It may have been Nyri’s blood. She’d managed to coax Lunara into accepting more and more with each day, but Lunara secretly hoped the young Demon’s gifted offerings weren’t the reason. That, instead, she was feeling stronger because of her own hard work and dedication. That the mornings spent falling on her arse and the evenings spent heaving into the grass were amounting to something more.
She was dodging at least half of Faldir’s punches in their hand-to-hand sessions, even landing some of her own blowshere and there. And she’d improved in her nighttime endurance trainings—sprinting faster, lasting longer, her stomach starting to behave despite how hard she was pushing.
At first, all she’d been capable of between practices was sleeping, passing out face-down on her mattress and wanting nothing more than to never move again.
Yesterday, everything had changed.
Lunara had been trudging to her rooms after training with Faldir, half asleep already, when she’d come upon a Demon limping in the opposite direction. He’d offered her a pained greeting and lazy wave, and continued on. She might have dismissed it as nothing out of the ordinary for the male if she hadn’t spotted the bloody footprints trailing behind him.
As ever, new energy had lit her veins at the sight of active suffering. There was no part of her that had been capable of ignoring him then.
Aldiat had shattered his kneecap falling from a ladder, a jagged laceration at the site. His second serious injury within a couple of weeks, apparently, and a fact she’d had to pull from him after discovering the shoddily healed fracture in his wrist. In order to keep his new mate from worrying, the foolish male had sucked it up and kept going.
Lunara was starting to suspect that was true of most Demons.
While tending to him, she’d learned from Aldiat that, with preparations for the Occurrence taking place, injuries were piling up left and right.
Which simply wouldn’t do.
It had almost been too easy to commandeer a corner of the great hall afterwards, enlisting Nyri’s help to secure a set of large chairs and a table for her “supplies.”
News that a healer was in residence had blazed through the Horned City like a wildfire. Before Lunara had even finishedsetting up, a line of Demons long enough to span the room had formed.
Hands crushed by hammers, and bodies bruised by the stone. Splinters the size of her fingers. Shattered bones. Slices and gashes and scrapes.
Their enthusiasm might’ve had something to do with the fact the she refused to accept payment, but no matter. The normalcy of it soothed something in her, filling a hole that had been missing since she’d agreed to Lyriat’s bargain, and she’d taken their pain into herself gladly. It was worth it to feel like herself again.
Today was no different.
Her fake salves and useless bandages were strewn across the tabletop beside her, their herby scents wafting through the air. She used them obsessively, excessively, to reinforce the illusion that she was just like any other Sorcerit healer. Nothing out of the ordinary meant that there were no rumors to be spread.
She’d learned her lesson with Lyriat.
“You know, Gaulnir,” she chirped, “this is what shoes are for. Nails aren’t meant to go through the bottoms of feet.”
The old Demon grunted, lounging back in his seat with his legs stretched out to her. “We don’t wear shoes while raging, m’lady. ‘Sides, I hardly felt it ’til I left my form. Must’ve been one of the little’uns that left it there. They do try to help.”
Lunara gave him a genuine smile. “Well, worry not. By the time I’m done, it will be as though it never happened.” She threw Gaulnir a wink and got to work.
Her mind wandered while she carefully removed the spike of iron and set to mending him, her last healing for the day.
Stars above, what would it even be like to prepare for an Occurrence? To experience it? Be part of it?
No idea, but she’d give anything to feel the thrum of excitement growing with every day as it crept closer. To jointogether with her entire realm, her people. To welcome the power that the Sisters poured down, feeding her and the land.
The Occurrences only took place every fifty years. She should’ve had one under her belt and be preparing for another, but the last one in Nachthelliae had never happened. All because of?—
No. Not that. Not him. Don’t think about him.
Lunara drew in a deep breath and willed her fingers to be steady as she reached across the table and grabbed a jar of cream. Dipping her fingers in, she let the smell of night lavender reach deep and calm the raging storm threatening to break, rubbing it into Gaulnir’s foot as she pushed power out of herself and into him.
As the stories went, the Occurrence in the Evesong wasn’t all that different from the one here, or any of the other realms. Every half century, stunning celestial events took place throughout the year, power surging down from the cosmos. In the Montrealm, it was a gift from Solyrian, the sunstar hitting a prism between the peaks of the Sacred Sisters and sending a beam of pure magic down through the Horned City and into their Solyr Stone.
Nachthelliae had Illamiata, the Tear Stone—though the jewel was small, no larger than a coin. Normally, in a few months, the Evesong would be readying for the twin moons to align above Starkeep, their power funneling down into Illamiata and whichever evil fucking creature was in possession of it.
No. No, no. You’re not meant to be thinking about him.
Another breath, another smile—that one nowhere near as authentic as the last.
