The mage left Lord Griset where he lay, rising from an examination of the body to crowd around Stefan with the rest of us. He had a sharp, intelligent face, and when he laid his hands on Stefan’s chest and half-closed his eyes, the warmth of his power radiated through Stefan and into me, steady and calm, soothing my magic and helping it coalesce into something coherent.
“The wound is deep, but not necessarily mortal,” he said. “It may not be within my skills, though. Lord Remigius? Does your magic not lend itself to healing?”
“I—I don’t really know yet. I’ve only begun to learn. I’m a dawn mage, and I used a potion for most of my life. I’m afraid to try. What if I make it worse?”
The mage nodded. “A possibility with beginners. But reach out and feel his wound with me. You might be able to help me. If you control your curse through your marriage now, he’ll be attuned to you. Especially if you’re compatible.”
I focused on the strong current of his magic rather than on my own fear, and now, when I tried to sense the extent of Stefan’s wound, I could follow the mage’s lead, tracing the depth of it, the ragged edges where something had stabbed through Stefan’s skin, into his internal…
My stomach heaved, and I turned away, retching, my eyes watering, not quite vomiting but choking on the sensation of it.
The mage kept working, muttering under his breath while his magic burrowed under Stefan’s skin and began to repair sliced veins and chase down threads of his clothing that had been pushed into the wound, stopping the bleeding, preventing future infection. But I couldn’t do it, I simply couldn’t. If it’d been a stranger I might have been able to overcome my squeamishness and horror.
But this was impossible. Even a sideways glance, magically with my mundane sight, set me retching again.
And so I closed my eyes and gathered Stefan close and focused on his whole self, not just the injured parts. His smile and the warmth of him and the gleam in his eyes when he desired me, his protective strength and his yielding indulgence when I wanted something he could give me. The beat of his heart, thready and weak now, that I could match to mine, tie to me, feed my own body’s strength into until it steadied.
To my amazement, it worked. His heart skipped and then settled into a better rhythm, each pulse stronger, each breath slightly more expansive, the energy of his body beginning to glow a little brighter.
“That’s it, Lord Remigius, that’s it,” the mage said, sounding worryingly harried. “If you can keep him alive long enough…”
He trailed off into a tense silence, but he didn’t need to finish the sentence. More than that, he didn’t need to add the corollary to it, that if Ididn’tkeep him alive long enough, he wouldn’t be able to complete the healing before Stefan’s body couldn’t keep up with the blood loss.
Stefan, I whispered inside my mind, sending the way I felt when I spoke it aloud through the tendrils of my magic I’d wrapped around the fluttering shimmer of his life’s energy.Stefan. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone. I need you.My longing and my desperation flooded through his body with every beat of his heart, suffusing him along with his blood.
Out of the corner of my magical eye, I could see the mage’s healing finally taking hold, the wound closing, all of the dirt in it filtered out and evaporated into the ether. Some healing trickled up to Stefan’s arm, too, cleaning out the cut and slowing the bleeding there.
Stefan didn’t wake. He didn’t stir. Nothing visibly changed—not to any of the people watching and waiting for some sign of life.
But I felt it: the tipping point between an inexorable slide into death’s abyss and a slow, burgeoning likelihood of recovery.
Stefan would live. Unless someone else stabbed him, anyway, and I meant to keep a close eye out; twice in one night had to be considered more than enough. Gods, he’dlive. I’d never need anything else from the gods again.
At last the mage began to withdraw his magic from Stefan’s body, detaching carefully in case anything went wrong, slowly letting go and allowing Stefan’s natural healing to take over.
I drew back too. Not as much, because I’d never be truly separated from Stefan again. I saw that now. Every time he’d taken me, every time I’d welcomed him so eagerly, we’d twined together on a level far beyond the physical, the resonance of his mind and soul echoing in mine, mine in his, two matching harmonics melding into one.
But now that I’d recognized that fundamental joining, I could withdraw out of this plane of energy and unheard music into the world most people would see as real, remaining a part of Stefan even as I opened my eyes. Lord Corombos and Sylvie were still crouched down beside us, wearing matching expressions of anxiety, and the mage’s gaze refocused on the mundane world too as I glanced over at him.
He smiled at me. “Good work, Lord Remigius,” he said, and his voice held a mighty struggle’s worth of exhaustion, far more than would seem reasonable to someone who’d seen him laboring for only a few minutes.
But I knew better.
“You’re a temple mage?” I asked him, and he nodded. What would Stefan say to thank him? My impulse, to collapse on his shoulder and weep in relief, probably wouldn’t be appreciated. “Whatever improvements your dormitory’s been needing, consider them funded. I can’t thank you enough. Thankyou. I—” I bit my lip to keep in the sobs that wanted to rise up regardless.
“He needs rest. He may not wake for some time, Lord Remigius, but you probably know that already. I’d send for another healer to confirm my opinion. Someone more expert than I am.” He pushed to his feet, shrugging wearily. “I’m more of a legal consultant, though we don’t send anyone to preside over duels who can’t close a wound in an emergency, for obvious reasons.”
“The servants will take care of you, sir,” Lord Corombos said to the mage, and then to me, “You’re both my honored guests, of course. You’ll have all the comforts of home.” Without waiting for my answer, he began to give orders to the servants, organizing the unenviable logistics of a comatose patient, a weeping consort, and of course the corpse on his lawn.
Fritz and a pair of footmen maneuvered Stefan onto a litter someone had produced from somewhere; I didn’t care about anything but keeping his hand in mine, remaining by his side. He would live. My Stefan would live. Nothing mattered but that.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lord Corombos delivered on his promise, installing us in an opulent guest suite with more gilt-trimmed furnishings than the High Temple of Ennolu. I let go of Stefan’s hand long enough to get out of my jacket, corset, and shoes, and then settled myself beside him on the bed, curled around him, one hand holding his and the other running through his hair and stroking his temples.
He lay completely still except for the steady rise and fall of his chest under our clasped hands, and he didn’t seem to notice my presence at all.
Honestly, the petting and the snuggling was for my reassurance, not his, and that probably would’ve been the case even if he’d been awake. Most people had a certain fragility to them when ill or injured or unconscious, but not Stefan. He had the same sturdy solidity as always, authoritative and commanding even asleep.
