I felt heartsick walking through these streets, seeing the devastation. I’d done everything in my power to avoid this very situation. My failure at preventing it was like this bitter claw stuck in the back of my throat, and no matter how I swallowed, I couldn’t get rid of it. The nightmare of today would stay in my brain for years, if not decades, to come.
With a shake of my head, I tried to put my feelings aside and focus on the work. There was certainly too much of it to go around.
I moved along the streets as best I could, picking my way over debris. A lot of it was broken-up carts and buildings, difficult to navigate through. I had several squadrons working on clearing a path so we could move people out and to safer ground. My secretarial team kept track of vacancies for each hotel so they knew where to send people. Civilians tried to get into the area to find family, but soldiers kept them back because it just wasn’t safe here. We didn’t need more casualties.
Royce, fortunately, was well and surprisingly competent. He’d taken charge of moving the patients from Sea Cross to three different hospitals. I sometimes forgot he had been trained to lead people. He so rarely did, it was easy to forget he could.
Time passed and my anxiety ratcheted higher because Edwin hadn’t returned to me. He was surely busy enacting our disaster plan, but I always felt anxious when he wasn’t with me. I wanted him at my side.
Having him in the middle of this disaster had made my heart climb right up my throat. He’d never been in danger in my first life, so why the second? Because I kept him at my side at all times now? I truly hoped that wasn’t the case.
Watching him struggle to get up the hill, hearing the water encroaching on us, had been more terrifying than anything else I’d experienced. I’d caught him around the waist—Helena too at one point—to make sure they didn’t fall. I’d felt nauseous with fear, found it hard to focus on anything other than making sure they reached safety. It had taken me too long to call in mages, my thoughts having seized up from the fear. I’d prayed to Vuheia to give me the strength to keep them alive and on their feet. She must have heard me, as we’d somehow managed.
Still, seeing him in danger today had brought back dark memories I’d been trying to forget. The result left me anxious, jittery in every limb, wanting him with me just so I could assure myself he was alive and well.
I must get him one of those mage rings so I could call him up whenever I wished. Hang the price and the weeks’ wait to have it made—it would be worth it.
Hours passed without my properly noticing. My own people were familiar with my disaster plan but no one else was, so I had to teach them as they came. Once the onslaught of waves stopped and the sea resettled enough to lower the shields, the court mages immediately dove in, righting as much damage as they could. They started with healing and rescue spells, the knights helping where possible. With them already on-site and working, I could only hope we’d lose fewer people this way.
I heard a puppy’s whine and stopped dead. Now where had that come from?
Listening hard, I followed my ears to some trashed wood in a rough pile near the edge of a larger building. Or what had been a larger building. A whole chunk of it was missing along the right side now. If memory served, this had been an apartment building.
“Hello?” I called, carefully shifting some of the top boards.
I heard a stronger whine and bark from the puppy, and then a child’s voice called back, “Help!”
Shit, there was a child under here?!
I turned my head, spotted Sir Alloways, and called him over. “Quick, there’s a child and a puppy in here.”
Swearing, he grabbed another knight nearby I didn’t have a name for, and they hustled toward me.
With the three of us coordinating, we managed to shift most of the debris until I spotted a dark brown eye peering up at me. Sir Alloways and the knight lifted off a heavy section of beam, giving me a clear view inside. Somehow, a pocket had formed, so this little child and puppy were in a ring of debris, and from what I could see, not a scratch on either. Thank Vuheia.
“Hi,” I said with a smile, hoping to calm the child before waterworks started. “I’m James. Want out?”
“Yeah.” He handed me the puppy first—a soft grey brindle who looked maybe eight weeks old, barely weaned. The puppy came out with a wagging tail and immediately licked my face. He was happy to be free, for sure.
I extended my other arm, which the boy took, and I got him out with a single heft so he rested on my hip.
Sir Alloways came in closer, looking them over. “You two got lucky, it seems. Are you hurt at all?”
The little boy shook his head. “Grammy’s missing.”
“Was Grammy with you when the wave hit?” I looked around the pile with more worry. Anyone and anything could be under that.
“She was upstairs.”
“Upstairs, huh. Sir Alloways?”
“I’ll look for her,” he promised and turned immediately back toward the building.
I couldn’t stand there and wait—others needed me—but I had to give the child and dog over to someone, too. I turned on my heel, looked, and spotted Dame Remfrey a short distance away. Perfect.
Beelining for her, I called, “Dame Remfrey?”
She looked up from her clipboard, spotted my burdens, and winced. “Gods below, are they who you were digging out?”
