Page 64 of City of the Lost
He chuckled. “Almost seventy-two hours. But Noir said that was normal for healing. They’ve all been here, taking it in turns to sit with you. Tay, Noir, Valance, and, of course, Azren, although I get the impression he would rather have monitored you on his own. Tay and Noir left an hour ago; they both had business to attend to, but they said they’d be back. I’m not sure about Valance. He was just gone, and I only just managed to convince Azren to go eat something. Oh, and it’s almost six p.m.”
I pressed a hand to my temple. They’d all been here. They’d stayed with me. Seventy-two hours. Shit. It felt like yesterday. Balen’s face, his ghastly face and rotten breath ... A fist clamped itself around my lungs, making it difficult to breathe for a moment.
“Wila?” Gilbert’s phantom hands brushed my face. “It’s all right. It’s over. You’re safe.”
I was home. I was fucking home. The fist eased up, and my breathing evened out. “I’m okay.”
I didn’t need to see his face to imagine the concern etched into it. He poured me some tea but didn’t hand it to me. “How’s the pain?”
I glanced down at my abdomen and carefully lifted my T-shirt to examine the pale, scarred flesh beneath. Long lines ran across the whole of my stomach, raised in angry red and white welts.
“It will heal fully,” Gilbert said. “Noir said it will take time. The wounds were deep.” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “You seemed to have healed some of it yourself, but the rest Noir helped with.”
I’d healed myself—another change to my body, another strange occurrence. I covered up the scars and squeezed my eyes shut, blocking out the terrifying image of Balen’s face flaring to life in my mind again. “I couldn’t fight him, Gil. He was too strong. I ... I’ve never felt that helpless before. No K, no daggers, nothing.”
“But you survived.”
My eyes pricked. “No, I just kept him busy until Valance arrived. I ran, Gil. I ran because I wasn’t powerful enough to stop him from hurting me.”
All this time, I’d fought alone. I’d put myself in danger time and time again, and I’d come home unscathed, triumphant, and I’d believed I was invincible, but Balen had shattered it all. In that chamber, I’d been stripped bare and he’d won. Valance had saved me, but Balen had bested me because he was here with me, in my fucking head.
“You survived, Wila. You held your own against a Shedim, a demon of great power.”
“Because of you. You gave me your strength.”
He was silent for a long beat. “I didn’t give you anything, Wila. I simply gave you the confidence to believe in yourself, to keep pushing and not give in.”
“But you said—”
“It was a wish, a prayer. Nothing more. But I’m ever grateful it gave you strength.”
Me. That had been me. I’d withstood Balen alone until Valance had come. I’d survived. Not so weak after all.
“You may not be all powerful,” Gil continued. “You may not have the Arcana, or the physical strength of your adversaries, but you have the strength of will and determination of a warrior. You have the wit and intelligence of a master thief, and you have the heart of a lion.”
My throat tightened with emotion. “I love you, Gil.”
“I love you too, Wila.”
Dammit, I needed a hug.
The bed dipped as he sat down and then his presence wrapped around me, warm and comforting. I closed my eyes and reveled in it for long seconds. He withdrew slowly, reluctantly. “Azren has been different with you since you returned. Valance too ...”
Things had happened, so many little things, and my mind was still wrapping itself around them, trying to tease out what it all meant.
I pulled back. “When Elora was beating Azren, I think I connected with him, and I saw stuff. I saw the truth about Elora, about what she did to enslave the Shedim, how she convinced them that she was saving them.” I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Azren about what we’d shared yet, but saying it out loud now helped to get it straight in my mind. “There was a treaty, an agreement with the Shedim for equality, and she killed Ivan. She ruined his vision of peace and created one of her own where the Shedim believed her to be some kind of savior and willingly allowed themselves to be enslaved. She told me she changed historical memory. But she wouldn’t tell me how.”
Gilbert was silent for a long time, and when he spoke, his tone was reflective. “She succeeded in manipulating the memory of a whole race?”
“And the Draconi, because I won’t believe Valance knew about any of this. He couldn’t have.” Something niggled at the back of my mind. The way he’d helped me, the way he’d been eager to find the rogue Shedim to protect me from his mother. The way he’d wanted to be involved. “I think ... I think he may have suspected something, though.”
“I know of no Arcana magic powerful enough to manipulate memory in such a way,” Gilbert said. “But we know very little of the magic that Draconi have access to.”
The puzzle pieces were falling into place. “The rebels know the truth. It has to be why they’re rebelling. They must have evaded whatever she did. And telling Shedim the truth doesn’t help, because whatever she did to them prevents them from hearing it. That’s probably why they’ve been taking Shedim. They’re probably doing the whip thing to them that they did to Azren. That glowing whip somehow undoes whatever she’s done. No wonder she’s so frantic. She knows there’s a weapon out there that can counter her memory manipulation.” But there was more. “The whip touched me too.” I stared at my hands, recalling the talons that had pushed out of my fingertips. “And now something’s happening to me.”
“Tell me.”
“I grew talons.”
