Page 208 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

“Please focus,” Nuala begged me desperately.

I nodded in agreement and tried to remember what it was that she wanted me to do. Then I saw the brightness gleaming in Rian’s chest, the green blood soaking him, and I remembered with a sharp burst of clarity.

Remove the starlight. I had to remove the starlight.

I was still shaking as I put my hands on Rian’s chest and recalled that hot power that had been the only thing that made adifference before. The only thing that had felt strong enough to channel this breaking.

It rose readily, meeting my call and flowing into my hands so beautifully. It was Sage’s magic in my palms.

I made one hand as straight as I could and drove it into Rian’s chest, vaguely aware that Darragh and Ciaran were holding him down. My hand burned him, but I grabbed onto that pulsing power and pulled it free from him.

“Good! That’s good! Can you heal him?” asked Nuala, but I was distracted, gazing at the orb of light in my hand. It wasn’t even covered in blood like my hand because it had burned all of that away, pure and bright.

“Ornella—?”

“I need power,” I murmured.

I did not know how I knew it, just an instinct in this place of groundlessness, but I touched a darkness inside that was foreign. Not my magic nor any that belonged to Sage naturally, but it still came from myanam.

It came from… Rian.

His magic, now unguarded in his state of vulnerability, had passed through the bond of the Wild Hunt.

Unlike the Autumn Prince, who was scalded by Light, I had healing magic to shield his power from the blaze just long enough to use it to consume the Light. To drink it in through my pores and allow it to fill my veins and fuel my own magic.

Then I turned my attention back to Rian, putting my hands on his chest with a growing clarity because it was what Sage would want.

Rian had lost consciousness, but he woke screaming the instant I forced my healing magic into him. I had to keep going, and thankfully his power was so exhausted that Ciaran and Darragh could hold him down because he was charred inside. Raw and hollowed.

It took every last ounce of my power to restore him enough to save him, but I knew he was not wholly healed. Thankfully, I had absorbed the extra magic and could use Sage’s too or Rian would have certainly died.

When I had nothing left to give, I slumped sideways into Darragh who caught me and pulled me against him. Whispering that it was good, I had done enough, as Nuala finally allowed Rian’s frantic vargr to nose at him.

It was alie. If I had truly done enough then my mate would be the one holding me. And yet Sage wasgone…

“We have to get him back,” I murmured.

There was silence in the tent for a moment aside from Rian’s laboured breathing and his vargr whining.

“Yes,” said the Autumn Prince at last, his voice hoarse, placing his hand on his vargr’s head to try and calm him. “We will get him back, Ornella.”

“Balor—” snarled Ciaran, stopping himself with a shake of his head.

“Yes. He doomed his court just to save his place as a hapless king,” Rian acknowledged.

“And the griffins made a deal with the Sylvan. I knew we could nottrustthem!” Ciaran shouted, throwing one of his gauntlets so hard it shattered wood somewhere.

I felt Rian’s eyes on me but was too numb to respond.

The Autumn Prince made a pained grunt, and Nuala rushed to help support him as he sat up. Then I felt him brush my cheek. Normally such a touch from a male who was not Sage would send me into a fit, but I was too hollow to react. I simply raised my eyes to his and found them bouncing between mine as if he were looking for something inside me.

“We need you, Ornella. Sage needs you.”

“I will get him back,” I said. Clinging to the only thing that was certain to me at that moment. The only thing that made sense because there was no alternative.

“Good,” he said, nodding in approval.

There was a commotion, a flurry of movement that made us all look toward the door as the other vargr began rushing inside. Each of them panting and whining as they ran to their rider to nuzzle and lick. Pyrope and Gealach seemed to be competing for which of them would crush me and Darragh as they rubbed themselves all over us.

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