After that, he was silent. Thank fuck. We moved from the open, torturously windy field to rolling green hills. Trees here and there offered shade, but they were nowhere near as thick as the creepy forest we passed through.
Hours flew by.
Sweat infiltrated my clothing, and it wasn’t because of the sun. I couldn’t even feel my midsection anymore, let alone keepmy back straight. I slumped against Xavier, all my strength sapped.
He supported my weight, keeping me from sliding off one side. Though he didn’t say it, I knew he was thinking it, too.
I needed help. Soon.
I faded in and out of consciousness, and at some point I woke to find that we’d stopped and the men were arguing beside me.
“We need to keep going,” Matthias urged. “Starting a fire here would be dangerous. The rogues in this area will attack us if given a chance. They might be tracking us as we speak.”
“She needs to rest,” Jessiah countered. “I won’t let her die out here because you’re too damn stubborn to take a rest when you need one.” His voice strung with agitation.
“Is this where you were attacked?” Xavier asked. “When you were on your way to Scarlata?”
Matthias inhaled deeply and let the breath out in one gust. “It all happened so fast, but we were about a day out from Pericius, so yeah, it was around here. We’re better off pushing through until we get there.”
“Why?” Jessiah asked. “If it’s as bad as you say it is, we need rest so we can regain as much of our strength as possible.”
I blinked rapidly, willing myself to stay conscious, but when I tried to speak, my mouth was too dry.
“I know a place. It’s just inside the kingdom walls, a small inn where we can take a break,” Matthias said. “One day's ride. We’ll be there before nightfall tomorrow. She can rest, and she can see a healer. It’s in our best interest.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Everyone remained tense. Waiting.
Eventually, Jessiah sighed. “Fine. Let’s get moving, then.”
“I don’t know how much longer I can hold on to her,” Xavier said. “Riding with two is hard enough when we’re both awake.”
“I’ll carry her,” Jessiah answered. “We need to move. Now.”
In my mind, I resisted. In my mind, I woke up, told everyone I was—you guessed it—fine.
But in reality?
I slipped back into the darkness, only briefly surfacing when Jessiah scooped me up. A pathetic sound slipped from my lips as he held me close, but there was little I could do to fight it.
If death came swiftly, I wouldn’t have minded. But how humiliating would it be to die from an animal attack? Of all the things that could have sunken the infamous Rummy, it had to be a damn typically nonaggressive forest animal?
I guess it served me right. Karma was a bitch, after all.
Chapter 12
Jessiah
Iknew things were bad when Rummy no longer insulted me every time I spoke. Now, she was burning up. Her body molded against mine on the saddle, completely deadweight. The condition of her wound tempted me to fly the rest of the way to the kingdom to get this trip over with and find a healer.
But it was too risky. We’d received a letter asking for our help from Pericius, and Matthias had practically come to us with the complete opposite message. We still didn’t know the reality of the situation we were walking into.
Who knew what sort of reaction an angel flying over the borders of their kingdom unannounced would receive? One carrying a dying fae in his arms, no less.
She’s not dying,I reminded myself.She’s not dying, she’s just fighting the infection. Once we get to this damn inn, she’ll be fine.
I repeated those words in my mind until they were all I thought about. If I didn’t focus on that, then I’d get caught up in concerns about how pale her skin was, how fragile her body felt. We’d run out of clean bandages hours ago. Not that they were helping anyway. She was too weak to fight the infection that overtook her.
It was official. I’d never let her travel with us again.
