Mac gasped against the pain in his chest and staggered under Gerid’s weight. It was just a little farther to the healing tents, but he didn’t know if it would do any good. Blood caked Gerid’s temple and ran down his neck, soaking into his borrowed leather jerkin, while more seeped from the gash in his side down his leg.
“Come on, boy. Just a little farther.”
Gerid mumbled. His head raised a faction, but his legs buckled.
Black specks dotted Mac’s vision. He staggered forward. Just a few more steps. Damned mace. He should have seen the stupid hunk of metal coming. He would have in his youth. Of course, if he hadn’t been on his knees desperate to breathe, he wouldn’t have seen Gerid fall. A hilt to the temple and a blade through the chest.
Jillyn rushed from a tent. Blood smeared her face and smock, and wisps of hair haloed her face. She gasped and wrapped Gerid’s other arm across her shoulders, taking some of his weight–but not nearly enough for Mac’s aching chest. They staggered into the healing tent and laid him on the closest cot. Mac sagged to the ground beside it. God and Goddess, he couldn’t breathe.
Jillyn struggled with the straps on the jerkin. “No, please.” Her fingers fumbled with the catches. “Please.”
She yanked at them, but they wouldn’t undo.
“Come on.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Come on.”
Mac brushed her hands away and unclasped the catches. They eased the armor away. Gerid’s shirt underneath was soaked with blood and sweat. The wound in his side was wide and ragged.
He groaned and his eyelids fluttered open.
Jillyn leaned in, brushing hair from his face.
His lips pulled into a tight smile. “My own goddess.” His voice was weak and edged with pain.
“I’ll get you fixed up.” She sniffed and a tear fell from her eye to the pillow beside his head.
She’d seen what Mac had. The wound was too deep and Gerid had lost too much blood.
“I promise.” Another tear hung from her cheek.
Gerid reached up and captured it on his finger. “Goddesses don’t cry.”
“I’m not–”
He cupped her cheek. “Yes, you are. If Kaelyn gets to be one, so do you.”
She pressed her hand to his and held it in place, her chin trembling, her whole body trembling. She blinked and more tears rolled down her cheeks.
“My lovely, lovely goddess.”
“No. Please.”
“Lovely.” His eyelids fluttered closed and he sighed.
“Gerid?”
His chest didn’t rise and his face was slack.
“Gerid, please.” Jillyn collapsed on top of him and sobbed, broken, heart-rending tears.
Mac eased back. His chest hurt. His heart hurt. Everything about this wretched day hurt.
#
Kaelyn hugged herself against the cold wind whipping across the plain. Heavy clouds threatened rain and it felt more like fall than spring, as if the mountains themselves mourned all the lives lost.
She ached all over. Inside and out. Although the inside hurt far more than her outside.
She’d woken in a room in the Inn with broken ribs, a broken arm, dislocated shoulder, and a lump on her head. And still no memories. Mac had hobbled into her room, told her Gerid was dead and Talar lame. Plain as that, with nothing to ease the shock. He’d told her to drink her tea and left. The tea was drugged, leaving her in an aching haze, too dazed to really think about Mac’s words, for which she was grateful.
Now she’d been dosed with something else, something that dulled the pain in her body but not her mind. Before her sat a heavy granite obelisk, partially carved with the clansmen’s runes. A marker for the dead. For Gerid.
Jillyn sniffed, but Kaelyn didn’t look at her. She couldn’t. Couldn’t face the sorrow in the other woman’s eyes. Mac said time would heal that. Kaelyn didn’t know. He’d said after the ceremony they’d travel south, to his estate in Quinlay. Soft southern winds would heal almost everything.
Almost.
She wondered what that ‘almost’ would be.
The Divine Voice raised his hands and finished the prayer to the fallen. The clansmen raised their weapons and shouted. A victory cry for those fallen in battle. It filled the plain, roaring over her. She could only hope their goddess would be more receptive of Gerid than she’d been of her.
The Divine Voice turned to her. Scabs crisscrossed his cheek.
A shiver swept over her. No. Please, no.
The clansmen cheered again.
She scanned the crowd. Scattered throughout were more tattoos. More Bledigs, more worship, more expectations for something she wasn’t.
“Goddess be with you, Avatar,” said the Divine Voice in Meriduinian.
Her gut churned.
Mac squeezed her shoulders. “And to you, Divine Voice. And to you.”
#
After a month of travel to Mac’s estate in the province of Quinlay, Kaelyn still wasn’t sure if time would heal any wounds, inside or out. Her broken ribs and arm still hurt and while the ache in her heart had diminished, it hadn’t gone away. And she didn’t want to think about the clansmen in the north and the tattoos on their cheeks.
Late afternoon sunlight filtered through tree leaves, speckling the small courtyard in Rosewood, Mac’s estate. Kaelyn sat on a small curved stone bench, watching two fat fish draw lazy circles in a small pond. A rustling behind her told her someone was squeezing through the opening between the stone arch and the stuck gate. But she didn’t look up to see who it was. It didn’t matter. Besides, it was always Wyndham.
“Mac said I’d find you here.”
She bit her lip, keeping her gaze down, knowing she would lose herself in his blue blue eyes. She imagined the dappled sunshine playing off his blond hair and his lopsided smile at finding her hide-away. Her heart contracted and she cursed her foolishness. Even after all that had happened she was still a foolish girl.
“How are the ribs?” He sat beside her, his arm brushing hers.
“Sore,” she said, ignoring the heat from his accidental contact.
“That’s what Mac tells me. You know, you two make quite a pair.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, old warrior, new warrior, both complaining.”
A smile pulled at her lips. They certainly were. Both of them had still been moaning their complaints that morning at breakfast.
“Talar is up and moving,” said Wyndham.
He was avoiding something. He’d come to visit every day and knew very well that Talar had been stumbling about on his crutches since they’d traveled past Mythnar.
“I had the wood and metal smiths at the palace make him this.” He held out a cane carved with the clansmen’s symbols. With a twist, he separated the head from the shaft, revealing a long thin blade. “I thought. . . . I hope he’ll. . . .”
“I think he’ll like it,” she said, saving him from any more of an explanation.
A gentle breeze rustled the leaves, sending flecks of sunlight whirling about them. The fish continued to circle, unaware of the leaves dropping onto the water.
“I’m leaving, Kaelyn,” he said, his words drawing dread and relief at the same time. “Come with me.”
