Page 38 of Light Locked
Ryson collapsed against a tree after several hours of rushed traveling. He tilted his head back. Clea stayed standing. There were no other sounds but his breathing, and the implications of the silence were eerie.
Clea was right in her statement about the village. It was supposed to be safe. Ryson knew that at any moment a stronger beast could come, overrule his influence, and risk turning the whole forest against them. It almost happened tonight, but why? Why the one night they’d been separated?
You know the answer,he thought, imagining his cien would say the same thing.
Saying that the Deadlock Medallion wasn’t just acting on cien-based instincts was a bold statement to make, with much bolder implications. He didn’t have enough evidence yet of its intelligence, and jumping to conclusions had its own dangers.
He returned his attention to Clea.
She stood in front of him for a while, kneeling with a vacant expression on her face. She extended her hands toward his, which gripped his bleeding shoulder like a guard. She pried one finger off the injury after another. He pushed her hand away at first, until he noticed she was attempting to hold back tears. Her face was blank, but she swallowed hard, as if she were struggling to keep her composure.
His wound was a distraction for her.
Watching her face, he let her pull his hand away from his shoulder.
Focused and silent, she inspected the injury and pried away the bandages. Ryson watched her as she worked, trying to find some sort of emotion in her eyes, trying to read her face. He didn’t want her to tend to his injury, but he felt compelled to stay still. The smallest word seemed capable of shattering her like glass; she was suddenly as fragile as the silence aroundthem.
He titled his head back against the tree, removing his focus from the uncomfortable experience of being treated as she peeled back the bloodied layers of cloth. The gentle nature of her hands enthralled him. He tried with difficulty to escape into his thoughts. He distracted himself with the details of their next route, but just as he would drift into some organized avenue of thought, the brush of her fingers would jerk him back into the present.
He was accustomed to pain. It was as much a part of him as his own flesh, but the tenderness and affection of her fingers was alien. His eyes widened when he felt a deep heat sink into his shoulder. He snatched her hands, but it was too late. A pleasurable pulse rushed through his entire body and he heaved forward.
“Don’t,” he gasped. His eyes slammed shut as a surge of lightheadedness severed his focus.
He was such a fool! She wouldn’t just bandage his wounds. She would heal him! She was a Veilin!A Veilin!he repeated as the feeling began to fade. Her healing would temporarily expel cien from his body.
He felt the cien sink back into his muscles, pulling him down like a weight. He knew they didn’t sell Veilin in the Dark Market for sport, but now he understood the trade. The cien-expelling property of their touch was addictive. For him, a being without a soul to absorb more cien, the expulsion could be deadly.
He eased his grip on her hands, not realizing how tightly he’dbeen holding them.
“I’ll be fine,” he whispered hoarsely, leaning back. His cien had returned, but he hadn’t forgotten the feeling of being free from it for that single second.
Clea was biting her lip, and he knew that she thought she’d hurt him. Her mouth pursed, and her eyes fought to blink away tears. As he held her hands, she leaned over. Her chest heaved with a sob as she choked, “I’m sorry.” She started to cry.
She held his hand captive between hers, and for a while Ryson did nothing but watch her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen someone cry so much.
He considered prying her hands off his, but something inside him seemed to advise against it. He scanned the clearing for some kind of solution, and a fruitless search guided his eyes back to Clea. Still crying.
He scrambled through his memories for a solution, Clea’s crying driving him closer to panic the longer it persisted. For the first time in a long time, he wasn’t quite sure what to do.
He tried to recall a time he’d seen someone soothe something.
He lifted his free hand but withdrew it before he touched her head. No. Not right.
He reached a hand to her shoulder, but stopped again, unsure of where to put it.
He remembered then how Clea had acted during the day. In healing her patients, she’d pulled them close, holding them toher body, giving more than just the light of her hands.
Slipping his good arm beneath Clea’s legs, he hoisted her up, gathering her in his arms as she rested her head against his chest.
His wounded arm throbbed, but he ignored the pain, waiting in tense anticipation for her crying to cease. It didn’t. He suppressed a frustrated groan as he propped his head back against the tree. Now she was on top of him, and he doubted he could roll her off without upsetting her more.
He went through a series of phases from wondering how someone could cry so much, to why it was taking her so long to accept what had happened. His thoughts brought him back to dusty old memories he hadn’t visited in years. They were fleeting inklings of people and places he could no longer name, with details he couldn’t recall. They passed through his mind like a breeze, carrying nothing but melancholic nostalgia. It was a feeling he felt only long enough to remind him that years ago, in some other place, he’d been different.
He’d been human.
After a while, Clea’s crying did stop, but it no longer seemed to matter.
He held her huddled form in his arms, her warmth now a burning reminder of a mortal past he couldn’t recall.
