Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(111)

Carling frowned, her gaze sharp. “The spell didn’t take.” Niniane’s head came up. Her gaze searched the strong, quiet features framed between her fingers. “Tiago?”

He remained silent.

“He’s gone unconscious.” Panic took her over. She switched to telepathy and screamed at him, DON’T YOU DIE ON ME!

He did not respond. She hit the jagged rocks and shattered.

The others were all speaking at once.

“What the hell use are you, anyway?” The vicious question came from Aryal and was directed at Carling.

Rune growled, “Cast it again. Make it happen now.”

Carling ignored the two sentinels, her face intense with concentration. She spoke other foreign words that were so filled with Power, their vibration thrummed in Niniane’s body. Then the Vampyre sat back on her heels. She wiped her face with the back of one hand. “I caught him in time. I have put him in stasis for now.”

Niniane gritted, “What’s wrong?”

“His injury requires a healing spell that must act along certain shapeshifting principles. His torn arteries and organs must knit together in order to stop the hemorrhaging. Normally the Wyr are particularly adept at healing injuries. It is part of their inherent ability to shapeshift. I think the Power in the shackles is blocking the spell.” Carling’s gaze met hers. “He stands at the threshold. If we do not find a way to remove those shackles, he will die.”

Niniane didn’t recognize her own voice. “You’re not going to let that happen to him.”

“I will hold him as long as I can.” Carling regarded Tiago’s still face as if he were a cipher she could not read. “But part of that is up to him. If his spirit chooses to let go and slip away, there is nothing I can do.”

Tiago’s face disappeared in a watery shimmer. She wiped her cheek on her shoulder. “He said he’d fight,” she whispered. “He’ll fight.”

Rune and Aryal crouched, looking at each other. “Niniane checked Naida’s pack,” Rune said. “She didn’t check Naida or Durin.”

The two sentinels sprang away. Rune landed by Durin’s body while Aryal launched at Naida’s prone form.

You swore you would not leave me, Niniane said to Tiago. You made me believe in you. You made me love you. Promises are all well and good, mister. Now it’s time for you to make good on them. I can’t—I can’t take it if you don’t.

Aryal gave a sharp, triumphant hawk’s cry. The harpy leaped to her feet, sprinted to Tiago and skidded on her knees as she landed beside him. Her long hands blurred as she unlocked the shackles. Then Rune rejoined them, and they all worked to ease the shackles out from underneath Tiago’s body. “Take those away,” Carling ordered.

Aryal’s stormy gaze flashed up to meet Niniane’s for the barest instant. Then Aryal whirled from them, the shackles gripped in one hand, and she was gone.

Carling said, “I have to remove him from stasis and then cast the healing spell. If you believe the gods take an interest in our lives, now would be a good time to pray.”

Oh gods, please. Please. She threw the full force of her panic into the prayer. Then she pressed her lips to Tiago’s forehead and said to him, Tiago, you must stay with me.

Carling spoke even more rapidly than before. The lowvoiced Power-filled words made the world shiver, made Niniane’s bones vibrate, made Tiago’s body blaze with golden light. His back arched and he gasped as his face contorted in agony. Niniane wrapped her arms around him, cradling his head. He turned to bury his face against her breast as his talon-tipped hands dug into the ground.

She remembered the agony of her own healing. Her wound had been so much smaller than his. She suffered with him until gradually the tension eased from his body, and at last he rested against her, his face and body smoothing into their normal lines.

I’ve already told you more than once, faerie. I’m not leaving you. He spoke as if he had heard every word she’d said to him and was continuing the conversation. His mental voice was slurred, and his eyes refused to focus. Some day you’ll believe it.

She sobbed out a laugh and held him closer. I think some day just might be today, Tiago. I think it might be today.

He slipped again into unconsciousness. Carling sounded confident when she said the danger had past, but Niniane could not relax until she had torn open his blood-soaked shirt and seen for herself the shiny scar from the sword wound. It was about three inches long and looked almost silver against the dark tanned skin of his muscled abdomen. She put her fingers to it. There would be another at his back where the blade had passed through his body.

A sober-looking Hefeydd and three other Dark Fae soldiers came with a stretcher improvised from blankets and two poles. Under her anxious supervision they eased Tiago onto it. She kept one hand on Tiago’s shoulder as they carried him back to camp. Aryal and Rune kept a watchful pace alongside. The stretcher-bearers took Tiago to her tent without being asked. She directed them to lay him on her bed, and they did so gently.

“Please heat some water so I can bathe him,” she said, her attention on Tiago.

“Yes, ma’am.” Hefeydd lingered, and she looked up. The Dark Fae male’s brow was creased. He said, “If it pleases you, your highness, we want to help. May we do anything else for you?”

She tried to think. “He’ll be hungry when he wakes up. He needs a lot of meat.”