Page 49 of A Court of Masks and Roses
“If you feel my sensations, why don’t I feel yours?”
“I’m keeping the magic focused inside your body,” says Trace. “Brace yourself.”
I’ve no chance to ask what I’m bracing for before a sudden agony, like on oily fire, engulfs my body. The viscous flame pools in the crevices of my shattered right shin and starts to sear the bone. I dig my nails into the ground, my back arching as a whimper I can’t bite back escapes my lips.
“I know,” Trace whispers, his free hand finding mine. “But this is the only way.”
I try to settle, but everything inside me rebels against the pain. Pushes against it. Against the magic melting my bones.
The magic pushes back, worming its way in. I push harder.
Harder still.
And the magic... It recoils. Right back into Trace.
26
KALI
Trace’s body goes rigid.
Beneath the pulsing pain of my own wounds, I feel another set of legs and arms, another body. The muscles of that other body are tense with fatigue, the heart racing in panic. One of the hands holds something precious and warm, but not warm enough. The temperature of my own hand. Trace jerks the healing crystal away and stares at me, hints of panic and bewilderment shimmering in his gaze. “What the bloody stars did you do?”
With the contact severed, my body is once again just my own. My breaths come in broken pants. “I don’t know.”
His eyes tighten, a hundred thoughts racing through them, before his face becomes stone once more, and a very displeased stone at that. “I’ve had just about enough of Kal and Lianna and whatever other masks you wear.”
“I’m not lying to you.” My chest squeezes tight around my ribs. “Trace, I swear it. I wanted to push the pain away and then...”
“And then?” he demands.
And then I felt what he felt. Intruded without his permission. And he thinks I did it on purpose. “I pushed and it worked. It was like jerking a finger away from a fire—it’s not something you plan, it just happens. I don’t even understand what happened, much less how.”
“You pushed the magic?” His brow creases, but at least the anger seems to be melting away.
“I don’t know.” I swallow. “I’m not a whisperer.”
“No,” Trace agrees. “You are not. We work through crystals.”
I say nothing until the silence claws at me from the inside. “Then what am I?” I whisper finally.
Trace runs his hand through his hair. “I truly don’t know. Nothing odd happened the last time I healed you, but you were unconscious then. We’ll try it again. Don’t fight me this time.”
I nod and press the back of my head into the ground while Trace checks the binding on the healing crystal. “Trace.” I reach out and touch his hand before he can pull away. “I’m sorry.”
Trace looks down at my hand, and just when I’m sure he’s about to jerk back, he squeezes my fingers. “The pain ends,” he whispers. “It feels like it won’t, but it will.” He holds my gaze as his other hand, the one holding the crystal, reclaims its spot at my collarbone and that oily fire sears me once more.
I bite back a howl that would wake the whole forest. “You... feel that?” I ask.
Trace nods, beads of sweat rising on his temple. “I feel the pain, but I’m aware that it is a phantom, the injury not truly mine.” The words are strained and Trace’s dark eyes shimmer in the crystal’s pale glow. “It makes it easier. That, and being the one in control.”
The shackle of flaming agony shifts closer to my knee, and gripping Trace’s gaze is all I can do to keep myself together. I wait for him to look away, but he never does.
With the exceptionof a few short breaks, Trace keeps the healing going for hours on end, moving with meticulous care from bone to bone. I am fortunate enough to black out several times, but Trace has no such luxury. By nightfall, the splints are off my legs and I crawl outside the cave to be sick. When I return—slowly, on legs that feel like a newborn foal’s—Trace is holding the wall for balance just to remain upright. Through his haze of exhaustion, he gives me a small, triumphant smile.
A sudden overwhelming desire to touch him washes over me. I want to rest my forehead against his shoulder, feel the rise and fall of his chest against my cheek, the familiar rhythm of his breath that I clung to while he healed me. I want to say thank you. To ask why.Why did you come after me, Trace?Why did you save me?Why did you work through hours of agony for my sake?No one but Leaf does that. Not for me.
I go to the opposite wall and slide down it. If there is a proper way to go about thanking someone for one’s life, Lord Gapral hasn’t taught it to me.
