Page 56 of Beast of Blood and Ash
The healing caverns.
Panic cut through me, sharp and immediate, banishing the dizzy unreality for one vicious heartbeat. The pain in my body didn’t matter. The confusion, the strangeness of waking in a place I’d never meant to return to, all of it shrank to a single, clawing need.
Where was he?
I tore through my own fog, muscles screaming in protest as I tried to push myself upright. My heart crashed against my ribs with wild, panicked urgency, a single name hammering itself into shape from the fragments of my waking thought. Not me. Not my wounds. Not even my own survival. Just one thing mattered.
“Omvar?” My voice cracked, ragged and raw at the edges from too many unreleased screams.
A hand pressed gently but firmly on my shoulder, impossibly strong and impossibly tender at once. My skin stung under the contact, hot-cold and electric, my nerves skittering with the ancient memory of claws in the dark.
“He is here, little one. And so are his wounds. Lie still.”
I blinked, vision clearing in fits and starts. Light trembled and stuttered along the cavern walls, painted amber and bloodred by clusters of heat crystals embedded in the stone. Steam curled like living ghosts, softening the world’s edges, half-hiding bodies at rest and others in too much distress.
Mysha, the elder Drakarn healer, loomed above me. Her scaled face was all gruff concentration, years etched in every line, not a trace of softness unless you looked for it in the careful way her brows drew together. Her claws, lethal and precise as scalpels, dabbed a pungent, mossy poultice onto a cut on my arm. The sting of it made me flinch, not enough to draw a sound, but she felt it anyway. Her gaze was relentless, searching my face for weakness I didn’t want to betray.
The cavern stretched out, vast and echoing, every inch breathing the sharp tang of medicinal herbs layered over the constant, mineral bite of scorched stone and sulfur. The floor was lost under curls of steam, with stone slabs like islets scattered in the haze, each one occupied. The low chorus of groans and soft Drakarn voices drifted beneath the ceaseless hiss of steam vents.
Across the cavern, half-shrouded by the gold and red flicker, Omvar was being tended to by two other healers. Seeing him stripped to the waist sent a jolt through my chest.
His massive wings were a roadmap of fresh, weeping gashes and older, silvered scars. He sat rigid, jaw clamped tight, as they worked, every muscle a line of stubborn resistance, not a sound escaping him. My heart lurched in my chest, torn between the shape of him and the memory of everything I’d almost lost.
“He’s … is he going to be okay?”
Mysha snorted, a dry, rattling sound that vibrated somewhere deep in her chest. “He’ll live. The same reckless idiocy I see in every mated pair. You get the scent in your head and forget how to duck.” She jabbed a claw in my direction, the tip glistening with poultice and something darker beneath. “And you. You are lucky. Mostly bruises and scrapes. Your champion, however, was less fortunate.”
I winced, both at her words and the bite of the bitter moss. The sting wasn’t just physical this time. Guilt crawled up my throat, a shameful, burning ache that threatened to choke me. Every old fear screamed: This is on you. He bled, because of you.
“It’s my fault.” The confession slipped out, brittle and small, hardly more than a whisper.
“It’s always your fault,” another voice said, laced with dry humor that almost made me flinch. Nyx lounged against a nearby pillar, arms crossed, his stormy scales seeming to drink the light. He looked entirely too relaxed for someone who’d just been in a battle. “If it wasn’t for you humans, we’d all be sitting around, bored, waiting for the lava to boil over. So, thank you for the entertainment.”
Despite the situation, a weak smile touched my lips. There was something almost comforting in the ritual of Nyx’s sarcasm, a reminder that even in a place like this, there was room for the familiar sting of banter. Sarcasm could be a lifeline.
The next hour was a blur of gentle, efficient care. Mysha’s claws moved with surprising delicacy, peeling off filthy bandages and layering new ones with expert speed. Her running commentary never stopped, a constant drizzle of scold and wry observation that somehow felt like a form of protection all its own.
Each time she pressed a fresh poultice to my bruised ribs, she muttered dire warnings about humans and their fragile parts, asif I’d gone out and gotten myself nearly killed just to ruin her evening.
All the while, Nyx kept up a steady stream of asides, his tail flicking lazily against the pillar, eyes gleaming with the predatory humor the Drakarn seemed to specialize in. His words bit, but they never wounded. I got the sense that as far as he was concerned, if you could survive his jokes, you could survive anything.
“Honestly,” Mysha muttered, wrapping a fresh bandage around my wrist with a precision that belied her gruffness, “the trouble this mating bond causes. More work for me than a decade of war. Rath and his scientist, now this one.” She gestured vaguely at Omvar with her chin. “At least the Warrior Lord had the sense to get his wounds treated before rutting.”
My face flushed hot. I could feel it rise, crawling from my chest to my ears, a wave of mortification that nothing in this world could disguise. Mysha didn’t seem to care, and snorted, the sound bouncing off the stone as if it carried a secret joke only the old and the stubborn got to share.
Nyx coughed to cover a laugh, the effect ruined by the way his eyes sparkled with mischief. I shot him a glare, but it landed weakly. Worn smooth by pain and embarrassment, I could hardly summon the energy for my usual barbs.
My own injuries were, per Mysha’s assessment, nothing but bruises and scrapes. An insult, really, next to Omvar’s wounds. Once I was cleaned and dressed, my left arm swaddled in sticky bandages and my ribs cinched tight with some fire-scented wrap, I swung my legs slowly off the slab. My muscles screamed in protest, a symphony of ache and stubbornness, but I ignored them.
I wasn’t going to ask permission. I didn’t need approval to see him.
I pushed myself upright, determined, and hobbled across the cavern, each step slow and uncertain, but mine. The stone beneath my feet radiated heat, as if the world itself was trying to urge me forward.
Omvar sat at the edge of another slab, still and monumental, his massive wings slung like torn banners behind him. The healers packed up their tools, giving me a wide berth, their knowing glances sliding between us and then away. What were they thinking? That I was a fool, or that I was brave? Did it matter?
He looked up as I approached. Those gold eyes tracked my every step. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just watched, his face an impassive mask, unreadable. I stopped in front of him, my hands twisting in the hem of my tunic. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, every word I’d tried to conjure suddenly shriveled and useless.
Thank you felt too small. I’m sorry felt like a lie.
