Page 74 of Lady of Ashes

“Scarlett, why can you not Travel?” Sorin asked slowly. “Your magic should be fully replenished. You just froze ?re.”

“Again, something I do not currently have time to discuss. Are you coming with me or not?”

“You think I would let you out of my sight right now? When I cannot ?nd you through our bond?” he growled, reaching out to lay a hand on her arm.

“I will stay behind and help get the orphans together,” Nuri said. “I will come with the last of them.”

“Thank you,” Scarlett answered, holding her gaze for an extra moment. She nodded once, her expression unreadable. That reunion would come soon enough, too.

And then Azrael was pulling them through a rip in the world. She was still kneeling next to Cassius when they emerged in a suite of some sort. A plush rug across a stone ?oor was beneath her knees, but she hardly noticed her surroundings.

“This was my quarters when I would stay here,” Sorin said, looking around the room.

“I ?gured here would be better than the queen’s rooms,” Azrael replied. “The layout is identical to the White Halls. I assumed these were once yours.”

“Someone ?gure out where Hazel is and bring her here as soon as she arrives,” Scarlett said, leaning over Cassius once more, pressing her ?ngers to his neck. His pulse was somehow still there, but so, so faint.

She felt a hand on her back, and then Sorin was speaking softly into her ear. “If he will hold on for anyone, it will be for you.”

She swallowed against the tears building in her throat, refusing to let more come. Rayner appeared in a swirl of ashes, a water portal appearing a moment later. Briar stepped through and behind him came Beatrix. Rayner must have somehow alerted them while going to the High Witch.

“Move him to the bed, Prince,” Beatrix ordered Sorin.

“No,” Scarlett argued. “Don’t move him again. Not until Hazel gets here.”

“Scarlett, it would give him a better chance if Beatrix could start,” Sorin said, gently trying to pull her from where she was clinging to Cassius.

“Don’t take me from him, Sorin,” she half-hissed, half-cried at him. “Love, I am trying to make sure he is not taken from you at all. Let us move him to the bed so Beatrix can try.”

She reluctantly let him pull her back from Cassius, and Cyrus stepped forward to move him. Sorin tried to help her up, but she was already crawling over to the bed, climbing onto it and grasping Cassius’s hand. It was cold and clammy in hers, and she pressed some of her ?re magic into his body again. She felt Sorin come up behind her, but he didn’t reach for her, didn’t touch her again.

Beatrix’s hands were hovering over Cassius, a faint white light emanating from her palms. Her eyes widened with a mixture of horror and sorrow.

“Just try, Beatrix,” Sorin murmured. “Please.”

Scarlett kept her eyes ?xed on Cassius’s face, where one eye was swollen shut from when Alaric had to have shattered his cheekbone with his ?st after hitting him multiple times. That was better than his other eye though. It looked swollen shut as well, but Alaric had cut into his chocolate brown eye with a long, thin dagger, effectively blinding him. There were various other cuts and bruises along his face, dried blood beneath his nose and along his lips. He’d endured so much. Broken bones. Hits to his head. Stabs and burns. There was little Alaric had not done. She had sat and watched everything, never allowing tears to fall. Neverallowing Alaric and Tarek to see her break. And when he hadn’t regained consciousness for hours, when they couldn’t wake him, Alaric had decided they’d done what they could. He’d chided at her that this was all her fault, that she had sat by and watched him be beaten and tortured, and now she would watch him die as he’d slid a shirastone dagger between his broken ribs. He’d pulled the dagger from his side, before ordering him removed from where he’d been chained to the wall. He’d been laid just out of her reach, leaving her to watch as his life bled from him, and she could do nothing.

“I am sorry, Sorin,” she heard Beatrix murmur. “I can ease some of the pain, but there is too much …”

“I understand,” Sorin replied. She felt him shift closer, as if preparing to intervene somehow.

“Where is Hazel?” Scarlett demanded, panic rising and edging into her tone. Beatrix was one of the best Healers in the realms. She’d hardly done a thing. Cassius didn’t look any different. His chest was still barely rising and falling.

“I am sorry, your Majesty,” she said softly. “There is too much internal injury, and I—”

“Where is Hazel?” Scarlett demanded again. She nestled into Cassius’s side once more, praying to any god that would listen, praying to the god of death himself.

The room was silent. There was nothing anyone could do. There were no words that would offer any sort of comfort to her shattering world. There was no touch that would ease the grief she was adamantly shoving down.

“Move.”

Scarlett let out a sob of relief at the High Witch’s sharp tone. Her head snapped up, her gaze instantly landing on Hazel. Her normally golden-brown skin was leached of color, but other than that, she looked every bit like the stern High Witch that everyone found dif?cult to deal with. Her lips were set in a thin line, pursing as she came to a stop beside Beatrix.

“My Lady,” Beatrix murmured, bowing her head. “The injuries are too numerous and too severe.”

“He is not like others,” Hazel replied, her violet eyes sweeping over Cassius. She brought a hand to his cheek, and Scarlett saw it tremble slightly.

“He was protecting children,” Scarlett whispered, her voicecracking as her last hope met her eyes. “He was keeping children safe, Hazel. Please. I need him.”

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