I slipped my hand down into my boot and pulled out my knife, grasped the hilt as those plumes of fire got close enough for me to feel the heat, the scraping of steel on stoneturned into a shriek.I’d have one chance to take these two out, and then, maybe, if I moved fast enough…
Out of nowhere, the atmosphere inside Frostveil shifted, like the first big storm of winter was blowing in, air pressure dropping fast enough my ears popped. Gravelock froze in place, the guards stopped poking about.
The hair on the back of my neck rose, the stone walls around us groaning ominously, as if the entire castle was shifting on its foundations, on the verge of collapsing into the water.
“Looks like somebody left themselves a wee bit exposed.” Rooke’s taunt was followed by a wet, hacking cough that sounded…bad.
“See what I meant about being distracted by your…pet projects?”
“Get to Gravespire.” The Butcher’s panicked scream echoed through the castle, followed by rushing boots and clanking weapons. “Fucking thieves. They aren’t here…they’re after the Triune. Someone’s broken through the wards, the artifacts are in danger.”
“Good luck, Venmir.” Rooke rasped. “I sincerely hope you’re fucked into next year.”
Gravelock paused, long enough to send a scathing look over his shoulder. “Your time is coming, Rooke. When I wring the last drop of blood from your pathetic body, your kind will cease to exist and the world will be a far better place.”
27
LYRAE
Gravelock’s threat was still ringing off the walls when I leapt over the baluster and landed beside Rooke.
“Neat trick. Is that…” another hard-fought, rasping breath, “Commander of the Dreadwatch stuff?”
“Stop talking.” I laid my hand on his arm, rage slicing through me as he shook from pain. “You’re bleeding out faster than I thought.”
“Don’t worry.” He tried to smile through blood-stained teeth. “It’s usually a lot worse.”
My panicked vision tunneled down to the sheer number of wounds, most of them not life threatening on their own, but layered over and over one another, all of them added together…
Gods.Gods.
Fae were hard to kill, but he’d already lost too much blood. He was covered in those deep cuts, he’d been lying on this freezing cold floor a long time, and there was little to no magic here, which meant he wasn’t healing fast enough to counter the blood loss.
I’d treated soldiers in the field who’d died from far less.
Gravelock was a fool, or maybe he’d been blinded byhate, but leaving Rooke alone like this…there was no way he expected him to survive.
Above us, a raven cawed, low and mournful, like he agreed.
I clamped my lips together, rolling him onto his back, stripped off his jacket, tearing the expensive fabric into long ribbons. “I’m binding the deepest wounds first to slow your blood loss. There will be some pain, since I’ll have to tie them off tighter than I’d like. Do you have any Hazelwort? I can make a poultice that will speed up clotting.”
Rooke shot me a look just short of scathing. “It’s the fucking middle of winter and I’m a prisoner in my own home, so…no, I’m fresh out of Hazelwort at the moment.”
“You’re wasting precious energy being a smartass, you know.”
“Ah, but how else can I die in your arms, commander, than with a smile on my face and a…” His coughing fit stole away whatever else he’d been about to say and I wrapped faster, reminding myself I’d worked with even less, and under far worse conditions.
At least the fire was still roaring, and the floor was comparatively clean.
The next ten minutes became nothing but muscle memory—tearing and binding, working as fast as I could, focused purely on triaging the worst of his wounds, and not the fact that every other part of the prince was as perfect as his sinfully handsome face.
Trying to ignore the fury slicing through me in vicious waves, the way I kept imagining my knife slashing into Gravelock’s desiccated body, or how loudly his screams would bounce off the stones before I ended him.
I was breathless from how badly I wanted that bastard dead, and I didn’t even understand why.
“How do you even know how to do this?” Rooke lifted his wrapped arm with an expression of befuddled interest. “Do they teach this…sort of thing at commander school?”
“Battlefield healing is the first thing you learn on the front lines, trying to keep your friends alive.” I plunged a handful of his torn-up shirt into the pitcher of water and started mopping crusted blood off his neck and face. “Be glad you’re not lying in a foot of mud and horse shit.”
