11. Saoirse

Saoirse

X an worked quickly, her hands moving with urgency and uncertainty as she tended to Vane's wounds, her palms aglow with a soft white light. The small back room of the bakery was dimly lit, casting long shadows on the walls as she worked, her long blonde hair falling into her face as she concentrated intently. She looked out of place, still in her Awakening dress as she poured over her patient.

I watched from a nearby stool, my body aching with my own wounds, but I said nothing. She could heal me later. I wouldn't die from it. Vane needed all the help she could give him, judging by the lack of color in his face. His chest rose and fell, more steady now than it had been, but barely. The wound at his side was ghastly, the edges dark and purple.

"Is he going to be okay?" I spoke into the silence, unable to hold my tongue any longer.

"I don't know," she snapped at me, before taking a deep breath, blowing the air out so hard it rustled a few specks of flour off a nearby shelf. "Poison is not as easy as just healing a simple wound, and as you are well aware, I just got my powers today. I'm doing the best I can."

I nodded, swallowing hard. Her attitude was warranted, and the fact that she was even here in the first place sent a rush of gratitude flooding through me. She had agreed to help me, no questions asked as I was covered in blood, cowering over a strange man in the middle of the street. As the next in line for the Lightlace throne, she should have never helped me. She shouldn't be here at all.

"Why aren't you at the Awakening?" I asked her. I knew I probably should have quieted, just let her concentrate and work, but the anxious bundle of energy in the pit of my stomach prevented me from holding my tongue. Waiting was not a skill I particularly possessed, and the longer we stayed silent, the longer my brain had to contemplate everything that had gone wrong in my life in the last day.

"You disappeared," she said, not looking up. "I saw father pull you from the room and you never came back. I thought..." She didn't need to finish her sentence. Sympathy for the worry she must have felt yearned in my chest.

"He kicked me out," I told her honestly, touching the burn on my cheek absentmindedly. She didn't need a word-for-word recounting of everything he had said to me, it wouldn't serve her any purpose.

"I'm sorry," she said, her eyes sad as they looked up at me, studying my face for a long moment before she returned to Vane. "I should have never asked you to come."

I didn't want to say it was okay, because it wasn't. But I also should have stuck to my resolve and not gone in the first place. "You will make an amazing queen someday, birdie," I told her instead, not wanting to dwell on what we couldn't change.

"What happened, Saoirse? Who is this man?"

I took a deep breath, trying to still my racing mind. "His name is Vane," I started slowly. Vane had said no one could know who he was, but I trusted Xan. If there was anyone who had earned my trust in this life, it was her. "He saved me from Jephyr. "

Xanthi's hands paused for a moment, her eyes narrowing. "What did that bastard do? I'll kill him."

"He tried to—" I stopped, my voice breaking. Clearing my throat, I found my strength, the remembrance that Jepyhr's undeserving carcass was rotting in that clearing. He would never hurt me again. "He tried to attack me, but Vane showed up and fought him off. H-He killed him."

"He's dead?" Xan's eyebrows rose to her hairline, and I could already see her mind working. Weighing the implications, the fallout of what we had done. She'd always been good at that, a fitting skill for a future queen. She'd consider all angles, all possible outcomes before making a decision.

"He's beyond dead," I muttered.

"We can't just leave him out there," she said, her bone-white teeth worrying her bottom lip as she thought out loud. "It won't take them long to follow that trail of blood you left. I don't know if I can hide the body, but we can at least get rid of the path leading them right to your doorstep." My stomach plummeted into my gut. I hadn't even considered the trail we were leaving behind. I'd dragged him for what felt like hours just to get here.

"I'll take care of it," she said, sparing me a glance as she stepped away from Vane. I'd been distracted, but as I looked at him now some of the color had returned to his cheeks, the gaping poisonous hole in his side now a much smaller, scarred and raw patch of skin, more like he'd had a terrible scrape. Xan was much paler, beads of perspiration lazily carving a trail down her temples.

"Let me do it," I protested, already pushing off of my stool. "You should rest."

"Unless you can burn the blood off the ground, you'd make better use here. Make me some food. I'm starving." She wiped a wet rag across Vane's forehead tenderly, like a mother taking care of a child, a self-satisfied glint in her eye. With very little training, she'd been able to bring a man back from the brink of death. "When I get back, I want every detail."

After she did a quick heal on my less serious wounds, she set off to clean up my mess before more partygoers headed home. Lightlace parties often went until mid-morning the next day, the magic-infused punch an intense stimulant that let one defy the basic limits of human energy. At least, they did until they crashed. It wasn't a feeling I much enjoyed, and I did my best to avoid it at every opportunity.

I got to work as she'd requested, losing myself in the process of the craft as I whipped us up a quick breakfast of baked biscuits with a side of maple-honey butter. The stove was my enemy, but the oven was my best friend.

I drizzled the honey into the softened butter, mixing it up and then setting it back in the fridge to cool. A smile split my lips against my better judgment as I bent over to pull the biscuits out of the oven, the buttery golden-brown tops making my mouth water.

"Hope you made some for me," a low timbre said from behind, and I jumped, a shocked scream ripping from my throat before I could reach out and stuff it back down. I whirled to see Vane sitting up on his elbows, wincing as he put a hand to his newly healed wound. "Did you heal me?"

My eyes narrowed, arms immediately crossing defensively over my chest. "I can't. I don't have any powers."

He froze, then stared at me for a long moment, not bothering to shield his eye color. The crimson burned like fire, bright and wild. I held his gaze, daring him to look away first.

"Then who did?" he asked finally, his eyes narrowed, darting around the small space like he might suddenly uncover an intruder. "If anyone finds out I'm here, it will interfere with my mission."

"Why? Trying to kill someone?" It was the only logical conclusion I could draw. After seeing his power, his brutality firsthand, he could not be anything except a killing machine. His jaw tightened, eyes sharp, and I knew that was wrong, but I wasn't too far off. "To steal something?"

There, a twitch of his lips. "Stealing? Interesting. And what is it that you wanted to steal, Vane? Attempting a theft in the middle of a room filled with Lightlace is a reckless move, even for someone like you."

"Someone like me? Devilishly handsome, you mean?"

"Deadly and absolutely terrifying," I retorted dryly, but relief soared through me at the fact that he was feeling well enough to be making jokes. Regardless of who he was, he'd saved my life and now I'd saved his. Consider us even.

I may not particularly like or trust him, but I didn't want him to die, either.

"Then who did this?" he asked, gesturing to the newly healed wound. For the first time, I noticed how defined his chest was, his torso broad and sturdy and littered with different sized scars. Not scars like mine, but scars forged in the heat of battle. I was about to answer, to tell on myself and his secrets that I had divulged, when the door slapped open, and Xan dragged herself through the doors, looking many times more exhausted than she was when she had left.

"You're awake!" A little life came back into her face as she spotted Vane, then her eyes widened as they both realized he'd forgotten to shield his eyes, the crimson color on display for her to see.

"Saoirse—"

"Don't panic," I told her hurriedly, shooting a wide-eyed look toward Vane. I hadn't had enough time to explain to either of them what would happen. The suddenly very plausible realization that they might kill each other crossed my mind, my palms going sweaty.

"What is she doing here?" He was on his feet in one swift movement, the shadows on his arms already lifting up into a defensive stance. Xan's hands flared brightly in response .

"Stop it! Stand down, the both of you. Do not forget that he saved my life ."

Xan hesitated a moment, eyes sharp and alert for any sign of attack, but Vane only stood at the ready, making no move to take this further, his muscles tensed for action only if needed.

"What are you?" Xan said, still not lowering her arms, suspicion sweeping as she looked over Vane.

"He's a Darkwing," I said softly, refusing to look at Vane as I told the secret I'd promised not to. You would have thought I'd grown wings at the way Xan's eyes bulged out of her head. Her eyes widened even further as he flexed his shadows outward, creating a swirling, reaching whip that paused halfway to her. With them outstretched in that way, they almost looked like wings. Xanthi's eyes widened even further, and she took a step back, the light in her hands flickering. "You're not supposed to exist."

"And I'd like to keep it that way." Vane was completely serious, his tone clipped and urgent. The early morning sun began to slice through the curtains, casting long, ethereal rays over our gathering. "Darkwings have been hunted by Lightlace for centuries. If they know I am here, I will be killed."

"Hunted?" Xan shook her head from side to side in disbelief. "I don't understand. How could we be hunting you if we didn't know you exist?"

"Your king and queen are well aware of our existence," he said darkly, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "They make a sport of hunting us. I've lost too many friends to your soldiers."

"But why would they do that?" I asked softly. "Why target the Darkwings specifically? Not only that, but why lie about it on top of it?"

Xanthi's face hardened, her earlier shock giving way to a resigned understanding as her strategic mind worked out my questions from every angle. "Are you really surprised? Can all your people do what you can do? I saw Jephyr's body," she finished softly, a flash of something dark skittering across her face. "Did my best to hide it."

"Power levels vary," he said, in the vaguest possible manner. Xan and I shared a look, but with an unspoken conversation, decided not to press. Of course, he wouldn't want to tell the daughters of his enemies how powerful everyone was.

Daughters of his enemies . Even being in this room could get us killed, and my eyes flicked to Xan, whose gaze was already on me, and I knew she was thinking the same thing. We had to tread very carefully here, or it could very well mean our deaths, too.

If his people were anything like him, the Lightlace had a formidable opponent. I shivered, the idea of a war setting my teeth on edge.

"So what are you?" Xan pestered, an almost child-like excitement brimming from her. Suspicion never left her eyes, but her curiosity was outshining it. She'd found a new project, a new enigma to pick apart until she fully understood it, and she was not one to waste an opportunity, even if it was a very bad idea that we were entertaining this. "Are you demons or something?"

He frowned, staring at her like she had grown a second head. "Excuse me?"

"What is a Darkwing, really?"

"I think shapeshifters," I chimed in, handing Vane a plate topped with a still-warm biscuit. "He turned into a dragon."

" Saoirse ," he hissed, and I winced apologetically at him, biting my tongue. I really needed to learn to keep some things to myself.

"A dragon?" Xan gasped, her eyes going wide as she suddenly looked not the least bit tired at all. "Are you from the Feral Kingdom?"

Vane snorted around the bite of biscuit he chewed, wiping a few errant crumbs from his lips before answering. "Of course not. The Darkwings are witches."