She glanced at the other victor to see he’d had a far less bloody victory. His cerberus was still snarling and snapping, but it was stuck in a hole in the ground.
The applause for her was finally dying down as she was able to focus on the crowd. Turpis was taking his seat again, still clapping with a smirk on his face.
Nikias wasn’t applauding. He stood while his mother sat.
Aimilia could see her hand wrapped around his wrist. It was going to bruise.
How had she been so blind all these years to Nikias’ silent suffering?
He wasn’t applauding. He couldn’t even if he wanted to with his mother gripping him so tightly. He was just staring at her.
Huh. Distantly, she remembered her graduation tournament.
On the occasions she’d looked up at the royal box, she always found him watching her. She’d never understood why, considering both of their biggest concern during that time hadbeen ensuring Gavril would score high enough to avoid their father’s wrath.
She couldn’t make out what he was thinking beneath his impassive marble façade, but…
Aimilia followed his gaze to her arm, still bleeding from the shallow cuts.
So she lifted that arm into the air and the crowd cheered again. She then swept into a dramatic bow before snatching up her ruined cloak with her injured arm and lifting it up into the air, joining the crowd with a victorious, savage cry.
Nikias took his seat again, and his mother released his arm.
Another set of rune walls fell, and Aimilia looked to see one of her other cousins, Commander Eleni, limping away from the cerberus, bleeding from both her leg and her neck. The dog was still twitching, a gash on its side and a broken leg keeping it from pursuing her further, and even then she didn’t look like the victor with the way she was holding her throat.
Aimilia was moving before she could even think twice about it. She was closer to her injured cousin, even if a healer was already on their way, every second counted.
Aimilia crashed to her knees in the dirt, ignoring the throbbing burn in her own arm as she grabbed her cousin by the arm and pushed her to the ground. Her hands were turning red as she pulled her cousin’s hand away from her throat, and a gasp fell out of her mouth at the gash. They needed a real healer. Aimilia knew enough for first aid and to heal Gavril’s scrapes and bruises, but an injury like this was beyond her.
But she had to do something, so she cast, summoning her vitae once more and focusing on the bleeding. If she could at least slow the bleeding, maybe that would buy time for a healer who could actually repair the damage to the intricate inside.
She didn’t know how long she knelt there, focusing on her rune that was trying to keep blood moving through her bodywithout pouring out of her throat and into places it wasn’t supposed to be when finally another rune joined hers, and the sound of a man’s voice filled her ears.
Aimilia looked up and then she spotted the religo lines and wedding band. It had Eleni’s name etched into the metal.
Right. Commander Eleni had married a healer from House Gelu. Her husband.
“Keep your eyes open! Stay with me? Do you hear me,amata?”
Aimilia pulled her hands back as another healer quickly joined them and she shifted down to Eleni’s leg, doing what she could to heal the simpler gash there that was shallower. She tried not to listen to her husband’s pleading as he healed her, mostly because if she did it was going to tear her in half.
She did her best to stare at the wound in front of her and work on stitching the wound back together just enough to manage until she was out of imminent peril, but all she could see was a shadowy tent and a bandaged Nikias as he lay there in agony, thanks to the fact that she’d poisoned his father to force his hand into negotiating with the monster who killed his beloved wife.
But then Commander Eleni was being lifted away from Aimilia, and she was kneeling in the dirt with Eleni’s husband, Ovidius. He was trying to get to his feet to follow, but another mage had him by the shoulder, saying, “You’ve done what you can. You can’t operate any more, you’re too close to this. You’ve got to let her go and trust the other healers.”
Aimilia looked down to see she was covered in blood. She wasn’t sure at that point how much of it was hers or her cousin’s.
“She’s my wife—I have to—I?—”
Aimilia’s arm was screaming at her and she was starting to feel lightheaded. Everything was swimming around her.
How much blood had she lost?
The sun bearing down on her and sending sweat pouring off her brow wasn’t helping.
But she couldn’t stop herself from looking once more out into the crowd. She needed to go seek help for herself, but given the situation that had just occurred for all to see…
Nikias had turned ashen, and her eyes met his. His knuckles were alabaster white from how tightly he was gripping the arms of his seat. The sounds of the last fight filled the air behind her. He couldn’t move until it was over. He was supposed to be watching it as a judge, but he claimed his scores were fakes and he wasn’t bothering to put up the appearance of watching anything but her.
