood. As much as I wanna be one, my babies aren't strong enough to survive. Hard lesson to learn. Harder than anything else.”

  “Is this why you're so determined to remain alone? Why didn't you tell me about this before?” Rose asked. The chilled wind whipped the edges of the tarp and licked my face.

  “Because it hurts too much to remember that both of my children died in my arms, both in agony and fighting for every breath,” Ragan whispered, his voice choked.

  “Oh, Ragan, sweetheart . . . I'm so sorry. I wish you'd been able to tell me. Did you . . . did your second son have a name?”

  “Calen,” I murmured before I knew I was capable of speech. The single word exhausted me, not just from the effort, but from the meaning. Shan and I had known for a couple weeks about the baby, but then one day we were told that he had come and gone during the night. We knew nothing about him other than his name. Calen Sylleth Dannis. Mom was never able to bring herself to speak his name and she asked me not to make a silver star for him when I created her bracelet. She doesn't know I did anyway. A small C is inscribed on the back of Alon's A star.

  “Tessen.” Ragan leaned over me and kissed my brow. “Welcome back.”

  I squeezed his hand. “Everything hurts.”

  “I know it does. Don't fight it, and don't move unless you have to. You've been out over a day and you need more time to regain your blood.”

  “Did I lose it all?” I asked, forcing my sluggish lips into a smirk.

  “Most of it. Still smell it everywhere. That bastard hit some of the big veins, but you'll be okay now. Iefyr and Marita have modest healing skills on their own, but they're damned effective when they work together.” Ragan's calloused fingertips pressed the swollen skin near my collarbone. “No breaks, just some deep cuts. You'll be all right in a couple days. Can't give you much time to heal, unfortunately. Soon as you can walk without wobbling or ripping yourself apart, we're riding out. I'm guessing we'll have to double you up with someone for a while so you don't fall off. We're down a horse, anyway, so would have to do that no matter what.”

  “Where's Serida?”

  “Right here, sweetie.” Rose adjusted my right arm until my fingers touched warm scales. I'd thought Rose's knee was against my hip, but what I'd been feeling was Serida. She was nearly the size of a half-grown kitten now, and I couldn't remember if she'd been so large before the fight. Where had my tiny baby gone?

  “Tired,” I mumbled.

  “That's all right. You can go back to sleep. We'll try to get you sitting upright later so you can eat. Even if you're not hungry, you need to eat if you're going to get your blood back.” The air shifted as she raised herself into a crouch. “I'm going to tell the others that he's starting to come around.”

  Ragan rubbed his thumb across the back of my hand. “I'm gonna stay here with you for a while, if that's all right.”

  “Ragan?” His name fell from my lips as a weak gasp.

  “Hmm?”

  “Love you.”

  “I love you too, Tessen.”

  Chapter 23

  I couldn't remember ever being in so much pain before. I'd been injured many times over the course of my life—a broken collarbone from falling out of a tree, a fractured ankle from a slip on the ice during a rare Jadeshire freeze, a burn on my arm from when I lost focus in the forge, and many scrapes, cuts, sprains, and bruises from simply being a kid—but this was nothing like any of those injuries. Cheek, collar, ribs, thigh, forearm, hip, mostly on my left side. The strikes to my ribs and hip were the problematic ones, the ones that bled me to near death.

  My upper left abdomen was cut so deeply that sections of my lower ribs were exposed and the edge of my stomach was visible. Two of my ribs had score marks etched into them. I was lucky. Any deeper and my stomach itself would have either been sliced open or been left behind in the muck when I tumbled away from my attacker.

  I couldn't remember when the laceration on my left hip happened, but the injury itself was a problem. It was as long as my hand from wrist to fingertip, a chasmic wound just above my hip bone. The longer the fight went on, the larger the gap spread, and when it came time to sew me up, it took two people—Marita to hold the split and bleeding flesh back together and Iefyr to suture.

  I hoped Marita's herbs and cleansing spells worked, or I'd be dead of infection within a couple days. I didn't want to survive all of this just to be taken down by some disease in the mud.

  I found myself propped against a stack of saddlebags, watching Ragan prepare an antelope and turnip stew. Janella's discarded greatsword lay on the ground behind him, but Morenno's body was nowhere to be seen. I kept meaning to ask what happened to it, but coherency and memory were not my strong skills at the moment.

  “Are you warm enough?” Ragan asked. He smiled at me from across the campfire.

  A balmy wind blew across my face. It was no longer raining and the temperature was more pleasant than it had been in days. Serida was on my lap with only her nose peeking out from beneath the blankets that covered me from neck to toe.

  “I'm okay,” I said. My voice was raspy and weak.

  “Let me know if you need more blankets, fewer blankets, wa
ter, anything. Don't want you moving any more than necessary.” Ragan tossed a handful of chopped garlic and herbs into the simmering pot. The rising steam was wonderfully pungent. Ragan was hesitant to use up our dwindling culinary herb stores on something as mundane as stew, but Marita had insisted this specific combination of herbs would help me heal.

  A clatter of stomping hooves enveloped the tent. The others must have returned from the distant tree stand they had ridden to in hopes of finding reasonably dry fuel for the fire. We had enough with us to get us through today, but tomorrow would be a problem and I wasn't ready to leave yet. No one was willing to risk me popping any sutures just so we could get off the steppe quicker. Gathering parties were our only feasible option for now.

  Shan arranged an armful of damp wood around the fire so it could dry, then ducked under the tarp to sit next to me. He sat close but didn't touch me.

  “Can I get you anything?” he asked.

  “Got anything that will stop me from feeling like I'm being shredded with every breath?” The sutures by my collarbone tugged as I turned my head to look at him. “Hey, we match now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Same scar. The one on your cheek. I mean the first one you got in the caves, not the Jarrah scars. Now I've got two. One from the Sibyl and one from the Foxfae.”

  Shan ran his finger along the horizontal white scar beneath his eye. “Yeah. Don't get any more.”

  “I'll try not to.”

  “You'll be okay. Give yourself a week or two and expect the sutures to itch like mad once everything starts to knit back together.” Shan reached over his shoulder and pulled Lumin out of his hood. The dragon scurried over to Ragan for meat scraps, then returned to Shan's knee to gobble them down. “Damn, Tessen. You scared the hell out of us, but I can't say I'm not proud of you.”