Page 96 of A Promise of Peridot
“I’m right here, Holy Stones,” she mumbled, stepping out of the trees.
A breath whooshed from me.
Griffin nearly sagged with a sigh of his own. “Hurry up,” he murmured. “We’re leaving.”
“I was looking foryouin the first place! Let me just pack up.” Mari lifted her hands to conjure the spell.
But I couldn’t wait. I had to fix this. “Mari, I’m so—” I started, the exact moment her body crumpled to the ground.
“Mari!” I yelled, rushing to her.
Lifting her face from the ground, I wiped the mud from her cheeks. But the sight—
Her eyes.
Her huge golden-brown eyes were stark. Clear. Wide open.
No, no no—
I pressed my head into her chest and exhaled every ounce of air that had been growing stale inside me when I heard a solid, rhythmic heartbeat. And air, flowing in and out of her lungs.
Despite the pale, sickly pallor of her face, those unmoving eyes, the cool blue veins along her arms and jawline, as if she were a corpse—she was breathing. It didn’t make any sense.
Griffin was already next to me, cradling her head in his hands as it lolled to the side, painstakingly brushing twigs and leaves from her full red curls.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked, voice more frantic than I’d ever heard it.
“I don’t know.” My shaking hands summoned lighte and I urged it toward her, but there was nothing to heal. Not a stroke, not a seizure... Again, I felt for the steady pulse in her veins. “She’s... healthy. Medically speaking, nothing is wrong.”
“Something is wrong, Arwen. She’s fucking unconscious!”
I pricked the cool pad of her finger with the jagged edge of my nail.
A reflex.
Griffin sucked in a breath. “Is that good?”
“She’s not paralyzed.”
“That’s good,” Fedrik said from behind us.
But it didn’t explain—
“It makes no sense,” I said again. “My lighte... I would— I don’t understand...”
Griffin’s voice was far too low as he leaned close to her. “Mari?”
Her eyes didn’t so much as flutter.
I spun back to Kane, still holding Mari’s hand in both of mine. “I can’t heal her like this. I need—”
“We’ll find an infirmary in Frog Eye—”
“She’ll need blood tests, ointments, potions... Will they have that?”
Kane shook his head, eyes still fixed on Mari’s head supported by Griffin’s hands. “We need a bigger city. Frog Eye is a small smuggling town...”
Griffin shook his head. “Siren’s Cove is sacked. It’s too dangerous. We have to fly for—”
