Page 80 of Oathborn
Daeden had gone pale. “Check his heart rate, if you wish,” he told Zari. “I would rather have you do that than discuss such things as the Traitor. Even speaking his name may bring more wrath from the divine.”
The pulse thudding against her wrist was far too slow. “Severe bradycardia,” she muttered, her brows furrowed. More severe than any she’d ever measured. How could he still function? Surely he was dying.
Grunting, he struggled to pull his arm away. His eyes opened. Once more they were their usual green. Tivre groaned and tried to sit up.
“Lay down,” she said, trying her best to rely on medical training which felt woefully inadequate. Where the fae were concerned, stitches failed, pulse rates offered no measure of health, and who knew what else awaited discovery? Magic ruined any surety she had in her education. “Your pulse is too slow.”
“No. I’m fae, that’s normal.”
Rubbing his face, Daeden looked at Tivre, his concern melting into annoyance. “You’ve been drawing too much magic without telling us. Without asking for help. You almost died!”
Tivre’s posture tightened, like a cat bristling. “Yes, well, that is the occupational risk of being alive, isn’t it?”
“Tivre,” Zari said, “you should rest.”
“Do you often advise on things you have no knowledge of?” Tivre snarled, a sharp note creeping into his voice. “Next, will you suggest ways I might better use my magic, as you are no doubt an expert on it now?”
Why were apologies, explanations, or even a word of thanks so impossible for him? She’d trusted Tivre with this con and he had done nothing at all to help her since it started. Zari stood, dusting off her skirt. “You don’t have to make a mockery of my concern.”
“You don’t have to be concerned about me,” Tivre fired back. “I daresay you have enough other things to be concerned about.”
Heat flooded Zari’s cheeks. All she’d wanted to do was help, and all she’d done since leaving the city was make a mess of that. If even a fae’s heartbeat was different… then surely, they would all learn that she was human, soon enough. Zari’s mouth went dry. “Fine.” Zari took a step away from the fire. “I shall no longer concern myself.”
Her blood pounding, she started walking toward the ruins of Fort Lochna. She needed space, silence, normalcy. Not more magic, not more drama or danger. She was a good nurse. Perhaps even an excellent one. She should have stayed back at the hospital, where she knew the rules and how to survive.
Fort Lochna’s stony outline shattered that thinking. Could she have really gone on with her daily life, knowing there was a chance her father lived?
Making her way forward in the settling mist, she kept her eyes on the ruins ahead. The rustle of fabric let her know that Hazelle followed, but Zari kept walking.
With determination, Hazelle cut in front of her, blocking her way. Her one hand rested on her sword and determination made her usually brightexpression darkly powerful. She looked, intensely and overwhelmingly, like a terrifying fae matriarch from legends, not the friend whose hair Zari had braided.
In a cold voice, she said, “Zari, we need to talk.”
Chapter thirty-one
Tivre
“You are a fool.” Daeden said.
Tivre had watched Hazelle and Zari amble off toward the ruins. Zari seemed rather upset, but surely Hazelle would talk some sense into her. That meant Tivre was now alone with Daeden, who was glowering at him in that particularly handsome way he had.
“Never claimed to be anything else,” Tivre smiled, trying hard to pretend like nothing was wrong. Trying to pretend his visions hadn’t shown him a flurry of terrifying sights. Syonia, with a bloody sword. Javen, here at Lochna. Daeden himself, a motionless figure in a blood-stained tunic, moonlight playing over skin that no longer held any warmth at all.
“You wouldn’t have fainted if your magic reserves weren’t drained.” Daeden continued. “Which they should not be, unless you are weaving spells you are not telling us about.”
Daeden was very good at the Tell-Tivre-How-He-Messed-Up game. He’d been practicing it for over a year now, ever since that first night they’d kissed under the stars, with winter’s ice-wine clinging to their lips.
Even if Daeden was correct in his assessment, which, annoyingly, he was, Tivre couldn’t tell him the truth. The roles they were born into, Oathborn and Godspeaker, made honesty impossible. Tivre’s dreams were full of visions of the past as well as potential futures. Sometimes, the visions returned, again and again, to the same setting, but offered no indication of when or why the location was important.
Lochna was one such place that haunted him.
Lochna, with its still, deep waters and the jagged mountains above. He’d seen the mists roll in at Lochna so many times now. Both in reality and in dreams. Not only of potential futures, but of that terrible night eleven years ago, when only three people had survived. Himself, Ankmetta, and Javen. All of them cursed in their own ways after that fateful night.
Tivre cleared his throat. “You should follow Hazelle.”
“Why?” Daeden asked.
Because it would keep Daeden safe, at least for tonight.
