Page 103 of A War of Three Kings

It cannot end like this.

I will not allow it.

I don’t want to win this fight against Finan if Aldrin dies in it. That price is too high.

“Take him to the hospital.” The words leave my lips before my mind stops reeling enough to process them. “They are all in the hospital.”

Time speeds up all over again and there is utter chaos around me. People shouting and running in a hundred different directions. I grab the horse’s reins and lead it toward the hospital. Leaving Aldrin’s side right now is the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

My father’s guards part the crowd for us and we race through. Cyprien materializes at my side. He is speaking with agitation, eyes absolutely feral with tears in their corners, but I cannot hear him over the buzz in my head. Finally, some words make it through.

“Klara can’t heal him,” he seems to repeat. “None of our fae can.”

“What happened?” I choke out.

“Close-range musket fire. They have laced the bullets with something that affects our magic.” His voice breaks.

I blink and we are at the hospital. Cyprien and Drake pull Aldrin down from the horse as two druids race out from the pillared portico of the building’s entrance, carrying a stretcher. Aldrin lets out a weak groan as they lay him in it and carry him away. I chase after him, but I can’t get to his side. There are too many soldiers helping to bear his weight and healers clustering around him.

It isn’t until they get him into a pallet in the crude hospital that I can reach him and hold his hand. Aldrin screams as they pull out the shrapnel piece by piece from his flesh. My heart breaks all over again. I desperately hold the pieces of myself together, because he needs me. I will not leave him until he opens his eyes again.

He has to live.

I will accept nothing else.

Chapter 26

Aldrin

Imust be dead, because there is an angel peering down at me, with a halo of fire burning around her. I try to hold on to that image, to soak in that face of the most beautiful woman I have ever beheld, but I slip away into blackness instead.

The next time I open my eyes, she is there again, tears streaming down her face. I want to reach up and brush them away, to kiss those rosy lips and tell her there is nothing to be so sad about, but my body doesn’t obey me.

I fall and fall into a haze of pain.

Fire licks up the side of my face, raging and burning and utterly consuming me. There is nothing else in my existence, just that agony and the angel looking over me. Cold hands grip my head and turn it to the side. I groan as the motion antagonizes my torturous wound. Claws slice up my scalp and down my throat. I am left panting from the simple movement.

And then they start their work on me.

Sharp metal forceps pluck away my very flesh and small scalpels slice my skin. The sensation drags on and on, until I wonder if I ever truly made it out of that dungeon. If my reunion with Keira was a fever dream. My entire body goes rigid with each little stab into that most tender wound. Then it shakesuncontrollably. I try to swat those punishing hands away, but I am as weak as a newborn babe.

They pin down my arms, but someone strokes one of my hands. It is a gentle, loving gesture. Not one that belongs in a dungeon.

“Hold still, please,” a distracted voice orders. “We need to remove the shrapnel. It is preventing your healing.”

Those words trigger a memory and I try to grasp it.

Running across an open field at the back of one human army while another pursues us. Throwing everything I have at them, tearing their ranks apart as I rip open the ground beneath them. Spearing soldiers with hardened root spikes. Whipping up storms.

But then a legion of horsemen gallop at us from the side, and they hold the most peculiar weapons. Like a crossbow, but the miniature bow and string are missing, and there is no sign of an arrow, just a long, metal tube.

Muskets, the humans call them.

I swing my sword at those riders as they appear out of nowhere, my magic near spent, and they pull the triggers on their contraptions. Smoke and sparks explode out of the barrels as metal balls fly from them.

I remember falling and falling, agony ravaging my face, along with the screams of soldiers going down around me. Then I am dragged away. Lifted onto Kai’s back and limply knocked around as he gallops wildly. Except the kelpie didn’t come to this realm, and the arms that hold me are from behind.

I get a sudden reprieve from those needles prying and stabbing into my face and the hands holding me down. I lie there, gasping and shuddering. Oblivion threatens at the edge of my awareness, but I pry open my eyes. I want to see that angel again.

---