Several of the remaining ships were gone, destroyed, and where the two Primal gods had been…
Aurelia flew low over the sea. Her mournful call, low and aching, rolled across the clear skies as she circled the bay.
The Primal gods were gone.
The ground began to shake.
CHAPTER 32
POPPY
“When you summon the essence, you’ll feel the warmth of it,” I told Kieran as he placed his hands on the man’s broken leg. The unconscious mortal had been found in the rubble of one of the warehouses. “Then think of something that makes you happy.”
Kieran’s crystalline-blue eyes lifted to mine. “That’s all?”
I nodded. “The essence does the rest.” I smiled despite how it made my entire face ache to do so. “You can do this.”
That earned me a quick grin. “All right.” Taking a deep breath, Kieran closed his eyes. “Here goes nothing.”
Maybe hehadn’thealed Malik.
Resting on my knees beside the prone mortal, I felt the moment the power, warm like the summer sun, rose within him. The eather in me didn’t react like it did when I felt it stir in Casteel. Strangely, it sort of comforted me.
Golden swirls appeared in Kieran’s warm-brown cheeks and spread down the sides of his throat and arms, swirling to where his hands rested above the torn, bloody trousers and the obviously broken bone. Gold-tinged eather sparked from his fingertips and flowed over the man.
I lifted my gaze to the injured mortals and Atlantians lying in haphazard rows across the dusty floor of a warehouse located about a street or two from the bluffs leading to Wayfair. The cool breeze coming in from the buildings’ open doors and windowsdidn’t dispel the scent of blood and sweat. Under the dim light cast by gas lanterns, around two hundred had been brought here, over half suffering from life-threatening injuries—well, less than half now.
Kieran’s eyes opened. “Holy shit,” he whispered and stared at where the essence began knitting the man’s broken leg bone. His gaze snapped to mine. “It’s working.”
My answering smile hurt a little less. “It is.”
There was something…adorable about his awe as he refocused on the man. Almost childlike.
A weary sigh left me as I shifted my gaze toward the back of the warehouse, where stacked crates shielded those neither the Healers nor I had reached in time. Ten Atlantians. Twenty mortals. So far. It had taken nearly everything in me not to place my hands on them and restore the warmth to their bodies.
I couldn’t.
A life for a life.
If I brought a mortal back, another would be taken to keep the balance. It wasn’t the same for gods or Atlantians, but I couldn’t bring an Atlantian back and not a mortal. There was no balance in that.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
Soft fur tickled my cheek as Delano leaned into my side. Turning my head, I pressed my face into the side of his neck and let myself relax into him for just a few moments.
A minute was too long.
Poppy, Delano called.
I’m fine.
Pulling away, I used my hands to push myself up. Luckily, I didn’t sway as Delano stood. If I had, he would have dragged my ass from here.
Ignoring the stiffness in my body, I watched the servants from Wayfair rush in and out of doors, carrying baskets withclean linens and anything that could be used for bandages for a few seconds and then turned. I looked for the fair-haired Healer, Syrus, finding him kneeling next to an Atlantian guard. Casteel was with him, his dark head bowed. I looked away before Casteel lifted the white sheet he held, already knowing the man had passed.
Eleven Atlantians.
So far.
