Page 122 of A Reign of Roses
My eyes scanned up to the fading sun, melting behind the bare trees of the Shadow Woods, the sentries’ towers doubled in manpower since our return.
Dinner would be served soon.
I shut the worm-holed wooden door, drowning out the flapping of wings and feathered coos in favor of my boots crunching in snow. Barney was escorting Briar back to Willowridge tomorrow to gather a few spell books before we set off for Lumera as planned with Hart. Just us, the Onyx men, and Hart’s rebel army. I’d convinced Kane tolet us host everyone in his private dining quarters tonight as a send-off. A goodbye dinner, of sorts.
Though I wasn’t sure Mari would even join us. She’d been quiet this past week. Her father told me he’d found all her grimoires in their wastebasket. I’d tried visiting Mari bearing treats—cloverbread and her favorite romantic novels. With Kane’s help I’d found her a first edition copy ofOnyx’s Most Foul—a Mari classic.
She’d told me she was busy.
Mari wasalwaysbusy. It had never stopped her from speaking to me before.
The warmth of Shadowhold enveloped me as I strolled inside, past guards and soldiers and children. I climbed the well-worn stairs, my hand running up a banister twined in holly.
The sound the apothecary door made when I swung it open was a tonic to my anxious mind. I’d met the new healer a few days ago. Eardley told me they’d hired her from a small village outside of Sandstone. She wasn’t Fae, but she did have a knack for sutures and salves. Dagan had only called her by the wrong name twice, so I knew he liked her just fine.
The familiar wood floors creaked under my feet and I inhaled lemongrass and antiseptic. Familiarity warmed my limbs and I shed my fox fur, tossing it onto a lambskin chair.
I only needed sunflower oil. It helped keep my dry hands from cracking after training with Dagan in the winter air, which I did every morning. My aching quads never ceased to remind me. I massaged one such protesting limb as I hobbled around the counter. Maybe I’d grab some arnica root as well.
My hands stilled at the movement in the infirmary around the corner. I’d thought both rooms were empty…
“Hello?”
Nothing.
“Anyone there?”
Despite the rational part of my mind that knew no Fae mercenary was going to begin its pillage of Shadowhold in the infirmary’s bandage drawer, a welcome rush of lighte zipped down my veins and into the tips of my fingers.
I stalked inside and a gasp shuddered through me.
“It’s fine,” Mari said, before I could form words. “Arwen, I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t. The blood was everywhere.
All over the crinkly daybed, drying brown and stiff on freshly washed sheets. Pooling in her skirts, trickling in between the cracks in the floorboards…
My hands flared with lighte as I seized her arm and ripped the plump leech from it. “Bleeding Stones, Mari, what did you do?”
“Bloodletting is supposed to help with certain abilities…” She was too pale.
But I could feel the blood she’d lost replenishing beneath my glowing fingers, and once she didn’t look so woozy, I inspected the leech’s entry point.
“You slashed yourself?” I twisted the arm a bit. “With a straight razor?”
“It wasn’t taking enough blood…I thought I could it speed up.”
I stanched the blood with a nearby rag and held tightly. “Herbalists have suggested leeches can remove toxins to help with abilities likesightormobility. Notmagic.It’s more of an old wives’ tale.” Shaking my head, I tossed the rag to the ground and brought my lighte back to seal up her cuts. “You, of all people, didn’t do your research?”
Mari didn’t answer, only lifting her eyes to the wood panels ofthe ceiling. But tears pooled in them anyway, and her lips trembled as they spilled down her temples into her hair.
I kicked myself internally for berating her.
“Mari.” I softened my tone. “Why are you being so hard on yourself? We’ve all told you…Nobody blames you for what happened with Ethera.”
“I couldn’t help when you needed me,” she snapped, wounded eyes on mine, voice raw. “And you suffered because of it.Griffinsuffered.”
I shook my head emphatically. “You made amistake.”
