The males all stare at me, their pounding heartbeats merging into one discordant thrum. I scan their faces. Some seem contrite, a few actually have tears in their eyes, but most of them just look pissed. Well, they’re not the only ones. “So, what should I do with you all now? Burn you alive?” I pause. “Well, go ahead. Burn.” Blood-curdling screams break out as the soldiers drop to the ground, writhing in pain. They claw at their own faces and roll in the dirt, but there’s no putting out the flames in their minds. Their fear turns to terror. Hot and dark and pulsating with negative energy, it brushes my skin gently, almost lovingly, like an old friend.
My left ear pricks at theclick-clickof a rifle being cocked, and I spin around just in time to see Aemon tackle a stray officer to the ground. The gun goes off—the sound piercing my eardrums like an ice pick. My connection to the squad snaps, and the males immediately clamber for their guns. I throw out my magic, tiny hooks searching for minds to snag. Only a few find their mark, but I force those to spin around and turn their guns on their fellow officers. Shots whiz by, one grazing a fiery line across my shoulder, but this time, I don’t lose control. My puppets fire roundafter round and, realizing they’re under attack from their own, the untethered officers fire back.
It’s a bloodbath.
“Hold your fire,” a voice shouts over the din, but nobody heeds their command. The officers continue firing again and again until they run out of bullets or are shot themselves, and even then, my puppets keep firing.
Then, silence. I look out over the lawn. Bodies lie sprawled across the ground, their blood seeping into the dirt. A few muffled groans rise from the pile—not all of them are dead, yet—even more twitch, their limbs jerking as though they haven’t realized they’re gone.
What have I done?
My head is spinning, belly heaving. I fall to my knees and hurl up every last bit of food in my stomach, and when that’s gone, I throw up yellow bile and saliva, then nothing at all.
Aemon.
I glance back to where he was fighting the officer and see two bodies lying on the ground.
Nonononono.
Still too dizzy to stand, I crawl on hands and knees across the rocky terrain, gritting my teeth as the stones dig into my kneecaps. It isn’t until I’m practically on top of them that I notice the unnatural angle of the officer’s neck. Beside him, Aemon’s laid out like a starfish, his eyes blown wide, blood soaking the upper right side of his shirt and leaking out of the corner of his mouth. He coughs and sputters. The bullet must have hit a lung. I want to lift his shoulder to see if the bullet went straight through, but I’m afraid to move him.
“Hey, Aemon.” He turns his head to look at me, the terror on his face a mirror of my own. “You’ve got to heal yourself. Do you hear me?”
The sound of hoofs beating against the dirt draws my attention. One of the soldiers survived and is getting away. I let him go. My only concern right now is Aemon.
Another cough. Blood sprays out of Aemon’s mouth and down his chin. Dammit. “Listen to me. You need to shift. Heal yourself.” I speak louder this time, like that’s supposed to make a difference, but he’s not doing it. I don’t know if he’s too weak or too panicked or something else, but he’s not healing himself. If only I had…
Mama’s gems. I push up my sleeve, exposing the two bracelets I took from my mother’s room. One is entirely made up of clear, unspelled sythra, while the other is covered with every conceivable color of spelled gems, every one except for purple—healing.
Stupid. Stupid. Of course she wouldn’t need healing gems; she can just make them herself. What do I do?
Aemon watches me, his eyes pleading. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I can’t let him die. We didn’t go through all of that for him to just die, gods dammit. I glance around myself as though a healing gem will just jump out at me, but that’s just wishful thinking and not helping at all. He’s sputtering harder, his head shaking back and forth. He’s drowning in his own blood and I’m sitting here like a dunce.
“Fuck it,” I say, more to myself than to him. I straighten and open my mind to the spectrum. Immediately, the rainbow of light falls over my vision. I clutch a clear sythra and my palm.
Please work.
I mentally reach out, the same way I do when trying to hook others’ minds. Except this time, I’m reaching for the purplespectral magic. My power brushes against the thread, the sensation like a shiver across my skin. And for the first time, the color bends to my touch. I pluck a thread of magic from the purple light and draw it into myself while also pushing it into the stone. The healing magic fills the sythra like smoke until it’s a deep purple. I stare at the spelled gem, dumbfounded. I can’t believe it worked. No time to ponder the hows and whys right now. Later, I can sit down and figure it out.
Right now, I need to heal Aemon.
His eyes are drifting closed.
Time’s up.
I clutch the sythra in one hand, lay the other over his wound and push. Using magic had always felt like trying to push a river through a crack in a wall, but now it’s a torrent raging through my body, and I’m half exhilarated, half terrified as that magic hurls into Aemon’. In my mind’s eye, I see blood and tissue and a lung torn to shreds and filled with blood. I draw the blood out first. Aemon grips my wrist and squeezes as I draw out every drop of blood. With that cleared away, my mind’s eye sees the bullet wedged into his shoulder blade. Is that why he can’t shift? I focus on the bone, layer-by-layer, building it up and closing the cracks, which pushes the bullet free. Then I rebuild the muscle and tissue behind it slowly, pushing the bullet back through the wound until it’s poking out of the hole, and I grab it with my fingers. Then, I knit the tissue together bit by bit, and when it’s almost closed, I breathe air into it and the lung inflates.
Aemon draws in a wheezing breath and coughs some more, but this time, there’s no blood. Then his eyes flutter shut and his head slumps to the side. He’s passed out.
I guess I’m a healer, after all.
55
Istartle awake, disoriented, my heart racing like a trapped bird. It’s icy cold, but the air is clean and fresh and free of smoke. Just a nightmare, then. I run a hand over my chest, expecting a gaping wound, but instead I’m greeted with smooth, clean skin.
I was shot. I’m certain of it, mostly certain, at least. No. That couldn’t have been a dream; it felt too real, hurt too much. I was dying.
An image of Katya crouched over me, her eyes closed, pops into my mind. She healed me. Did she heal me? Fuck, I can’t remember.
