My gaze went to the spot where I’d left my father, sighing in relief to see Sorrel hovering over him with a wet cloth on his forehead. She’d laid him on a bed roll and had shoved a pillow under his neck. “You’re back!” she said with urgency. “Fever’s bad. He started convulsing about an hour ago. I’ve been worried sick.”
Panic rose in my chest, but before I could say anything, Ariyon’s voice boomed inside the space. “Let me see the source of infection.”
Sorrel jerked up in shock to see the newcomer. Her eyes went to his face, and then the silver marks on the tops of his hands.
“A healer from The Gilded City?” she asked in awe.
He nodded. “In training. Let me see the cut.”
Sorrel went to work then, removing my father’s bandages and the herbs she’d placed around the cut. It was stifling in the room, so I decided to take off my cloak and gloves for the first time, allowing myself to breathe.
Picking a spot on the other side of my father, I sat against the far wall at a safe distance and watched.
Ariyon looked down at the cut and red streaks that marred my father’s chest and clicked his tongue. “Death is already trying to take him. It will be a big fight. I’m not sure I’m trained enough for this yet.”
I frowned, my throat tightening as panic surged within me. I knew nothing of magical healing, but that sounded scary. The red marks looked like they’d grown three or four inches since I left, nearly at his heart.
“Please, he’s all I have,” I whimpered, and Ariyon glanced up at me, his steel eyes conflicted. He peered down at my father, at me, and then at our humble home.
“What can I do to help? I’m an herbologist,” Sorrel offered.
He looked at her then, with all the seriousness in the world. “If I pass out, do whatever you have to in order to wake me up. Throw cold water on me, slap me, whatever it takes.”
I crawled forward on my knees as if I hadn’t heard him right. “Excuse me, what? Why would you pass out?”
Ariyon looked at me with compassion. “His soul has already been marked for death. I’ll have to fight the Grim to get him back.”
The entire hut felt like it tilted as dizziness washed over me.The Grim.The Grim was the Fae of Death who came to escort us into the Realm of Eternity. If he had my father… I swallowed hard.
“But…you can see that?” Tears swam in my eyes, but I blinked them back and knelt before my father.
Ariyon stared down at my dad with a pained expression. “Worse. I canfeelit.”
I peered at the marks on his hands as he breathed in and out deeply, seemingly getting himself ready for battle. What was it like to feel someone on death’s door? I didn’t want to know. Ever.
I shared a look with Sorrel and was relieved to see panic etched deep lines of worry onto her face, too. I wasn’t the only one clueless to the ways of a healer fae.
“Have you ever fought the Grim before?” I pointed to the marks on his hands, which seemed to be glowing brighter. Maybe this was something he did every week in class.
Ariyon looked at me and I was again taken by how handsome he was. Seeing him now, with the firelight casting shadows on his face, I was struck by his beauty. I think it was the eyes- I’d never seen a color like his. What had looked steel grey before was powder blue now. Were they changing?
“No,” he said flatly, “but if I don’t, he will die.” And then he laid two hands on my father’s bare chest.
I braced myself for some big electrical burst or something magical, but nothing happened. Unease welled in my chest. Ariyon had his eyes closed but he was unmoving. Sorrel and I shared a cautious look and then went back to watching Ariyon. Anticipation for my father being saved thrummed through my body like an electrical current, causing me to tap my foot in anxiety.
The healer’s hands, which lay lightly over my father’s chest, suddenly clamped down, his fingers digging into my father’s skin. I gasped as the marks on top of his hands began to spin like wheels and Ariyon grunted in pain. Sweat beaded his brow and his face lashed left and right violently.
Bruises appeared over his eye, and I stood, shock ripping through me as my mouth dropped open.
“What the Nightling is going on!” I screamed, looking at Sorrel to make sure I wasn’t imagining this. Her eyes were as wide as an owl’s as she watched Ariyon convulse over my father’s body. Ariyon’s fingers were gripping my father’s skin so tightly they were beginning to bleed under his nails. Chills raced down my spine, causing the hairs on my arms to stand up straight.
“I think… I think he is pulling your father away from the Grim,” Sorrel said in awe.
I didn’t know what to say to that, or what to do. This young student had come here to give me a free healing and was now in a fight for my father’s soul with the Keeper of Death?
Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and I felt like I would jump out of my skin with anticipation. I started to pace the small room.
One second Ariyon was gripping my father tightly and the next he went limp, releasing his hands from my father’s chest and falling backward with a heavy thud.
