Damion gripped her arm. “Look.”
She frowned, scanning the scene.
Gur licked blood from his fur again, tail beating the ground. The corpses of two manticores lay amid blood-soaked earth, broken branches, and scarred trunks. Hero curled up on Kaelan, who was propped up against a tree—
She wasn’t sure how long she stood there staring into his eyes before she realized that he was actually staring back.
Honey appeared next to her at some point.
“Panchress,” she said, shaking the white flower under Magda’s nose. The scent was light, powdery. “The Sun Goddess’s healing flower.”
“Careful with that,” Damion snapped at her. “Do you realize how valuable that flower is? I mean, it...”
Kaelan blinked, his chest heaving.
Magda’s legs moved of their own accord, lifting over logs and roots, skirting the cold weight of a manticore corpse, until they folded and she dropped next to him. Through slitted eyes, still flooded red by suffocation, he watched her.
She touched his chest.
Warm.
A thump. And then... two more in rapid succession.
His hand, slow, weak, covered hers.
Honey skipped over and settled down, pristine white gown puffing around her. “You see?” she said. “I brought him back.”
Magda snatched her hand away. The thump continued to echo in her palm, up her arm, into her chest, filling in the hole and stalling the creeping chill that had been invading her.
Honey wrapped her arms around Kaelan’s neck, kissing his cheek.
He blinked, wincing at Honey’s touch.
Damion joined them. “You were dead.”
Kaelan opened his mouth. A strangled grunt was all that came out.
“The water,” Honey said.
Damion handed it over. Honey poured it into Kaelan’s mouth, dabbing what dribbled down his chin with her trailing sleeve.
As he swallowed, his eyes slid shut. Magda’s breath held, as if not expecting them to open again, but they did, and refocused on her.
“I . . . fell,” he said to her.
And you took me with you, you son of a bitch,she wanted to scream, and then knock him flat on his ass. Instead, her hands bunched in her lap, her teeth grinding.
“It will take a little time,” Honey reported, stroking his hair. “But he’ll be healed completely soon. Like nothing happened.”
Magda surged up to her feet. The grieving chill had been replaced with furious burning.
“Let’s figure out how to get the venom,” she said to Damion. “I want to be gone before midday. Where’s the third manticore?”
“By the camp,” Damion said.
“Let’s go.” She strode towards the stream, not looking back.
Blood spattered everything.
