Marked by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #4)(23)

I should help, I thought miserably. I should be out there, tending to the wounded and stopping the fire. I might not be well trained, but I have power, and I should be able to use it to help others. But I couldn’t very well go among them, using my magic as a teenage boy.

And why shouldn’t you? a voice in my head murmured, one that sounded suspiciously like Resinah’s. You may not be able to appear to them as Sunaya Baine, but that doesn’t mean you can’t appear at all.

Right. I dredged up an image of a female mage in my mind, then changed my illusion to match it. The rain was beginning to dissipate, now that it had done its job, so I waited until it was gone, then used my magic to dry myself so that I didn’t look like a drowned rat.

Now that the downpour was no longer deafening my ears, I could hear cries and sobs from the neighborhood on my side of the airship yard. I headed in that direction at a trot, since it would look very out of character for a mage to run at my full speed, and turned left into an alley of brownstones that had seen better days. Because their structures weren’t made out of wood, the houses had mostly resisted the fire, but yards had been badly burned, and smoke billowed out of broken windows from inside a couple of places.

“Sir,” I called, approaching a family of four huddling outside one of the burning houses. “Are you all right? Is anyone left inside?”

The man I’d addressed turned to me, coughing badly and swaying on his feet. His face was pale and smudged with soot, and he was cradling a child in his arms. “We’ve got everyone out, but Alis is badly hurt,” he rasped. “Do you think you can help her?”

He lifted the child, and it was then that I noticed a bad burn on her right shoulder. She was lolling in his arms, unconscious, which was probably the only reason she wasn’t screaming – second-degree burns were no joke, as I had cause to know.

“Yes, I can help her,” I began, but then the man erupted into a desperate coughing fit.

“Hireld!” his wife cried, grabbing him by the arm to support him, but he was too heavy. Quickly, I stepped in and took the child from his arms before he lost his grip on her and went tumbling to the ground.

“Take her,” I ordered, shoving the girl into her mother’s arms. “I need to see to him first.

“But Alis –”

“Mom.” The son, a boy of about thirteen, spoke firmly. “Dad’s inhaled a lot of smoke. He might die if she doesn’t help him.”

“All right.” The woman took her daughter, and I knelt in the grass, pulling the man’s head into my lap. My fingers against his throat told me he had a pulse, but it was weak and erratic, and I didn’t know how long he would be able to hold on.

“Okay.” I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves. I had only healed someone once before, under Fenris’s direction, and it hadn’t been a full healing, just enough to revive the man so he could talk to me. I had no idea if I could actually do this, but I would be damned if I would sit here and let this man die.

Closing my eyes, I placed my hands over the man’s chest, and visualized my magic flowing into him. I tried to think of what Iannis had done when he’d healed my torn fingers, of how he’d formed a sort of circuit between us, drawing my pain into him as he pushed magic into me.

Suddenly, I gasped, my lungs burning, aching, full of toxic smoke. As the pain grew worse, the flow of magic from my body to his steadily increased, until I became terrified that he would drain me of everything I had. Heart thundering in my chest, I tried to pull back. But it was too late. Somehow, the man’s body had latched onto the thread of my magic with a vice-like grip, and it wasn’t letting go.

As I struggled to regain control, a pair of strong hands settled on my shoulders. I gasped at the sensation of another consciousness inside me – Iannis. He’d done this once before, when we’d had to defuse the bomb under the bridge, and I’d been too scared and unsure to wield the necessary magic myself.

“Breathe,” I heard Iannis’s steadying voice say, and I exhaled, realizing I’d been holding my breath. “Let me take care of it.”

I took in a slow, steady breath of air, then relaxed and let him guide the magic. The pain left me, and I realized that he was taking it instead, pulling the man’s wound into him as he pushed life and energy into the hurting body on the ground. Iannis had told Captain Galling that he was one of the best healers in the country, and I realized that had to mean he had an extraordinary pain threshold. How much had he already suffered during the times he had brought me back from death’s door?

“Hireld!” the woman cried, a joyous sound, and I opened my eyes to see her standing above us, dark eyes filled with relief as she cradled her child. I looked down to see that Hireld’s eyes were open, the color returned to his face.

“Thank you,” he began, looking up at me, and then his eyes widened in fear. Before I knew what was happening, he had scrambled to his hands and knees, bowing profusely. “My Lord.”

It was only then that I realized the pair of hands on my shoulders was real, and that Iannis was standing behind me. Slowly, I lifted my head to look up at him. His expression was grave, but not unkind, as he surveyed the man and his family.

“Thank you, but it’s quite all right,” he said as the rest of them began to bow, holding up a hand. “I did not come here for that. I came to ensure the residents here were safe and to help anyone who needed assistance.”