39. THIRTY NINE

thirty-nine

BLOOD OF POWER

But I don’t go—I can’t move. Cole disappears off into the outpost, and I watch him go with an overwhelming sense of longing crushing every breath from my lungs.

Gods damn it all. I can’t help it— I love him . Even if I try not to. Even though it destroys every piece of me and would be so much easier if I could turn it off.

As I’m about to turn back toward the forest to meet Daeja, I catch a flicker of movement outside the northern part of the outpost. A group of three men march toward the camp, one of which pulls a woman by rope fastened around her wrists. She stumbles and lands face first onto the ground. Rather than waiting for her to get to her feet, her captor drags her along the ground.

One of the other men halts her captor and nudges the woman’s side with a boot. “Get up!”

But she doesn’t. She says something muffled by the distance between us, and the men flinch. The man demanding her to get up unclips a whip on his belt and rips it down her back.

I flinch.

Even from this distance, her cry echoes within my ears. The wicked snap of the whip draws me back to the night two prisoners were hanged from the outlook tower—their pleas a hushed whisper until it swells to a roar inside my head. The snapping of their necks resurface each time the man lashes her. Every sinister crack breaks something in me. Piece by piece. Every one of her agonizing cries ripples inside my head.

The third man of the group snatches her hair and rips her off the ground, pulling her to her feet. The four of them disappear off into camp.

Perhaps it’s stupid—but I can’t think past the opportunity to save her. Not when I failed to act all those weeks ago when two other prisoners were executed, and I stood idly by.

Before I can think better of it, I head back into camp as I slip Cole’s mother’s ring onto my finger and tuck the map and journal back into my satchel.

“Daeja, I have to do something first.”

Everyone gathers in the middle of camp. Torchlight casts wicked shadows across the throng as I push through to get closer to the center. Everyone stills. The crowd falls silent as Darian pulls the battered woman, restrained by rope, into the center of the squad. The only sounds to cut through the silence are the flickering torches and heavy breathing from the woman. She rakes her gaze around the group, her lips pulled back in a feral snarl.

Horror settles in me at the rivers of crimson blood trickling down her face. I can’t imagine what other wounds she has outside of the visible ones on her face. Considering I witnessed her whipping, the amount of pain lacing every inch of her skin must have been excruciating.

Darian scans the crowd. “We must send word to the King. We have captured a rebel!”

The squad erupts into triumphant cheers. We’ve never caught a live rebel before. They’ve either died in combat or killed themselves. No doubt to avoid the King’s torture to glean critical information.

“Give her to me,” Cole booms.

The squad falls silent again, all the attention turns toward Cole as he shoulders through the crowd.

Darian hesitates for a fleeting moment. “No. I’ll be the one to deliver her to the King.”

“I command you to,” Cole rumbles, ripping the rope from Darian.

Darian snatches Cole’s wrist, flicking a glance down at Cole’s fist, then back up at him.

Cole’s eyes darken as he growls, “Need I remind you of your place here?”

“As I’ve told you before, I don’t take orders from lowly bastards,” Darian spits.

Carlisle slinks through the crowd and stops beside me, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword. The movement draws Cole’s attention in our direction. His anger falters when his eyes connect with mine.

Cole tears his wrist out of Darian’s grasp and takes a step toward my direction, the rebel woman in tow. “Take her.”

Carlisle strides forward to retrieve the rope as the woman flings like a caught fish, fighting with every step.

Cole shakes his head at Carlisle. “No. Kat, take her.”

As our gaze locks in on each other, we have an unspoken understanding—I’ll free the rebel woman. She’ll lead the way to the Dragon Lands, eliminating any risks of rebels attacking Daeja and me.

“If we don’t clean and stitch her up, she may either bleed out or die of infection,” Cole explains aloud.

Darian’s gaze travels over to me, his fisted hands relaxing. His attention darts back to the rebel woman, but he doesn’t move when I take the rope from Cole.

Cole tosses a glare at Darian over his shoulder. “Darian, you and I will take a group to assess our perimeters to make sure there are no others lingering around. Archie, go with Kat and assist in any way you can. Carlisle, find Marge and station a few guards outside of the healer’s quadrant.”

We all break off into our assigned groups. Archie unsheathes a dagger as he approaches me, pointing it at the woman in warning. She stops thrashing against the rope momentarily but still digs her heels into the ground as I lead her back to the healer’s quadrant. Once we get to there, I give Archie the rope. Squinting through the darkness, I dig through shelves with the bottles and vials, trying to figure out what to use when Marge walks into the room holding a candlestick.

“Sit!” Marge commands the woman.

The rebel glares at Marge and jolts for the door, taking Archie with her. Slingshotting forward, I dive for the rope and join Archie and the woman on the floor as she fights to escape. After a few scrambling moments on the floor, Archie regains his grip on the rope, tugging the woman until she slows.

Marge gathers materials while we wrestle with the rebel. She then crouches near the woman, her voice harsh. “Are you going to cooperate? Or are we going to have to just let you die?”

The woman peers up at Marge with a burning hatred.

Marge asks again, “Do you speak?”

Nothing.

Marge holds out a vial to her, and the woman’s eyes dart to the scars lacing her hands. The woman smacks the vial out of Marge’s grasp. The vial flies across the room and shatters on the ground. Archie and I both flinch.

“Spoiled!” the woman hisses and recoils.

“Listen, girl. You either let us help you, or you will bleed out by morning. What’s it going to be?” Marge growls.

The woman glares at Marge, and Marge holds her gaze.

After an uncomfortable stretch of silence, Marge relents with a sigh and hobbles back to her bottles and vials, plucking a new one and handing it to me. “Maybe you’ll have better luck. Rebels won’t trust Spoileds.”

The rebel woman watches Marge hand me the medicine, and her narrowed eyes widen, if only slightly. She stops fighting against her binds.

Marge exits the healer’s quadrant, and a sadness sinks into my chest to think that it may be the last time I ever see her.

“What’s a Spoiled?” Archie inquires.

I feign confusion and shrug. “Maybe she thinks this medicine is spoiled?”

We both turn our attention to the rebel. In the candlelight, a wildness shadows her eyes, her hair matted with blood. The flickering light catches a shimmer of an image engraved into her necklace. It’s subtle, but I’d know it anywhere—the insignia of an A with a dragon perched on top of it.

“Archie,” I murmur as I slowly grab the rope from him.

He watches me suspiciously. “What are you doing?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then I need you to leave,” I breathe.

“Are you out of your mind! I’m not leaving you alone with her!”

“Remember when I had to trust you not to kill me when you threw that dagger?”

He narrows his eyes, clearly not wanting to follow my lead.

I rest my hand over his, hooking his gaze with my own. “Now I need you to trust me. I need you to leave. You can stand guard at the door, but do not come in unless I call for you.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You’re not leaving me.” My voice wavers. Because little does he know, I’m leaving him. I shut down any lingering sadness with determination. “Stand outside the door, Archie. Now. ”

The authority in my voice shakes him enough to release the rope to me.

He leaves reluctantly, pausing half-way out the door. “I’m right here if you need me, Kat! Right here. And don’t get any ideas, lady! You so much as threaten her, and I’ll knife you!”

Once the door shuts, I retrieve the dagger from my side. The rebel woman explodes into a hissing, flailing tornado.

“Shh, shh!” I try to whisper as I saw my blade through the rope. “Hold...still!”

The blade slices part of her skin with how much she wiggles. But the rope pops off her wrists, and she falls back from the newly found freedom.

Her mouth drops open before holding her trembling hands to her face, as if she doesn’t quite believe what I’ve done. “Why…why did you do that?”

“Fire incarnate. Flame in flesh. Blood of power,” I whisper, so softly I’m hoping she heard me.

She shakes her head, dropping her hands and looking at me. “Who the hell are you?”

“It doesn’t matter.” I grab a clean rag and inch forward to her. “Will you let me help you?”

Her gaze flicks back and forth between the materials in my hands and my face. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

“You do have a choice.”

“Then let me die. If the King gets his hands on me...my fate will be much crueler than bleeding out. Or suffering from infection.”

“I know. And that’s why I’m not going to let him. The King isn’t going to get his hands on you.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “What makes you say that? Why would you risk helping me?”

“Because I have a dragon.”

She coughs at the information, and I use the moment to close the gap between us and offer her the rag. She hesitantly takes it and wipes the blood off her face before pressing it to the wound in her forehead.

I continue, “You would be the last of my worries. We can help each other get to the Dragon Lands.” I hand her the vial Marge gave me earlier.

She takes it from me, eyeing the glass suspiciously. “Is this actually safe? How do I know to trust you?”

“You don’t. Sometimes, you just have to take a chance.”

She tilts the vial up and down, staring at the liquid for a long moment. With a shaky breath, she uncorks it, sniffs it, and throws the liquid back into her mouth. She swallows, and her body relaxes muscle by muscle.

“Thank you,” she sighs, her eyes falling closed.

I work on cleaning and stitching the wound on her forehead. While I admit I’m not nearly as proficient as Marge is, I stitch her skin closed, at least. “Sorry, the scar might not be as pretty as if Marge were to—”

A thunderous roar sparks to life somewhere outside, and we both startle. An alarm rings out over the outpost in warning.

“They’ve come for me,” the rebel woman whispers.