Page 137 of Blood of the Stars

“I shouldn’t have…” he whispered, trailing off with a low moan.

“Hush,” Aeliana said.

Felk pulled on her arm. “Leave him. He can’t be trusted.”

She shook his hand off. “He needs help.” Not that she knew how to help him. Her fingers trembled as she ripped the man’s cloak and shirt to expose the wound. There didn’t seem to be much blood. That had to be good.

“But he attacked you,” Gaeren said.

“Arrow,” the man croaked, reaching for his chest as if to instruct Aeliana, but his focus turned to Felk, his eyes intense through his pain. “For her.”

Aeliana froze, the man’s meaning far too clear. The stranger hadn’t attacked her; he’d tried removing her as a target.

Felk and Gaeren both stood, scanning the ridge of the valley as Felk blocked her from whoever had shot the stranger.

“Go,” Aeliana said, voice hoarse. “Find them. And get Lukai. Hurry!”

Felk took off in the direction the arrow had come from, but Gaeren hesitated, a strange vulnerability crossing his face. “Daisy…”

“It’s all right. You don’t need to protect me right now,” she said.

His eyes slid shut, and for a moment Aeliana saw the child in him, needing those words, that release of responsibility. Then he practically flew through the woods, his footsteps like thunder between the trees. Out of desperation, Aeliana pushed against the red mark of her bond, willing Lukai to sense the urgency of her need, wishing she had been the one to get shot so he could feel it from afar.

She turned back to the stranger, who already looked paler. Blood trickled down his side like it drew a line connecting the fletching beneath his ribs to the arrow’s point protruding from his back.

Even that small bit called to her, and she closed her eyes against its pull, mentally walking through the motions of resisting blood magic. And yet this situation felt desperate, like the night she’d cut herself and bargained with the sprites.

Without blood magic, she’d be forced to sense the injuries deep inside, to stitch together everything the arrow had ripped through. She hadn’t done anything that complex. Lukai had only taught her to heal minor injuries and surface cuts.

It would require heavy amounts of energy, the kind she had only used when creating the shield, which she still hadn’t been able to fully replicate while practicing with Sylmar. Why couldn’t her controlled magic be as powerful as her unbridled magic? Why couldn’t it be as strong as blood magic?

She bit the inside of her cheeks, allowing the pain to pull her from her trance. She didn’t want to use blood magic. She refused to do it. Instead, she focused on the arrow.

“Oh.” She couldn’t help the word slipping out when she saw the bloody point. Her hands grew clammy. Why had she ever thought she wanted to be a healer?

“Here.” The man grabbed her hand and drew it to the shaft. “Snap.” His face twisted up in agony, and she hadn’t even touched the arrow. Sweat dripped down into his short beard, and now that she was finally looking, Aeliana recognized his face as well as his hands. He’d let his hair and beard grow unkempt in the last several weeks, but he was definitely the man she’d seen at Lovers’ Falls.

He’d saved her life without hesitation, and now she had to do the same for him.

She focused on the arrow and attempted to snap it in two. The man grimaced, and her heart beat faster as the slippery arrow held fast. He reached out a hand and touched the starlock swinging from her neck.

The message came through almost as a reprimand, but she still heeded it.

“Stars protect you,” she muttered, closing her eyes and reaching out for the energy in her starlock, drawing it to her without limit. She was more likely to put him out of his misery than heal him in her current flustered state.

First came the euphoria, and when she would have pulled back, she let herself push a little more, reminding her body that this was a good thing. Then came the panic as her mind fought her body, a remembered response that came like breathing as the sense of wrongness built within her. Without knowing how to heal such a deep wound, she had nowhere to put the energy; it simply grew and grew deep inside, threatening to suffocate her like it had when they were still weaning her.

“Please,” she whispered, begging the Stars to have mercy. To let the tiniest bit flow into her hands, to steady them as she worked. To guide them, because she had no idea what to do. Strength filled her limbs. That would have to be enough. Before she could second-guess herself, she snapped the arrow’s shaft above the fletching.

The stranger groaned at the movement, but instead of following her instinct to apologize and give him time to recover, she tilted him, his weight like a doll’s as the energy flowed through her. As soon as he was far enough onto his side, she pulled the point and shaft out in one swift movement.

This time his groan progressed to a scream that made every hair on her body stand on end. Or maybe it was the way blood began to pour from both sides of the wound. Something inside her reared back, ready to pounce on this new source of energy. She gasped at its pull, scooting back as if the distance might keep her from drawing the blood’s power.

“Lukai!” She turned in a panic, scanning the trees.

To her surprise, someone stood a dozen paces away, but it wasn’t Lukai. Kendalyhn’s face creased with anguish, but Aeliana’s gaze was drawn to the bow and arrow clutched in the other woman’s hands. The fletchings were a perfect match for the arrow Aeliana had just pulled from the stranger’s body. Felk hunched next to her, almost like a guard dog holding her at bay.

“I’m sorry,” Kendalyhn whispered.

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