Page 12 of Bound and Tide

THE DISADVANTAGES OF BEING HIGHLY SKILLED

Red bounded over the counter in one swift move. Xander watched her breasts bounce along with her, captivated until he realized she was speeding right past him.

“What in the Abyss?”

She didn’t bother with even a quick look back let alone an explanation—quite insulting—as she grabbed a satchel from a hook by the door. He fled right after her anyway.

Out on the street, the little boy who had wailed into the shop was running. Red kept pace, skirts whirling around her. Xander hadn’t grabbed his cloak, and the temperature had dropped dramatically since he’d left The Sleepy Salmon that morning. “Why are we running?” he called, catching up with a massive gulp of air, though he hated to run at all, it was so unbecoming.

“Well, I’m running because a man has been gored,” Red spat as she skidded between two carts, startling the horses of one and amusing the donkeys of another. “I’ve no idea why you’re running though.”

“Neither do I,” Xander huffed, a slippery cobblestone nearly taking his feet out from under him. “I thought you weren’t a healer.”

“I’m not.” Red narrowly avoided bowling over a set of rogue hens, and one of them smacked Xander in the face with an errant wing. “But if they’re calling on me, then the professionals are all out of ideas.”

Xander grunted, pulling a feather off his lip and shoulder striking some villager who’d not been quick or smart enough to move from his path. “There are better ways to do this.” He caught her arm and whistled sharply into the air.

Red tugged out of his grip, but came to a reluctant stop, glowering at him so much fiercer in the brightness of the day. The young boy whipped around, his mouth falling open to shout but his jaw only remained hanging open, silent as he stared at the sky.

The griffin swooped downward with a grace even Xander appreciated, villagers scattering from its massive wingspan.

“Care for a ride?”

Her lips were pressed into a thin line, glower shifting to a subtler seethe. That was close enough to pleasing her, maybe even better. The griffin lowered itself, and he hopped onto its back, extending a hand to help her up.

The child was thrust into his clutches instead, and Xander was so bewildered that he took him. “I’m not sure what to, uh…do with this,” he mumbled, holding him at arm’s length.

“Come on, let’s go, a man is dying!” Red shouted in his ear, the feel of her suddenly behind him like a warm blanket wrapped around his shoulders—a feeling he wasn’t sure he’d ever experienced but inspired the sentiment all the same.

Xander snapped back into himself as they took off. He clamped a hand onto the back of the boy’s tunic to keep him in place as the child shouted directions and leaned precariously out over the earth to indicate where to go despite that the griffin couldn’t see him. Fingers dug into Xander’s sides as Red’s sharp grip responded to their lurch skyward, and a soft gasp fluttered past his ear.

Darkness, what a treat.

It was a short-lived delicacy, though, as flying was efficient if freezing. They dove for the edge of the wood and a cluster of villagers already gathered there. Red released him and slid herself off before the griffin had completely touched down. She was gone in an instant, disappearing into the contingency that encircled the fallen hunter. The child before him struggled, and Xander groaned, hopping off and awkwardly guiding the boy to the ground.

Wiping hands down his front, Xander took stock of the scene. An exhausted priest of that temple in the center of town, bloody hand on his forehead and a worse stain across his vestments, lay outside the circle. The man was young, and though Xander could feel the remnants of divine magic leeching off him, he knew he was spent.

The bare trees beyond the wall of villagers creaked under a stiff breeze that washed a new chill through Xander’s bones. Stuffing hands into his pockets, he pushed through the crowd to find Red on her knees at the side of a man who was not long for the realm. Her bag lay open, potions and ointments and bandages flung about. There was haste in her movement but no lack of grace, not a moment of hesitation as her fingers danced over her tools.

It wouldn’t work, of course—his skin was sallow, eyes rolled back, dirt and gore smeared over his exposed stomach and chest. The blackness of old blood pooled around him, and bright crimson seeped away from the wound, the failing of what the priest had attempted blossoming derisively against the greying earth. It had been too long since the attack, no human or elven potion was going to heal that—but by the dark gods, Red was trying.

What was left inside the man coated her hands and arms, and there was arcana at her fingertips, elven magic that moved through the air like a vine’s tendrils over the earth. Her back heaved with every breath, glass slipped through her bloodied fingers as she ripped at the corks of her vials, a trail of whispered spells filled the air around her so thickly they could almost be seen. She lost her composure only for a moment, raggedly swearing with exertion as she pressed at the rend in his belly, and Xander could take it no more.

No one saw as he slipped a hand into the neckline of his tunic, popped the cork off his vial of arcane blood, and smeared more than he would have liked into his palm.

“Move,” he ordered, making his way to the hunter’s other side and pushing the useless mage there away. Hating to kneel in the dirt, it was unfortunately the only way, but sliding his hands beside Red’s almost made up for it. His arcane blood mingled with the hunter’s, the crowd none the wiser.

Noxscura flooded into the man, it prodded at his human innards, swirled through his human blood, feasted on his human fear, and it honed in on the impending death. Come on, now, make me look good. His noxscura had been unruly, but it also hadn’t been given much to do in the past week, so he hoped it would take the opportunity to show off.

But then the noxscura found Red’s magic. It wasn’t sweet and calming as he’d expected, nor was it as weak and earthy as it should have been, but hot and impassioned and nearly bowled over his own as if the noxscura were a hen lazily strutting across the road.

Her eyes lifted to meet his, mouth forming some word, but no sound came out. He shifted a brow but not as cocky as he would have liked, too much focus laid into commanding the enchantment. Xander Shadowhart wasn’t made for healing, but others had already worked on the man, Red’s clamorous, eager magic was unusually helpful, and, well, he had resurrected someone once, hadn’t he? No use wasting all those hours translating the Lux Codex and the training he’d reluctantly accepted from that priestess.

Still, sweat beaded down the back of his neck, and his muscles spasmed. He clenched his jaw, eyes locked onto the emerald of Red’s, not wanting to betray the struggle yet wondering if it would be the absolute end of the realm if she did see him waver.

…disgusted at this display of weakness…an embarrassment…give you something to cry about…

Xander breathed deeply, the magic banged around inside the hunter and inside him, and despite his efforts, the untroubled mask slipped as his brow bent.

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