What wasthat?
I step forward, waiting for Yvonne to flinch away from the flash of hot magic, but the sigh that escapes her is more akin to relief than agony. My eyes dart over to Demi and Gem, yet neither reacts. Was I the only one who saw that?
A minute passes. Then two.
Yvonne’s lungs rise and fall more steadily now, and her voice is clearer as she asks, “So, are we just gonna wait around for another attack, or . . . ?”
Kalden releases the pressure, allowing Yvonne to scoot herself onto her elbows.
“Don’t!” Demi tries to shove her back to the ground, but Yvonne shoos her off.
“Stop fussing.” She crunches forward into a sitting position and groans in disgust while glancing down at herself. Leftover gore from the Sol’s severed artery mixes with her own sticky blood coating most of her chest and midsection. Using the soiled cloth, Yvonne takes care to swipe gently across the torn leather and flesh.
Demi goes still. We all do.
Well, except Kalden, whose back is to us as he rubs his knifeagainst the patchy grass.
“Stop staring at me like that,” Yvonne grumbles, poking Demi’s shoulder to snap her out of the shock-induced haze.
“How do you know I’m staring?”
Yvonne scoffs. “Because you’re standing there like you’ve seen a reanimated corpse or somethin’. Still got a pulse, if you wanna check, and I don’t think anything’s broken.”
She taps a hand against her heart. Now that most of the blood’s been cleared, the six wounds surrounding the vital organ are more visible. Unlike the gaping holes in her leather, the puncture marks themselves are barely larger than pinpricks.
Demi grabs her friend’s wrist for a gentle inspection. “But I heard the snap.”
Yvonne rotates her hand in a circle and wiggles her gloved fingers. “It’s fine. See?”
“How are you . . .” Gem starts to ask, then stops.
“Not dead?” Yvonne supplies, then lifts her shoulders. “Dunno.”
“Perhaps the wounds were more surface-level than feared,” Kalden suggests while rejoining our group.
My gaze narrows. The others might’ve missed his little display of magic, but I didn’t. He did something. Healed her, somehow.
I get why he’d be dodgy about it with them, writing off their concerns like overreactions. But why keep it from me? If I’d known I could use this borrowed energy to heal, maybe Meridna would still be alive. Sure, our private lessons were abysmally short, but Kalden could’ve at least mentioned that we could harness the sun’s power for more than just offensive attacks. A simple heads-up would’ve been better than nothing.
But he couldn’t even be bothered to do that.
What else is he withholding?
Kalden’s head swivels towards me, like he senses my growing suspicion.
I’m not alone in my skepticism.
“All that blood,” Gem points out.
Yvonne rolls onto her feet, backing farther into the forest’s shadows. “Look, all I know is I’m alive, and I’d like to keep it that way. So, we should probably keep it moving before death changes its mind, yeah?”
She tugs several large bandage strips from her knapsack, placing them across her ripped leathers before weaving her arm through Demi’s, who nods.
“Should we head towards the meadow?” I suggest. “To check for the others?”
“They weren’t there a few minutes ago,” Gem reasons, “and I doubt they’d come back to the spot they were attacked. I wouldn’t.”
It makes sense, but I shake my head anyway. “We can’t leave without them.”
