Page 74 of The Exile's Curse

"Chloe!" He called her name as thunder boomed again, but she didn't stir. He dropped to his knees, feeling frantically for a pulse. If he hadn’t already been on his knees, the relief he felt when he found it would have driven him there.

Focus.He could react later.

Right now, he had to worry about her. He knew basic first aid from his army training, and he cautiously felt his way along her limbs, searching for injuries. He found no immediate signs of broken bones, and she was breathing steadily. Trying to slow his own racing heart, he rolled her gently to one side. Mud splattered over half her face, and a long length of pale skin showed through a tear in her jacket sleeve. He summoned illusion again to give him more light and realized she'd cut her arm badly, either in the fall or in her madcap ride through the forest. Blood welled in the wound, enough of it to remain despite the pouring rain. He pulled his cravat free and bound up the wound, hoping like hell the downpour had kept it free of too much mud. He was no bloody healer to keep an infection at bay.

The rain eased somewhat as he finished checking Chloe over, but there was no sign of the storm abating, and black clouds still blocked the sun. Night fell early in Andalyssia. Chloe showed no sign of waking yet, and he didn't want to move her until he had a plan. He piled his own cloak on top of hers and looked around for his horse. It was cantering back the way they'd come, almost invisible in the dim light.

Fuck.

He gritted his teeth against the urge to roar with frustration. He needed to stay calm. He couldn't catch a horse on foot. It was gone, and with it any chance of finding the rest of the hunt quickly. So he needed another plan.

First, get his bearings. He stood, summoning another light to his hand. It didn't take much to see that Chloe lay maybe twenty feet from the edge of the cliff. His stomach swooped greasily when he realized how close she'd come to going over. He made himself walk to the edge, moving slowly and finally kneeling to peer over.

He could just make out a dark mass far below. Choe's horse.

Nothing he could do for it. There was no way it could have survived the fall.

He edged backward, then jogged back to Chloe. Just in time to see her eyes open.

"Don't move," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She blinked up at him, looking bewildered. "Ow. Lucien? What?"

"Your horse bolted in the storm," he said. "You fell. Which is just as well, as it kept going, and there's a cliff about twenty feet that way." Not the most tactful way to tell her, perhaps, but he needed something to shock her into functioning.

His memory of the map was that the forest was several miles wide, and if they'd come out the other side—the wrong side—then they could be miles from any of the others. With the storm still active, night closing in, and the temperature falling fast, he wasn't counting on anyone coming to find them. The Andalyssians would prioritize getting the king and queen back to safety, and even if Honore protested—which she would—they would probably overrule her. The colonel lacked the knowledge of the terrain to search on her own. Theisse might send his sanctii to look for them, but again, the terrain played against them. Sanctii could find their own mage at any distance, but there was a limit to their ability to find others they were familiar with. He didn't know how far it stretched in strange territory.

He turned his attention back to Chloe as she made another pained sound. "What hurts?"

Chloe frowned. "Everything?"

That was probably true. "All right, what hurtsmost?"

"My arm." She winced and twisted her head to look at it. "And my side."

"Not your head?" She must have hit it to be knocked out after the fall. Or maybe she'd fainted.

"Not much," she said. "Not as much as my arm."

"You have a nasty cut," he said. "I've bandaged it. Right now, we need to figure some way to get out of the rain. The cold is a bigger risk than anything else. Do you think you can stand?" She was an earth witch. She'd have had training in healing. Which meant she was in a better place to judge her condition than he was.

"I think so," she said, grimacing. "Do you have your horse?"

"No. He ran off when I dismounted. Clearly Andalyssians don't train their horses to stay if they lose their riders."

"We need some of Jean Paul's warhorses. Those will stand through anything," she said, her voice shaky.

Goddess damn it, he needed to get her somewhere safe.

"Yes, well, perhaps we should suggest it to King Mikvel when we get back." If they got back. Not that he'd say that to Chloe. And it would bloody well be “when”if he had anything to do with it. "I think our best bet is heading back toward the mountain." The left side of the plateau ended in steeply rising ground. "The edge of the trees is too far for you to walk. But if we climb a little, there should be some shelter. Rocks. Or a cave, maybe."

"If only one of us had earth sense," she muttered. "Let me up."

"Earth sense? Like the miners?" There'd been discussions of how the miners were planning on opening new shafts during some of the treaty discussions. The Andalyssians had mentioned earth sense, but he hadn't really paid attention to how it worked.

"Yes. Irina has it."

"Earth magic?"

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