He muttered something, head slumped. The blood was heaviest at his stomach, but she couldn’t get a clear look at the wound. Too much shredded fabric.
“—tracked the Beast out of town.” Kashvi’s voice came hoarse. “Then, gone. Must have fled through a Curtain.” She leaned heavily on Mal’s arm, her own hands stiff with a glint of silver veins, barely gripping her crossbow.
“You let it get away?” Fi demanded.
“It fought like a cornered animal. We tried to box it in, but…” Kashvi licked chapped lips. She nodded to Yvette. The blacksmith supported Boden’s other side, their silver hair dyed with two colors of blood, a deep cut down one cheek. “Yvettetook a fall, trying to get one of their smiths to safety. Boden ran in to help. That’s when he got swiped.”
“Stupid, selfless man…” Yvette muttered, eyes bright with concern.
Fuck if that wasn’t something Boden would do. Why hadn’t Fi been there? Too busy chasing Astrid. Even when she tried to do the right thing, it still went wrong.
“Fionamara.”
Antal spoke quietly, tense eyes surveying their surroundings. “We shouldn’t linger. That Beast must be too degraded to remember how to teleport, but if it’s coherent enough to use Curtains, it will find its way back to Verne.”
Fi didn’t care about Verne. Boden needed help.
Void have mercy, there was so much blood.
Against Yvette’s protests, Kashvi took Boden’s other arm, ordering the smith to tend to the gash on their cheek. Then, Antal clasped their hands and took them away from Nyskya.
They’d known it would come to this, that if Verne discovered Nyskya’s rebellion, the people would need a place to hide until the tyrant fell.
Fi and Boden’s father had brought them to this mining outpost in Verne Territory when they were young, back when it was a bustle of metallurgy shops and energy drills carving conductive ore out of the mountain. Then the veins ran dry. The residents couldn’t afford the daeyari sacrifice needed to keep the energy conduits running. The place was abandoned, buildings left to crumble in the craggy valley.
Vacant no longer. The residents of Nyskya huddled in the outpost yard, distributing the supplies Boden had toiled to prepare over the past weeks, hiding right under Verne’s nose. Hopefully, her own territory was the last place she’d look for them.
At Antal’s return, heads swiveled in the crowd.
A gasp went out, at the sight of their mayor in tatters.
“We need to lay him down.” Fi’s words came breathless with barely-tamed panic. No need for that. Boden would befine.
He coughed, a wet and crackling sound in his chest.
“Daeyari!” Kashvi said. “Go back and get the rest of our people out of Nyskya.”
Antal spared too long a look at Boden before vanishing.
Fi and Kashvi brought him into a private room in the mining barracks. He cursed as they set him down on the bed. So much blood. The copper tang filled Fi’s nose, mixed with a stink of bile. Pieces not where they belonged.
“Where’s our doctor?” Fi touched an energy lantern on the bedside table, lighting narrow walls and dusty floorboards in cold silver.
“Overwhelmed.” Kashvi ran a hand through her bloodied hair. “She’s used to stitching gashes from stray hunting knives, not daeyari claws. That’s why Boden was helping with triage.”
“We need her here.”
“No,” Boden mumbled. Another cough. Another distressing gurgle in his chest… blood on his lips. “Let her tend to the others. They need her.”
Fi refrained from punching him. “Youneed her, Boden!”
Ignoring his protests, she unbuttoned his coat, pulling back matted fur to reveal…
Void alive. Her breath caught at the sight of flayed flesh. A mess of blood and dark body fluids. Exposed muscle and viscera, his entire abdomen shredded, the smell of it enough to close Fi’s throat.
She couldn’t stop to think about it. He’d be fine.
“Kashvi.” Damn it all, why was Fi’s voice shaking? “We need water. Towels. Anything to start cleaning this.”
