Deianira was starting to worry. Cade still hadn’t woken up.
Since she’d managed to convince him that he wasn’t going to hurt her and get him into the room, he’d passed out and had been down ever since. It was like his body just gave out after he’d found her. Like he was waiting to find her before he allowed himself to rest.
With his injuries, she expected as much. But it had been hours. They wouldn’t be able to get a healer until Salem and Cassian got back but Cade’s breaths were becoming labored. He needed help now.
“Devin,” she called.
Devin looked up from where he’d been sitting on the sofa, holding Emori while she slept.
“Can you help me with something?”
He looked cautious, but he gently removed Emori’s head from his chest before laying her on the sofa.
Deianira looked up at him as he approached. “I need you to heal him,” she said as she ran her fingers through Cade’s hair.
He tensed.
“I…I can’t do that.”
“Devin, you’re the only warlock here. There are a lot of things you can do now that you couldn’t before.”
“Yes, but I’d seen those things done. I’d learned them but got better after the incident.” He looked down at Cade and shook his head. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“Try,” Eulalia said from across the room as she walked up to sit beside Deianira.
Devin turned to her, the pressure evidently making him nervous.
“I literally set a napkin on fire on top of your head and you want me to try something new on him. He doesn’t look like he could take a strong wind right now,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I understand, but he can’t wait,” Deianira whispered. “Please.”
It wasn’t a word that she used much. She had never needed to before, but if there was a chance it could save Cade, she’d say anything.
Devin stared at her, conflicted, before sighing and moving around the bed.
“I’ll help,” she told him as she lifted Cade’s head from her lap and let him rest back on the bed.
Kneeling beside him, she reached out her hands to Devin and he put his palms in hers.
“Start with what you can see and work your way in.” She placed his hands, faced down, onto Cade’s chest.
Devin cringed as his hands rub against the seared skin, but he held on.
“If you don’t know a general healing spell, you can try to locate and rectify the damage. One injury at a time.”
Devin nodded stiffly. His hands were shaking.
“Devin,” Eulalia called. He looked up. “He trusts you. You’re not going to hurt him.”
He nodded again before closing his eyes. He started mumbling under his breath as Deianira held hers.
After a few moments, the burns started to slowly fade. She huffed out a relieved breath as the cuts began to close. His blackened eye began to lighten in color as the side of his lip shrunk.
It was working.
Then, Cade stiffened. His whole body went rigid, his chest stopped rising and falling.
“Something’s wrong,” Devin said quickly.
“What is it?” Deianira demanded as her eyes burned into Devin’s closed lids.
“I…I don’t know,” he rushed out as his brows creased. “I can feel something.”
Cade’s chest bucked off the bed and he started seizing.
“Stop!” Deianira instructed Devin.
“No! I can feel it, just wait!” he yelled as he struggled to keep Cade in place. “Lia! Hold him down!”
Eulalia wasted no time in crawling past Deianira and pressing her hands down on Cade’s shoulders as Devin started mumbling louder.
“What’s happening?” Deianira asked, shaken, but no one responded and Cade started convulsing more violently.
“Oh, Gods…” she cried, hands over her mouth.
As she watched Eulalia and Devin bounce around, trying to keep Cade under control, Deianira thought back to how scared he was for her when she’d had that flashback that morning in the training room. If he felt even a fraction of what she was feeling now, she owed him an apology.
She didn’t know how much longer she could watch. She considered forcing Devin to stop and wait for a healer when she noticed something moving under Cade’s skin. She got closer to get a better look.
Eulalia voiced her thoughts. “What the fuck is that?”
Devin didn’t respond. He removed his hands from Cade’s chest and began raising them slowly.
Deianira watched as the small patch of skin raised even further before bursting. Eulalia screamed and Deianira gasped in horror as a bullet flew out of his abdomen and hit the ceiling. Then another.
Devin placed his hands back on Cade’s chest and the wound started to close.
“They must have gotten sealed in there when I closed his wounds,” Devin whispered as he opened his lids and looked down, eyes wide. “There were so many…” His voice wavered. “Whoever did this is
really fucked up,” he said, voice thick.
Deianira stared at the two discarded bullets in the corner of the room. His own father shot him. Twice.
That night in the kitchen, she had assumed his father was a bad man but nothing could’ve prepared her for this.
“Cade?”
Deianira flicked her gaze to Cade at Eulalia’s voice.
His eyes were open. She slid next to Eulalia.
“Cade.”
His eyes darted around the room before settling on her.
Cassian
As they marched through the woodlands, Salem stopped and held a hand out before turning to Cassian and placing a finger on her lips.
Be quiet. Got it.
She tilted her head up to the sky and let out a strange whistle. Cassian looked at her, then at the trees, then at her again. Was something supposed to happen? She did it again. Still nothing.
“I can’t give them the password,” she whispered.
“What do you mean?” Cassian whispered back.
She started to back up.
“I’m quite literally tone-deaf. I can’t do it. We need to go back…”
“Show me,” he said as he grabbed her hand. “Tell me in my head. Like how you spoke to me before.”
Salem pulled her arm from him.
“Close your eyes and listen.”
Cassian obeyed.
He was expecting it this time so he wasn’t as startled as the smooth rhythm echoed in his head. Despite the circumstances, Cassian felt a genuine smile touch his lips. It was amazing. He could hear her everywhere. Not just in his head, but in his whole body. Like a harmonious blanket. She whistled the tune three times before she stopped. Cassian reluctantly opened his eyes and nodded.
He’d enjoyed that far too much.
Trying his best to replicate the tune, Cassian put his lips together and whistled. He even closed his eyes again to remember exactly how it felt when she told it to him.
Salem’s tap on his arm had him stopping. As he turned to the forest, he could see a slight shimmer several feet away before it faded, and there stood Hewn with hundreds of civilians around and behind him. He grasped his knees and took several breaths.
With the size of the wall he was holding and how long he kept it up, he must’ve been a very powerful warlock. Hewn wasn’t a young man either.
Salem pulled off her mask, shaking her head from side to side, letting her wavy hair fall from the backstrap.
She brushed the coiled wisps out of her face and approached Hewn, apparently, uncaring of his condition.
“Jude’s the informant. There’s no need to worry though, he’s dead now. The intruders are still surrounding the exit but we can take them with this many people.” She turned to the crowd. “Those of you who are armed, stay on the outside of the group. I’ll take point. Hewn and Portan, pick a side and keep formation. Finch, at the back with Cassian. Move quickly, quietly and don’t separate. No stragglers.”
By the looks of the faces in front of them, Cassian wasn’t the only person who thought that her words were blunt. She didn’t even give Hewn a second to catch his breath.
Cassian didn’t want to undermine her but he didn’t think it was a good idea for her to be alone at the front.
“Ivar’s dead?” Hewn asked behind her, as his face fell.
She didn’t turn, just kept giving orders to the civilians.
This only proved Cassian’s point.
“Salem.” He went to place a hand on her shoulder but she quickly turned as he got within arm’s reach.
“What?” she asked.
He lowered his voice. “Maybe, you shouldn’t be alone on this one.”
Salem stared at him for a moment.
“You’re right,” she concluded with a thoughtful expression. “You hold the front with Hewn. Finch and I will take the rear.”
That wasn’t what he had in mind but it was safer than the original plan. Nodding, he got into his position as they started to trek back towards the palace.
