“Don’t be alarmed by what you see,” Gliss quickly assures me from the other side of the Vandawolf. “Queen Karasi has given you her word, and we will not disobey it. We won’t hurt him.”
Despite her assertion, an inky darkness is filling her eyes.
It looks like black smoke.
I probably shouldn’t believe her, but I have no choice.
Taking another deep breath, I continue my work, moving from his shoulder across his chest and down to his hips, making sure I stay ahead of Elowynn and Gliss, but not by so much that the Vandawolf loses any more blood.
Slowly, very slowly, the metal comes away from his body and the dark light finally changes, shifting to a golden color.
We work for so long that the Queen dismisses the congregation, ordering only the warrior fae to remain. She orders them to rearrange the chairs, inviting both my brother and sister, as well as Thaden to sit with her as she watches me from close by.
Despite that, in the moments when I open my eyes, I find either Thaden or Gallium pacing the floor behind the chairs while my sister sits hunched in her seat, her hands folded in front of her, her head bowed, and the curtain of her hair concealing her face.
They don’t speak among themselves, but the friction grows in the air around them, particularly between my siblings.
Finally, the Vandawolf is healed enough that I’m able to assess what has been done. New skin has formed across his wounds and his breathing has become more even. The edges of the new skin aren’t completely seamless, though, and I suspect many scars will form.
His face has remained deathly pale, but it isn’t quite so horribly gray as it had been.
Finally, my hands hover near his heart, where there’s a shallow cut that didn’t need to be filled with metal.
My brow furrows because my eyes are telling me I’ve removed every drop of the metal that constituted the medallion. In fact, it’s formed a perfect band once more, resting on his chest and ready to be stored in my toolbox.
Yet an icy chill flows up from his chest to meet my palm.
When I glance at Elowynn and Gliss, I find them also hovering, neither of them declaring that their work is done.
“There’s more,” Gliss whispers. Her cheeks are drained of color and sweat beads on her brow.
We’ve been working for hours, and both she and Elowynn appear exhausted.
As am I.
But I can’t take the risk that I’ve left some part of the medallion within the Vandawolf. Even the tiniest sliver could be too much.
“I’ll retrieve it,” I rasp, my mouth so dry now that I struggle to form sound.
I want to ask for water. The swishing of the cloths in the bucket is driving me mad, but I don’t want to break my focus.
I move my palm in small rotations in the air above his chest, seeking the location of the last piece of metal, sensing the growing intensity of the icy cold that reaches up toward me as I draw nearer to the source.
My brow furrows again when I identify it near the base of his heart.
I’m sure I didn’t direct any of the medallion’s metal to flow there, because his heart was undamaged. It was why he survived the crossbow bolt.
“It’s here.” Cautiously, I press my left hand against the remaining shallow wound, wary of the possibility that this last piece of metal could do more damage during its removal.
Come away, I whisper again inside my mind.Slip through the spaces and let him go.
Leave him whole.
Carefully, I tug the magic toward me, sensing its source shift and then?—
Power strikes back at me and in that moment, a terrifying rage assaults me—not from within my own heart, but from within the Vandawolf’s.
It’s as fierce as the slash of a wolf’s claws slicing across my chest.
