CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 8

SLADE

I’m not sure how orwhen I fell asleep. All I know is, the front door bangs open again and my head jerks up, my neck cricking instantly from where it was lying back on the sofa. Ryatt apparently fell asleep here too, though I have no idea when he came back. He lurches up from the chair he was slouched in just as I jump to my feet, pulse hammering from the rude awakening.

Wind howls through the cave, and I realize it’s gone dark again, either because I slept longer than I realized or the storm has completely overrun the sun. I pause when I see a mop of yellow hair. “Judd?”

“Miss me?” He shakes his head like a wet dog, sending water droplets flying around in the entryway.

I let out a sigh and drag a hand down my face. “Does no one actually listen to my orders?”

Ryatt gives me a scowl and then stalks into the kitchen.

“Not when your orders are stupid,” Judd answers jovially.

I need to punch something. I really do.

But then he moves aside just as a slight man clad in a long coat with red bands stitched around his biceps walks in and closes the door behind him.

Hojat.

Relief floods into me, and my eyes widen, flashing back to Judd. “You went all the way to the army to get Hojat and bring him here?”

“Yep.”

Surprise, gratitude, irritation that I didn’t think of it—all of those things knock around inside my skull.

“You’re welcome,” Judd says, flashing me a smile as he pulls off a satchel from his shoulder and sets it on the ground.

“Thank you.” Having Hojat here to check over Auren is already loosening some of the panic fisted around my gut.

Both of them come into the living room, and then Judd helps our army mender out of his soaking wet cloak, while Hojat checks his own bag that’s slung around his shoulder. I can hear vials tinkling together as he rummages around. “Good, everything in this stayed dry.”

“Your other bag wasn’t so fortunate, I’m afraid,” Judd tells him, motioning toward the satchel that’s now not much more than a puddle by the front door.

“That’s alright, Captain Judd,” Hojat says as he shakes off some of the water from his brown hair.

A tired Lu appears from down the corridor and takes in the scene. “Took you long enough,” she says through a yawn.

“You know I hate flying,” Judd replies as he strips off his cloak and hangs it on the peg, beside the fire where the rest of our cloaks are already hanging. “Plus, we went right through the damn storm. That rain turned to sleet, and that sleet turned to hail. Ever been pummeled by hail while you’re trying to stay on a frozen saddle with a mender who hates heights?” he asks as he yanks off his boots.

“Not recently, no.”

He gives another hair shake. “Well, it’s hard.”

Hojat frowns. “It was my first time on a timberwing, Captain Judd,” he says, shuddering slightly as he too takes off his wet boots. “And your flying...it is not the best.”

Lu snorts. Ryatt walks back in with a pair of steaming tin cups. He hands them to Judd and Hojat, who take them gratefully, gulping the broth down.

My patience has gone paper thin, this banter tearing right through it. “Does anyone want to explain why you’re not all back with the army like I told you to be?”

The four of them look at me like I’m a kid throwing a tantrum. They give me this look a lot.

“Calm down,” Judd says as he comes over to clap a cold hand on my back. “Os is with the army, and they’ve already moved out on his command. He’s got everything in order. Besides, Lu and I agreed that you’d need Hojat. For Digby and for...” He trails off, glancing down at where Auren is still lying on the sofa. “She still hasn’t woken up?”

I give a terse shake of my head.

“Excuse me, Captain Lu,” Hojat murmurs before scuttling around her to stand in front of Auren. He looks down at her, the left side of his burned face creased with concern. “Captain Judd said we cannot touch her skin during daylight, yes?”

“Correct,” I tell him. Aside from my Wrath, Hojat is someone I trust implicitly. He knows quite a lot of secrets, and now that he’s here, I’m so fucking relieved, because he can help Auren where I’m failing. “But she never gold-touched the cushions or Lu’s leggings. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. She could just be too drained.”

Hojat hums thoughtfully. “Well, it’s night now. May I?”

With a nod, I move away so he can begin to carefully look her over. He starts by feeling the temperature on her forehead, holding his fingers in front of her lips to count her breaths, checking her extremities, and then pressing his ear against her heartbeat.

“Well?”

“All appears as if she is simply resting. Perhaps the power drain, as you said. I seem to remember a few times that you passed out from too much power use, Majesty,” he says with a reassuring smile.

“I left a piece of my rot in her,” I blurt. “I can’t get it out.”

Creased brown eyes blink at me. “Does it seem to be doing any damage?”

I check her again just in case, and then I shake my head. “None that I can sense. It simply won’t come out.”

He makes another humming noise. “You will keep an eye on it, yes?”

“Yes.”

With a nod, he glances at Judd before looking at me again. “Captain Judd said she may have wounds on her back.”

My shoulders stiffen.

Judd holds up his hands. “I know I told him a lot, but he has to know in order to help her.”

I shake my head, because I’m not angry with him for telling Hojat these things. I would have too. I’m mad that I didn’t do more than simply prop her up on her side. “I couldn’t...” I clear my throat, trying to sound a hell of a lot stronger than I feel. “I haven’t checked it.”

Because I’m a coward.

Because I couldn’t bear to.

Hojat doesn’t chastise me, even though I deserve it. Instead, he tips his head toward Auren. “Best if I do. Lean her forward so I may check her and treat as need be.”

With a nod, I walk around to the other side of the sofa. Gently, I take hold of Auren’s shoulders and roll her until she’s lying on her stomach. As soon as I have her positioned, Hojat has already gone through the bag slung across his chest and dug out a pair of scissors. He wastes no time carefully snipping down her dress until he can fold it away.

The moment her back is bared, a jagged inhale cuts through my lips and slices down my throat. I hear my Wrath take in a collective gasp, all of them stepping in closer to see. Yet I don’t step closer. Instead, I’m rooted to the spot.

Her back is in ruins.

The satiny gold ribbons that used to sprout along her spine like feathers of a wing have been utterly destroyed. Those twenty-four delicate strips, draped down like the train on a gown, moving alongside her as an extension of herself, they’ve all been torn from her, barely an inch or two of length left on her bloodied back.

Auren’s ribbons were beautiful. Unique. Fae. They were as bright and alive as her. Now, they’ve been cut away like the branch of a tree, hacked off and shredded, left in splintered ruin.

Use your ribbons.

I can’t.

My eyes blur as I stare at each chopped stub, at the dried blood caked to the ends and smeared along the skin in spatters of gold. Her ribbon ends are frayed and bent, her skin bruised up and down her spine from the trauma.

Even now, some of the shorn ends weep with golden drops of blood, and I curse myself again for jostling her too much, for not seeing to this immediately. For being a coward.

“Fuck…” I hear Judd say.

“That fucking monster,” Lu spits, turning away.

My throat is too clogged to say anything at all.

“Okay.” Hojat straightens, the only one in the room who isn’t grim-faced or full of horror and pity. He doesn’t make a single mention of the way they bleed gold or the fact that she has them at all. Instead, he’s fallen into his mender role effortlessly, methodically, and without hesitation.

“Commander Ryatt?” he says, turning to my brother. He’s one of the only ones aside from my Wrath who knows I even have a brother and that he takes the lead from me when I’m being a king instead of a soldier. “I will need you to boil some clean water.” He turns to Lu next. “I’ll need a big shirt for her that ties or buttons all the way up. Preferably Captain Osrik’s size.” Both Lu and Ryatt immediately disperse, heading in separate directions.

“You two,” Hojat says, motioning toward Judd and me, “she needs a bed where I have more room to work and she can be more comfortable.”

“I already started a fire in your room,” Ryatt calls to me from the kitchen.

With a nod, I carefully gather Auren in my arms. Judd walks ahead of me down the corridor, and we pass by the flickering firelight from the sconces hanging along the walls. He opens the last door at the very end of the hallway and then hurries over to the bed, yanking the furs and blankets down. The room is warm, the fireplace crackling and casting off both heat and a comforting orange glow, though it can’t stave off the musty smell from disuse. It’s been a while since I last stayed here.

Judd wastes no time as he starts to light the lantern on the bedside table before pulling open the thick brown curtains. We wouldn’t have bothered to put windows in the Grotto at all since we have no true view of the outside, but we did so that it seems less claustrophobic, and because the glowing fluorescent rock in the cave casts off a comforting blue that almost resembles stars.

“On her stomach, please, Sire,” Hojat tells me, striding into the room.

I set her down as gently as I can, making sure her head is turned and that she doesn’t look too uncomfortable.

When I have her settled, Hojat practically shoves me away, setting his bag down at the bottom of the bed as he begins to rifle through it and pull things out.

When Judd and I just stand there, he casts a look over his shoulder. “No time to waste. Captain Judd, you’ll need to get out of those wet clothes, and I’m afraid I’ll need to borrow some as well until my own dry out.”

“I’m on it.” Judd turns and leaves, and then Hojat is eyeing me, a line forming between his brown brows. “Sire, you didn’t change out of your clothes from the storm?”

I glance down at myself, wondering how he could tell, but my black leathers have wrinkled and stiffened, white frost lines stained into the material. “No.”

“Best get changed.”

I hesitate for a moment, watching him with Auren. “Hojat, anything to do with her—”

He holds up a hand, stopping me. “You saved my life, Sire. The least I can do is save your secrets. Anything that happens with you or the others will always be protected by me.”

I already know this. Hojat has long since earned my trust. Yet when it comes to Auren, I need to appease myself, because my fae nature is wound up tight. I’m struggling with having anyone near her while she’s in this vulnerable state. I catch a growl in the back of my throat, find myself jerking toward her, as if I’m going to block everyone away.

I have to tell myself that this is Hojat. I trust him with my life and with hers. So although the protectiveness punching through my pulse makes it incredibly difficult, I somehow force myself to nod and turn away from her.

Heading for the door on the right, I enter through my washroom that has an adjoining closet, finding the sconces already lit with low-burning oil. If I thought my bedroom was musty, my closet is even worse, despite the sprigs of pine someone left hanging on the clothing racks to ward off the closed-up scent. I quickly strip, dumping the stiff clothes in a pile.

When I’m yanking on a fresh pair of pants, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. The veins of rotten power beneath my skin have multiplied and stretched from my chest to my abdomen. They’ve crept down my arms and up my back, squirming with aggravation along my jaw. They’re only this widespread and this unsettled when I’ve repressed my rot for too long. But this time, it has nothing to do with magic I’ve held back and everything to do with the female lying prone on my bed. My magic is reacting to her, my fae nature pumping power through my veins like a heart pumping adrenaline.

As if it knows the direction of my thoughts, the roots on my hands prickle and shift until I clamp them down into my fists. With gritted teeth, I finish getting dressed, covering up as much of them as I can.

By the time I’ve washed up and come back out into the bedroom, Hojat has also changed his clothes and is hard at work. He’s finishing up cleaning away the blood on Auren’s ribbons, his touch careful and perfunctory, the steaming bowl of water filled with some sort of mashed leaves that make the whole room smell of herbs.

Judd comes in carrying a clean bowl and another set of rags, and he sets both on the bedside table.

“Thank you, Captain Judd,” Hojat murmurs as he continues to concentrate on Auren. Both Judd and I watch as he puts some sort of salve along the ruined edges, and then he gently begins to lay strips of cloth along her back to cover the short ends. He’s not at all bothered or hesitant at her differences, not at all fazed by the fabric-like strips that he’s now treating. Hojat has seen many things during his time with me.

When he’s finished, he washes his hands in the clean bowl and turns to me. “Everything is cleaned. I will need to keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t get infected. She should rest on her stomach or side as much as she can.” He begins to collect his things, rolling up bits of dried herbs and stoppering vials as he puts everything back into his satchel.

“Should I do anything?” I ask, hating how helpless I feel. I’m not used to sitting back and doing nothing.

“Let her rest. Magic depletion can be very hard on the body, as you well know.” He sifts through his bag once more, pulling out a dried peony and stuffing it under her pillow before he gathers up his bag and both bowls. “I’ll go see Master Digby now and begin to treat him if I have your leave?”

“Yes, thank you, Hojat.”

He gives a slight bow. “It is always my pleasure to help you, Sire.”

When he leaves, I blow out a breath, hands shoving into my pockets. “Thank you, too,” I say to Judd where he’s leaning against the wall next to the fire. “For bringing Hojat. I should’ve thought of that.”

“You were a bit preoccupied,” he says before giving a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Go to sleep, Judd. You look like shit.”

He chuckles, rubbing a hand down his tanned face before scratching at his chin. “You really know how to build a man up. But you’re right. I’m the handsome one in the group, so it’s important I get my beauty sleep. Holler if you need anything, we’re all right down the hall.”

“I will.”

With a nod, Judd walks out, shutting the door behind him, and despite dozing off earlier, I still feel wiped out. I bank the fire and grab the chair next to the small table, dragging it forward as close to the bed as I can get. I settle down into it, resting my head in my hand while I study her. With her head tilted toward me, my gaze skims over the relaxed planes of her face, the curves of her cheeks, the plush form of her lips. Her skin glows beneath the firelight, and I can’t help but reach over to tuck back a piece of her hair.

“Rest, Goldfinch,” I murmur. “Rest, and then wake up for me.”

I fall asleep sitting right there next to her, listening to the tune of her even breaths threading in and out. It’s the only reassurance I have. Because even now, while her aura still wisps faintly around her and her eyes stay firmly shut, I can sense the seed of rot that’s settled into the soil of her chest and taken root.

And still, it does not answer to me.