Page 87 of The Warrior's Oath
He dropped his knife and snapped Nyota’s bindings with ease, sliding the blindfold from her eyes and gag from her mouth.
She looked around in shock at the carnage. Then she saw his hands, dripping with Dohrag blood. More than a dozen dead, she counted. Somehow, against all odds, Korvin had saved her.
“How did you—” she began, just as he slumped to the ground. “Korvin!”
Halvax came running to her side, crouching beside his friend, eyes sharp and ready for any hidden attackers who might have been lying in wait. None came.
“What’s wrong with him?” she asked, panic in her voice. “What happened?”
“Youhappened,” he replied. “We Bohdzee can tap into power beyond what normal people can. It is usually not an issue; we are trained not to do so. But in the rare instance such as this when one ignores their training and draws too deep it can have a detrimental effect.”
“Is he going to die?” she asked, her voice quivering.
Halvax rested a hand gently on her shoulder. “Do not fear. He will recover fully. But for now he will need to rest.”
Halvax and Nyota had cleaned much of the blood from Korvin by the time the magistrate’s troopers arrived. They were glad to see a cleanup team had been sent with the guards as well.
Korvin slept through his transport to the medical facility where his various injuries were tended to. The medical tech was particularly shocked that the Dohrag weapons had so little of an effect on his body.
“It’s a Bohdzee thing,” Halvax noted without going into detail how the power they could channel was capable of diminishing the forces of such an attack.
Back in their room some time later, bandaged and clean, Nyota tucked him into his bed and gently kissed his forehead, a fierce pull from between her legs calling her to him despite his injuries. She pulled back, setting the tray of food closer to him for when he woke then forced herself to turn and walk to her own temporary room.
He needed rest, and even injured as they both were, she knew that if he woke and she was beside him, there was still no way they could refrain, despite his condition. She looked back at him, love welling in her heart.
“Soon,” she said, then quietly closed the door behind her, leaving her love to rest and recover.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-FOUR
Korvin slept for a day straight through. Whatever it was he had tapped into in his fury, he had gone farther than the Bohdzee were supposed to. Much farther, and the strain had taken its toll.
In the aftermath and subsequent clean up, Halvax had explained some of the lesser known, but still acceptable for public discussion, aspects of the Bohdzee, including their ability to operate at a much higher level of power use than normal people.
He told her that it would put a strain on the pigment in their runes, and the results could be rather excessive, but that was why their special runes were inscribed onto their bodies using pigments containing a very specific degree of power, selected specifically for each person.
What no one had ever guessed was how the more powerful pigment the magistrate had so graciously given both he and Nyota would react with his existing markings. It shouldn’t have happened, but somehow the symbiotic ink had gradually reached out and connected to his other runes far more intensely than any would have imagined over the days he and Nyota had been searching for their friends.
The result was readily apparent. Korvin pulled deep in his anger, but what he tapped into was far stronger than what he’d been accustomed to. It protected him from mortal wounds, but it also left him utterly spent.
“With a bit of study, this might actually prove to be a boon to the Bohdzee,” Halvax told the magistrate over a nice cup of tea. “If you have a little more of that remarkable pigment to spare, of course. I would not want to impose.”
The magistrate grinned at her guest, with whom she had been spending an awful lot of time with since the event. “It will not be an imposition at all. Of course, it would require you to stay in Molok a bit longer.”
“I think I could manage that without too much trouble,” Halvax said with a little wink. “Now, tell me more about this world.”
“What would you like to know?”
“Everything.”
She laughed warmly. “Quite the request. You do realize, that could take a while.”
He grinned back at her. “Good.”
Nyota had done her best to leave Korvin to recover, spending her time with his friend and the magistrate as well as the other survivors, but after a day of that she could wait no longer.
She keyed the entry panel to their suite, set to only allow her and the magistrate’s most trusted aide access. The room was dimly lit, the windows set to reduce the amount of light they permitted to enter.
He had eaten, she noted, the plates cleaned entirely and piled on their tray. Apparently, he had quite an appetite when he roused, though how long ago that was she was unsure.
