Page 189 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

“—will ease his passing,” Ivie was saying as she gave the other female a small bag of what was likely herbs.

“Ivie,” I called, and the healer looked up with tears gathering in her own eyes before they widened at me.

“Ornella! Just one moment,” she added more quietly to the female with her before she came toward me. I noticed she was still wiping blood off her hands onto her apron.

“Everything alright?” I asked her, even though I knew it was not when I glanced at the female behind her who had raised her hands to her face and was crying loudly.

“Well… No. No, it is not,” said Ivie a little frantically, and I could see by her paleness, cracked lips, and sunken eyes that she was utterly exhausted. “I hate to ask this of you since I know that you must already be so—”

“Just take me to whoever is dying,” I ordered her, unwilling to waste time on niceties. Ivie was so relieved that she started to cry as she grabbed my hand to squeeze it thankfully before she dragged me back.

The male inside the yurt was hours from death with his parents, children, and mate grieving for him helplessly as they waited for his time.

I healed him in less than a minute.

Then I healed the female in the next yurt with her very young baby in the bassinet next to her. And the elderly fey surrounded by all his grandchildren. And the adolescent female with a little sister who looked as if her world were cleaving apart. And I healed a dozen more after that.

“The ones who need it most. I am a limited resource,” I’d informed Ivie who was constantly wiping tears of relief and exhaustion from her eyes.

I felt horrible for not coming sooner. My magic had been utterly depleted, and it took much longer to replenish itself in the cold, so there was nothing I could have done in that regard. But if I’d realized how many fey were still so badly injured, then I would have done what I could. Many of the fey were warriors who had fiercely defended their village, and now their loved ones were being forced to watch them die, unable to protect them in return.

I felt sick with guilt and regret over it.

“Thank you, Ornella.Thank you,” Ivie whispered after each fey was healed.

“How many more are dying?” I asked Ivie while we walked briskly between patients.

“There are a few,” she admitted with more tears in her eyes as she shook her head.

Fuck! I needed more magic! Ihatedbeing weakened. Hated that my magic was taking so long to refuel in the cold of the Autumn Court.

I hesitated with even more guilt when I realized that I would have had access to a lot more if I were initiated. Surely the others would have understood the necessity of giving me whatever boost they could to heal their people. Between all of them, especially Rian, there was probably enough magic for me to healallof these fey.

I was nearing the point at which Sage would sense that I’d overdone it when I returned him, but I was kneeling over a dying child. Watching her writhe in agony on a cot. How was I supposed to walk away and let her die?

I need you to know that you are important. Your life is worth more than your magic. More than anything.

I couldn’t overdo it. It just was not an option if Sage was ever going to trust me to be a reliable partner.

But there was something else I could do.

“It is alright, Ornella, if you cannot—”

I held up a hand to silence Ivie, and I closed my eyes to focus on seeking that tether inside. That magnetic pull that first drew me toward myanamin the Tithriall like a star exploding and swallowing my world. That string of stars that had lit up between us while we fought together the first time. The pulse of familiar rhythm between us, like a shared heartbeat, and the heat upon my senses when he used his Light magic to make a tiny sun in his palm that was somehow more than just light.

Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?

I looked for him inside me with a fury as the ache of these dying fey threatened to break my heart. It seemed to me that thetimes when I had felt Sage the keenest was during moments of high emotion, so I harnessed it.

I could suddenly almost feel the phantom touch on my cheek that I knew intrinsically to be his. I could almost feel the hot press of his lips and tongue on my throat.

There you are.

Initially, it felt like lifting my face up toward the sun, only it was my heart filling with its warmth, the sensation spreading gradually outward into all my limbs. And then that intangible presence seemed to solidify within me as if it had reached out to me too.

Concern that was not mine flooded me, and I realized that Sage could feel the frustration and anguish which I’d used to fuel our bond when I reached out to him.

“I’m okay,” I murmured aloud. I knew the fey with me would hear and assume I was talking to them, but I didn’t care just then. None of us needed Sage bursting into the yurt in a panic that I was hurt. “I just need more magic.”

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