Page 62 of This Midsummer Heart
Hope surges within me as her wings twitch against my chest. But her eyes do not open.
“Titaine, can you hear me?”
Her wings do not twitch again. But a muscle flares in her cheek, like a wince from her pain.
I draw my arms around her, wishing that was sea water I felt on the shirt-turned-sling the rangers created for her. She’s still bleeding. I am careful to avoid her wounds as I press the flat of one hand against her belly, feeling the rhythm of her shallow breaths.
“We’re halfway across the Bridge of Miracles,” I tell her. “The tide is coming in. If I turn around now, I don’t know if I can get you the help you need in time. And the family in the caravan ahead of us will drown. I don’t know how to fix this—how to stop any of this. Tell me what to do.”
Her voice is so faint beneath the clash of waves against rock, I think I imagined it.
“What did you say?”
“The moon,” she repeats, her voice creaky.
Moon magic.But that is not my specialty, either. Even if itispart of dark magic.
All I know how to do is wield blade and bow, or fight with my fists. I do not think the sea will respond to that.
My heart sinking, I turn Giselda back the way we came.
We make it twenty feet before I feel a pull—as if someone grabbed the back of my shirt between my shoulder blades and yanked me.
Titaine’s lashes twitch, then rise as her eyes open at last.
“...cannot wield your magic for you,” she croaks, “but you can lend yours to mine.”
Giselda turns south without my guidance, her feet stamping impatiently.
“I don’t know how,” I admit—perhaps the first time I’ve ever said such a thing to Titaine.
“...show you.”
“If you use your magic now, how will you heal?” I hold her tighter, the reins loose in my other hand. “It could kill you.”
“The sea…first.”
I eye the encroaching sea. “Fair point.”
Her eyes fall shut again, a furrow forming between her brows as she weaves an enchantment of water magic. I can barely see it, a ripple of water reaching out toward the actual sea.
“With me,” she says, laying one hand over mine.
“With you,” I echo, and close my eyes, savoring the touch of her hand, even if it is colder than it should be.
Titaine’s magic coils around me, warmer than her body—then bursts through my chest. Dark energy bubbles up in response, whipped into a frenzy by the addition of her magic.
I have no idea what I’m doing. I visualize that I’m lining up a shot with a bow, directing the point of an imaginary arrow towards the loose net of Titaine’s magic. I feel only the same darkness as the Blade of Hedril’s magic, and nothing of the moon.
I pray to whatever gods are left to hear me that this works.
Slowly, with a feeling as though my entire body is pushing back against the waves, I wind my magic into hers. Fae enchantment and dark elf shadows split around the land bridge, pushing back against the waves.
Sweat beads my forehead, neck, chest and back as I fight against it, the guiding presence of Titaine’s magic weakening. I need its structure—it’s now or never. I grit my teeth, a low growl building in my chest that becomes a war cry as I force my magic through the violent waves.
The magic cuts through like a hot knife. The waves fall back, unnaturally still for the span of a dozen panting breaths. Then, like a snake slinking off into a forest’s understory, the waves begin to recede.
The land bridge grows wider again, exposing a pebbled shore on either side of the caravan.
