Page 90 of Sun Elves of Ardani

She stiffened. She was less concerned about her own reputation than she was about Roshan’s.

“Well?” Sergio said, looking to her right. Kadaki followed his gaze and found Roshan at the edge of the group. He was being restrained by two other armed men. Kadaki’s heart sank. If even he hadn’t been able to convince them of their folly, there was no hope for her.

“Sergio, you’ve got to stop this,” she said desperately.

“They deserve death for what they’ve done to us. They thought they were so far above us that they were untouchable. Now they see how wrong they were.”

“No! They’ll kill you for this. More will come. They’ll hurt us. All of us.”

“Then what more do we have to lose? We’ve already killed dozens of them. Why should we spare these ones if we’re already doomed?”

He tightened his fist in Neiryn’s hair and pressed the knife against his throat. Neiryn winced.

“Sergio!” Kadaki shouted. “If you hurt him, I will kill you.”

Sergio just smiled a little sadly, like she was a child who couldn’t understand. Like he almost felt sorry for her. Kadaki’s heart rose into her throat. He didn’t believe her. And why would he? She had never used her magic against anyone in town—had never wanted to. Why should he think she had the capacity to murder someone? She was an oddity to the people of Refka, but not truly a threat.

Before she could react, Sergio slashed the knife across Neiryn’s throat. Vivid blood poured down his skin and over his chest, dying the gold sun on his chest a hideous red.

The world suddenly felt separate from Kadaki. It was a bad dream, unreal and fuzzy and slow.

Panic and despair and power flowed through her as one entity. She lifted her hand and closed her fist tight, and the magic around her echoed the movement. Sergio was eviscerated by the inescapable crushing force of the spell. Bones broke, muscles tore, organs burst. His body crumpled in on itself, a torn, limp shell.

Before he even hit the ground, Kadaki had spun toward the other Ardanians, gathering another wave of magic and throwing it outward. The crowd flew apart as if in a hurricane wind, scattering across the road.

She turned to Neiryn. He was on his hands and knees, clutching his torn throat. He held his hand in front of his face, staring blankly at the blood coating it.

She had seen similar wounds before. He would be dead in less than a minute.

She ignored the chaos surrounding her as she ran to him, dropping to her knees. People shouted and ran and fought as they recovered from her spell. She was vaguely aware of Roshan shouting something nearby, and of Eliyr and Rhian pressing in beside her and Neiryn, their hands and voices fluttering uselessly around him.

Neiryn looked up at her, going still as she pressed a hand beneath his jaw and poured healing magic into him. She gritted her teeth, willing herself to focus through the chaos. She flinched as Rhian got up and hit someone behind her. Both she and Eliyr were defending her from Ardanians that Kadaki could not stop to turn around and see. Blood oozed over her hands. Neiryn’s eyelids fluttered.

She slid her fingers over him, feeling through his body with magic. There were cuts to be sealed off, blood and nerve pathways to be restored, and tendons and muscles and skin that needed to be regrown and connected. To heal a wound like this properly would take hours, even days.

But the most pressing need was to stop the bleeding. Even that would take time that they might not have.

Far more clumsily than she would have liked, she forced healing magic into the places from which blood was spilling fastest. It was slow. Too slow. Neiryn’s hands grasped at her arm. His head nodded as he began to drift toward unconsciousness. Kadaki pushed gently at his chest, holding his head as she lowered him to the ground.

“It’s all right,” she said, and the words came out through tears. “Hold on.”

He blinked slowly at her. His mouth opened and closed as if he meant to say something, but no sound passed his lips. He held on to her wrist with surprising strength, as if he was afraid he would be lost if he let go of her.

“Everything is going to be all right,” Kadaki said again. And he nodded slowly, just once. His eyes were strangely calm as he met her gaze. He believed her.

Gradually, the flow of blood began to slow. She felt tissue knitting back together. Severed blood vessels reconnected, blocking leaks with thin, delicate new flesh.

Less than a minute after it began, the bleeding had stopped. And he was still conscious. Still alive.

Kadaki pulled her hand away as soon as the bleeding stopped, not wanting to make it worse by overhealing it further. The wound that still remained would need stitching.

Accelerated magical healing was not without its consequences. Healing worked best when magic was used in conjunction with the body’s natural healing process, to aid and improve it, but not replace it. But that required time.

What lay before her was shoddy, rushed work. She could see spots where the skin was unnaturally twisted, regrown haphazardly. There would be a ragged scar. Perhaps there were other things she hadn’t repaired properly. Perhaps the muscles in his neck would be paralyzed or numb for months or years, or even permanently.

She felt hot tears spilling down her face beside the drops of cold rain. Why hadn’t she just killed Sergio before he’d done it? Why had she waited? A moment of hesitation, a moment of carelessness, had almost cost him his life. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

Neiryn’s hand closed around hers. He opened his mouth again, and again no sound came forth. A look of worry crossed his face.

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