“Thank you, sir.” She didn’t draw a full breath until she was out of the room, already rushing to the other end of the pyramid and down the stairs as fast as her injuries allowed. After the bath, the blood had clotted enough to make her believe a thin bandage would suffice, but now, her blood was flowing heavily, and her head was starting to spin.
At the end of the stairwell, Lory needed to take a break, bending over to gather her breath. The torches on the walls blurred before her eyes.
“If you’re anywhere nearby, Khayrivven, now would be a great time to let me know.”
She didn’t really expect him to appear out of the shadows, and so the disappointment was mild when the hallways remained quiet and Khayrivven didn’t magically appear.
She could do it. Only five more turns, three stairs with a hundred steps each. Shecoulddo it.
But darkness tugged on her vision, and her hand slipped on the banister of the stairs as she stumbled down, down, down. Blindly, she grasped for something—anything—to hold on to, her footing lost and the world fading…
“Lory.”The voice was familiar. Fierce. Female. Rich. “Wake up, Lory.” The owner of the voice pinched her side. “I’m not going to carry you all the way to the Medica quarters,” the voice said.
Lory blinked away the haze inside her head to open her eyes to Nefetari Brunn bending over her at the bottom of the stairs. She blinked again.
Yes, the Master of Veils was still there, but she wasn’t the one who’d spoken. Beside the woman, Tabitha Ngala knelt by Lory’s hip, pressing her hand into the wound on her thigh.
“You’ve got quite the cut there,” Tabi commented. “I thought you were bleeding out when I found you, but you just hit your head really hard.”
“What happened?” Lory croaked, her throat so dry all of a sudden.
Was Brunn really there, or was she a figment of Lory’s imagination?
“You slipped on the stairs on the way to the Medica quarters,” Brunn informed her. “One flight of stairs too soon, or you’d have ended up right in front of Hand Nahrit’s door.” Was that humor in her voice? It certainly didn’t show on her mildly lined features. “Thornling Ngala, help Thornling Vednis up and take her to Hand Nahrit. He should still be awake and in his office.”
Tabi’s arm slid under Lory’s shoulder, and as she pulled her to her feet, a world of pain exploded in her head, in her ribs, in her leg.
The apologetic expression on Tabi’s face didn’t help when Lory hobbled pace after pace at her side.
Brunn went with them until the end of the hallway, her gait stealthy like that of a cat. Only when Lory grabbed the banister of the next set of stairs did she stop, placing a light hand on Lory’s shoulder. “You might have proven your loyalty to Ashthorn, but the Master of Whispers still sees you as a threat, Elory. Make sure this wound heals fast. It will be harder to make it look like an accident when he needs to slice your skin himself.”
The haze in her head threatened to return. “Slice it for what?”
For a moment, the question hung in the air, heavy like the rain clouds in the sky, but Brunn didn’t answer. All she did was nod at Tabi before she turned on her heel and walked away.
“Slice it for what?” Lory repeated as Tabi dragged her down the stairs, step after slow step.
“Later,” was all her friend whispered. Her friend, who seemed to have secrets with the Master of Veils. “What are you doing out in the hallways at this time?” That was perhaps the more important question.“And with Brunn?”
Tabi didn’t seem to notice that the last words had been spoken only into her mind. All she did was gesticulate with a shake of her head that she wasn’t going to answer now.
And Lory didn’t have the strength to push it. Not when the world was already blurring again and the wound on her thigh seemed to be spilling her blood in rivers.
They barely made it to Nahrit’s door before her knees sagged. The Medica Hand shuffled around his desk to help Tabi carry Lory inside and lift her onto his desk, which had been cleared for the night except for a scroll of parchment, which he shoved to the floor without hesitation.
“Her wound won’t stop bleeding,” Tabi explained, reaching behind her to shut the door. The air rippled as Tabi placed her hand back on Lory’s thigh, pouring her magic into her tissues. “I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried minor healing for the blood vessels. I’ve tried the brutal force-mending you’ve taught me for the battlefield. I’ve even stooped to simply putting pressure on it like a non-magical fool.”
Nahrit appeared above Lory’s face, his black eyes assessing. “The wound on her leg is only one of the problems,” he noted, opening a drawer beneath Lory’s shoulder and pulling out a bottle and a piece of cloth. “Here, clean out the wound with this.” He handed Tabi the two items without looking at her, and she grabbed them almost blindly, as if they’d been working together for a long time.
Tabi flipped open the lid of the bottle, pouring the contents over Lory’s wound before even cutting the fabric of her pants.
“It should staunch the bleeding for a few moments—long enough for us to come up with a plan.”
“A plan that he won’t notice?” Tabi prompted, and Lory felt like she was missing something.
“His attention is elsewhere for now. There have been problems in the dungeons.”
The dungeons.The dungeons… The three Flames. Had Khayrivven’s plan worked? Had they escaped?
