Then he shoved Ryak away. He dropped close by, limbs sprawled, eyes staring unseeing, frozen in his last expression of shock.
Dead.
Alaryk dropped onto his knees beside me in the mud as Samryn roared overhead. His hands shook when he took mine. I could feel his anger, carefully honed by his shock. A maelstrom of emotions that washed through me.
His magic rose, like a sparking of flint, and all I felt was peace. There was no pain.
I’m glad it’s you,I thought, my fingers finding his wet hand.You’re all I wanted to see.
Then I remembered nothing at all.
Chapter 38
ALARYK
A hand came to my shoulder, breaking my gaze away from Amaia.
I frowned, and when I turned my neck to regard the intruder, it felt stiff.
Myzalla was looking at me, concern etched deep into her expression. Not for Amaia, but for me.
“Tarkosh said the eggs look healthy,” she reported. “They’re back in the incubation room. Safe.”
I cleared my throat, my eyes returning to Amaia. To her chest, specifically. The way it rose and fell, the only thing that loosened the fist around my heart.
“Good” was all I said.
“Dresnar—”
“Don’t,” I murmured. “Not now.”
Myzalla sat on the edge of the bed where Amaia lay.
“We don’t have the luxury to wait,” Myzalla said. “We have both being guarded. But Sarkin should know that one of his own riders has betrayed us all. Let me send a missive to Elysom. He’s still there. Let him come and take away his rider, so we candeal with ours.”
“Fine,” I rasped. The tangle of politics, of hard decisions, weaved in my mind…and right then, I didn’t have the stomach for it as I usually did.
Not when Amaia had been so badly beaten that she was hardly recognizable. Not when I could still see her,feelher, in my mind, battered and bloodied and full of sorrow. Her death had been a certain thing in her mind…and becauseshehad been so certain, it had stamped itself into mine, and I couldn’t shake it. The rain had been so cold, and though it had been hours since I’d discovered her lying in her own blood in the forest…I couldn’t get warm.
I’d done something I never thought I’d willingly do again. With Samryn, it had been inevitable.
But Amaia had been close to death. In that singular moment, clarity had struck. I knew I’d rather be part of her for the rest of my life than lose her forever. Otherwise she would’ve gone where I could not have followed.
“Why don’t you go bathe?” Myzalla’s voice came. My brow furrowed, and I wondered how long the silence between us had been. “I’ll watch over her.”
I looked down at myself. I was still in my riding vest. Caked in mud and forest sludge and blood, dried down so that it felt like plaster, splintering off me whenever I moved.
Syris had been here shortly after we’d returned to Grymia. It had been Syris who’d cleaned Amaia’s face. Her friend had sniffled, tears rolling down her cheeks, as she’d swiped the cloths across her skin, dirtying the basin with enough blood to need it refilled three times. Raran had come, but she’d said there was nothing she could do except try to reset the bones that had been broken.
Amaia could heal herself if I fed her my magic…but she wouldn’t wake. Nothing would wake her.
“Alaryk,” Myzalla murmured, catching my attention. “Go clean yourself up. I’ll be here.”
I rose from the chair I didn’t remember dragging up to the bed. My eyes flickered to thesersapot, the dark smoke rising from the small ember burning the powder. My mother had once believed it kept away death. And while I didn’t believe that,sersasmoke had been proven to keep the lungs clear and to strengthen the body, to help fight off sickness and disease. It had been used all throughout Harta for centuries. I always kept a store of it, even now, so many years after my mother had died. I always purchased more when I was back in my birthland.
In my bathing pool, I scrubbed off the mud, remembering the events that had come after I’d found Amaia, in brief flashes. I remembered the cooled rage as I’d raced to the open clearing where Samryn could land, with a bloodied Amaia in my arms. Myzalla and two of my riders had already been there, having caught Nevin, Dresnar, and Sarkin’s rider from Sarroth. When I’d appeared on the ledge, Dresnar had emptied the contents of his stomach, narrowly missing Myzalla’s boot, and Nevin’s face had paled, though he’d never taken his eyes off Amaia.
And that had made me even angrier.
