Page 41 of Guardian's Dilemma

“Nobody died,” I said. “Except theridire.”

He nodded and I felt him working a spell along my skin. It burned and, frankly, hurt more than the arrow spells that were lodged in my belly. They had wracked me with pain at first but they’d lost a lot of potency by now. Glenwise’s spell was worse.

“You realise that hurts, right?” I asked.

“Stop being a baby. You’re meant to be the big, tough Guardian. Besides, it’ll only hurt for a minute. Stop tensing.”

“That’s just my body’s natural reaction to this amount of pain, Glenwise. Shouldn’t a doctor know that?”

“Don’t make me knock you out, Glimmer. Just sit there for a minute.”

I hated the idea of being knocked out for so many reasons, so I sat there, stopped complaining, and tried to relax my tense muscles as waves of pain rolled through them.

A knock at the door made me jolt and my heart rate sped up. I had the sudden, irrational thought that they’d found Kingsley. But of course they hadn’t.

“Wait outside,” called Glenwise.

He carried on like nothing had happened.

Less than a minute later, he stepped back and pulled off his gloves, throwing them into the bin.

“Done. You won’t get any lingering effects now.”

“Thanks.”

I hopped off the table and stood awkwardly.

Glenwise had no care for my pride because he strode to the door and opened it, already turning his cold eyes on his next patient.

“Rhod, come in.”

I knew it would be weird if he walked into an empty room, so I allowed Rhod to see me standing there. I gave a nod to Glenwise and moved towards the door, noting how easy it was to move without those spells. It annoyed me that I had been hit with them in the first place. I should have been better than that.

“What’s wrong with you?” Glenwise asked Rhod.

“Nothing. I’m perfectly fine, thank you, Glenwise. I came to check onyou.”

Rhod held up his clipboard and I rolled my eyes on my way past.

“You can check me off your list, too, Rhod.”

He gave me a nod and drew his pen down the list of names to mine, putting a mark beside it.

“While you’re here, Glimmer,” he said, and I paused.

“What?”

“Will you be contacting your mother or would you like me to do that?”

My mum lived with her own clan. She had mated a Somerville, had me, but when my father died, she’d returned to her own clan. She wasn’t a Somerville by blood. Not like me. Lord Somerville had kept me but hadn’t wanted her. I chatted to her every week, and loved her fiercely, but it was hard to share my life with someone who wasn’t allowed to know what I did every day. I wasn’t allowed to share clan secrets. The only saving grace was that she had still been with us when Morgan and Alfie had been born, so she knew all of my treasures.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“Very well. Please wait for Lord Somerville to issue an official statement.”

I nodded again, wondering how Rhod could be so concerned with such trivial matters so soon after an attack, but he was as attached to his clipboard as ever. I’d tell my mum that I was safe, of course I would, but I’d wait to ring her at our usual time anyway. That should give Lord Somerville time to decide what he wanted to tell the rest of the world.

Technically, elders were obliged to inform other clans when they’d been attacked byridire, so that the other clans could prepare adequate defences and be on their guard. I wasn’t going to hold my breath for Lord Somerville to do that, though. He wouldn’t want to appear weak and havingridirebreach his territory would make him look exactly that, unless he could spin the story to focus on the way his clan had defeated them.

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