Page 39 of Great Falls Protector
“I was there when it happened, so yes.” River clenches his teeth, his skin growing cooler and clammier with each passing heartbeat. He rubs his hands over his face. “The prisoner, I went to talk to him this morning. And then I met the fae named Owalin. That didn’t end as well as I’d hoped.”
River discovered Night Guard fae on Academy grounds, got stabbed, and then, seeing me set the arena ablaze, drew his own conclusions. And came to stop me, injury or not. Unfortunately, since none of our encounter successfully endangered my life, River is still beneath the amulet’s veil spell.
I inhale the smell of his blood and snarl. “I understand why you went after me, but why did you think coupling while stabbed was a good idea?”
“Truth be known, I wasn’t thinking much at the time.Agh.” River grunts in pain as I peel away soggy bandages to behold a freely bleeding gash along River’s right pectoral. From the way its draining, I’m fairly certain the gash is newly reopened.
I should have stopped this. I should have smelled the blood on River and taken him to Shade immediately. But my instincts were too distracted by the male himself—his anger, his rejection of me. I can feel my mind wanting to spiral into darkness, to cover my head with my hands and wait until this is all over.
As if in ironic response, the magic inside me surges, the cord of Shade’s healing power sensing a chance to escape into the world.
I tamp it down. Hard.
Healing is far more dangerous than fire, requiring not just precision and control, but also the knowledge of internal structures that I couldn’t draw on a chalk slate, much less in my mind. With River’s wound along his chest so close to his heart, a misplaced slice of magic would leave him dead as easily as healed. And after what I just did to the arena, I’ve no desire to bring my magic anywhere near so much as a candle—and certainly not a mate. I’ve done enough damage.
But blood pools beneath River now, thick and shiny, making my mind numb with panic. I press into the stone floor as I breathe through the magic’s roaring, until the silver power is a tiny trickle along my hand. My heart pounds. “For an epic military commander, you are an utter idiot.”
One brow on River’s face rises in acknowledgment. Even pale and hollowed out with pain, the male is beautiful. Unjustly so.
Placing my palm over the bleeding wound, I let the magic dribble inside as if filling the gash with drops of melted wax. River flinches at each dab, his face growing even paler, but makes no move to pull away or ask me to stop as the flesh knits together with agonizing slowness. I don’t know how Shade can bear it, to hurt the people he loves when he heals them.
“Very convenient.” River smiles faintly as I pull away, his wound raw but no longer leaking life blood. “Thank you.”
I shake my head. “I only stopped the bleeding. We need to get a healer here. Shade.” Ripping the hem of my dress, I wrap it tightly over the wound as a backup to my handiwork. River winces as I pull tightly on the fabric. “Will you be all right while I get him?”
Bracing a hand on the wall, he climbs to his feet. “I need my jacket. Can’t go out looking like this. And not to the infirmary either. No one can know I’m hurt. We must prepare for an attack, and I can’t lead the Academy from a sickbed.”
“You can’t do it from a deathbed either. So—” I cut off as the steady din of noise coming from the Great Hall changes subtly. River’s suddenly alert gaze tells me he’s heard the difference as well.
Squeezing his shoulder once, I scramble to the slit near the door and look out. The mezzanine looks as it did before, the Great Hall below it now fully crowded with guests enjoying the spread of food and wine the servants trotted out while River and I were occupied. On the whole, Sage’s most honored guests look relatively unscathed—I count a half-dozen kings surrounded by their families, looking only a bit disgruntled and soot tarnished. Relief thuds through me that perhaps my tally of injured—or worse—won’t be as great as I feared.
With another quick scan, I confirm that Coal, Tye, and Shade are nowhere in their ranks and some of my relief fades into worry again. Are any of my other males hurt? Did my fire…Stars.Of all things to feel nauseated over just now, anxiety over the elite warriors’ reaction when they discover my incompetence lying behind the fire shouldn’t make the list. But it does.
A section of the hall is partitioned off, the Academy’s healers—with the notable absence of Shade—tending to the wounded. And then there is… I frown at the large crow soaring above the anxious crowd, flapping its wings as it settles on the mezzanine rail, its iridescent feathers reflecting the chandelier light. More birds join the first, soaring in through the open balcony doors.
Caw caw.The birds’ calls echo from the walls, their taloned feet settling on perches as the people in the Great Hall quiet with thickening unease. Something doesn’t feel right to them. Not to me either.
River curses, staring toward the stairs. “I need to get to the guards. Those birds—”
A flash of light piercing through the view ports halts River in his tracks. Blinking sight back into my eyes, I gasp as bird after bird shifts into a fae warrior. Four. Eight. A dozen. More. Immortals of every size and age land smoothly in a crouch on the Great Hall floor, swords and bows at the ready, as magic crackles through the air in waves of power. With their sleek black armor, pointed ears, and smoothly beautiful faces, they make a terrifying sight, sending panic speeding through the guests and servants.
Their screams and shouts echoing against the high raftered ceiling, the humans stampede for the Great Hall’s door, crushing against it as they did in the arena—but this time, the door doesn’t open. Cries of pain sound from those in the front.
Through it all, my immortal ears pick up a deep, calm voice from somewhere in the middle of the crowd.
“Your attention, please,” the speaker says, making no effort to be heard above the pandemonium.
No one seems to hear the voice, the strongest of the men now trying to shoulder open the hall door, which must be barred on the other side—or else held shut with magic.
“I said, be quiet,” the voice repeats almost kindly, the words drowning amidst the humans’ shouts.
“Leralynn.” The note of horror in River’s voice has me searching the Great Hall for the source—to discover small bits of fire dancing along the thick ropes connecting a man-sized iron candelabra to the hall’s high ceiling. The rope strands crackle as they are consumed, snap by snap by snap.
My chest squeezes around my ribs. But I can do nothing but watch, paralyzed, as the last of the tether holding the grand metal construction snaps in two, releasing it from the ceiling. Guests scatter from the candelabra’s path, the thick iron bands nonetheless crushing two men who couldn’t get out of the way in time. The crack of bones sends bile up my throat.
The cry of the victims’ agony proves as effective at getting the hall’s attention as the fall of the candelabra itself.
Striding over to the wreckage, a tall fae male in long blood-red robes kicks debris out of his path. His long white-blond hair twists down the back of his head in an elaborate braid, highlighting a high forehead and blue eyes nearly as piercing as Coal’s—and far more terrifying in their detached enjoyment of the scene before him. In the sunlight streaming through the windows, the male’s jewel-decorated ears are a plain sign of his immortality. As are the sparks of fire dancing like fireflies along his hands.
