Not for the first time since they leftAuhla, Madan watched as Ehrun faced off against a reluctant ally. This time, however, was different. The anger he had for the dhemon had lowered to a simmer rather than the boiling rage he felt before. Where he thought Ehrun had been saying nothing more than what he believed Madan and Whelan wanted to hear, he now understood that he’d spoken from the heart.
Hetrulybelieved in what he was doing—for Azriel, for Ariadne, and for everyone who waited for him in the Underworld.
“You’re letting him in,” Whelan cautioned, though the words came with a soft thrum of understanding.
Swallowing hard, Madan glanced at his partner. “If I hate him for what he did…then there’s no reason for me to not hate Azriel for his mistakes,too.And I’m not ready for that.”
Silence stretched between them, then Whelan closed the physical distance by reaching out his hand. “I’ve been hard on Azriel.I’m sorry for making that more difficult on you.”
“No,I understand why.” Madan accepted his hand and squeezed. “But I know he would never do that in his right mind—just as we can confidently say Ehrun never would’ve done any of this had Rhana survived.”
Whelan nodded. “I know.But I can’t stop seeing him hurting you…”
Kissing Whelan’s fingers, Madan smiled up at him. “Then I pray to Keon that we can both do that ritual soon and no longer need to worry about it.”
They broke apart as Ehrun rounded on them, arms wide. “All is well.”
Sehrox huffed behind him. “I’m still skeptical,but if I get the chance to eat a few vampires…I’ll be satisfied.”
For the first time in Emillie’s life, she hated her keen hearing. Nearly a century and a half of life had her using her Caersan ears for positive endeavors: to gather knowledge, learn more about the Society and its ways, listen to news from across Valenul, or avoid certain encounters. It never let her down.
Until now.
The sounds of war buried into her bones, made worse anytime yet another soldier was brought into the medic tent at the edge of Monsumbra. An overwhelming number of dhemons, unable to heal as fast as vampires, were carried in by others and left on the cots for Phulan’s healing. Those with more minor injuries thanked the mage before quickly evacuating the bed and returning to the fray. Those with more lethal wounds, however, were not so eager to leave.
The latter were those whom Emillie, Revelie, and Margot, along with a handful of dhemons who could not fight, focused on. Their tasks included removing foreign contaminants, holding down other patients to prevent them from flailing too much, and slathering on Algorathian salve before wrapping them in bandages. Phulan’s focus remained on not exhausting her magic before they won Monsumbra. Therefore, she would drop a small dose of magical healing into the wound once it was cleaned before moving on to the next patient and repeating the process.
Emillie had not expected it to be as tiresome as it was. In fact, when she agreed to work in the medic tent alongside Phulan, the mage had questioned her thoroughly about her ability to remain alert and attentive for hours on end. After going on the run all alone following Alek’s death, she had been confident that she could stay awake and fully aware for extended lengths.
After she lost count of how many patients she had attended to, Emillie understood precisely what Phulan had meant. Though there were almost a dozen of them working to keep their fighters alive, the constant pump of adrenaline wore on her—on all of them, even the very practiced mage.
With most of their patients being dhemons, Emillie was able to separate herself from what was happening around them. For those who were beyond healing, one of them would pause and hold their hands in their final moments, allowing the others tocontinue the constant flow of movement and see to their injured patients.
How many hands had she held? Emillie stopped counting after the third. It weighed on her too much to know she could not help them. It hurt even more that she did not even know their names, could not speak their language, and often missed whatever their last requests or final words were.
It was not a task for the weak, and Emillie slowly understood Phulan’s words after Ariadne’s departure and Luce’s promise to return. The brave men and women who walked into that city, knowing full well that they may never walk out, bore a strength that she did not carry. Emillie carried the capacity to stand back, allow others to do the fighting, and be ready to treat those who could not continue on otherwise.
Emillie’s strength was different than Ariadne’s, and it always had been. She gained power in knowledge and mental fortitude. Ariadne gained power through heart and determination. Neither’s skills outweighed the other, and more so, they complemented one another. Where one rose, the other followed, and vice versa.
All the same, her new understanding of her gifts did not make it easier the moment a familiar wolf was carried in by a pair of hulking dhemons. They laid the lycan out the best they could on a cot, then left without another word.
After so long treating the horned fae, Emillie froze when she saw the dense black fur drenched in blood and heard the whine of pain. It took a long moment for her to register that she had not moved in on the latest patient alongside Revelie, despite her friend calling her name. Only then did her feet respond to her silent command tomove.
Wild, ink-black eyes with pink irises swiveled to her as she approached, and time seemed to slow to a standstill. Again, Emillie’s steps faltered. After so many unnamed patients—people she had no connections to and could visualize as bodies needed to be tended—she now faced one that she knew.
“Dahlia.” The name dropped from her lips like a curse.
Revelie looked up at her, eyes wide. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
“Lycans can heal,” Emillie breathed. “Why is she not healing?”
A moment later, Phulan appeared beside her. She crouched beside the large wolf and pushed the fur aside on the left side of her chest to reveal the gaping wound. “Something is stuck inside and keeps getting moved, causing the wound to reopen.”
Without hesitating, Revelie replaced Phulan’s hands and cut back the long fur with a pair of scissors so that the mage could continue working on the other patients. She turned to Emillie again. “Help me, Em. Or she’s going to die.”
That got her moving. Emillie cleaned her hands, grabbed a silver pair of retractors and long, tweezer-like clips from their collection of sanitized tools, then sank to her knees on the far side of Dahlia. “This is going to hurt.”
The lycan closed her eyes and shifted her face away in preparation for the pain. Emillie had seen many patients do it before. No matter how much they tried to anticipate the agony, it never mattered.
