Page 34 of Veiled Fate
I was floating. Soaring on the wind. Everything was fine.
“Stay with me, Jada,” Kiel said sharply, eyes flicking down to me repeatedly. “Don’t you dare go anywhere.”
“I’m right here,” I said in a moment of lucidity. “Wherever here is.”
“Here is outside the city.” Kiel crouched, putting me on the ground. I hissed at the movement, the pain serving to ground my brain for a few seconds. “Now, you stay right there while I move this boulder.”
“Where would I go?” I asked weakly.
“Good question.”
“What’s the boulder for?” I could hear Kiel’s grunts, followed by the grinding sound of a heavy stone being moved.
“Passageway into the city.”
“These aren’t the gates,” I pointed out intelligently. “Which is good, I guess. I would cause quite the scene at the gates.”
“No gates,” Kiel said, scooping and moving me inside while he closed the entrance. “No need.”
“How did you know about this?”
“Lycaon is old,” he said. “Far older than anyone really realizes. It’s built upon another city. From before the Fate Stones. There are all kinds of hidden ways in and out that nobody knows about. This happens to be one of them. Now, conserve your strength.”
That was no problem at all because when he picked me up to continue our journey, I blacked out again.
When I came around again, I was lying on a bed, staring at a faded painting mounted on the ceiling depicting a landscape I didn’t recognize. The colors were chipped and worn, indicating it had hung there for quite some time.
“Will she make it?”
That was Kiel. He was somewhere off to my right, out of view.
“I don’t know,” another, frailer male voice replied. “I’ve never heard or seen anything like this. She probablyshouldbe dead already from all the blood she lost.”
“How long?”
“She’s very weak,” the person said. “And fading. If I had to guess, a few hours. Half a day at the most, and she’ll slip away, too far gone to return. The wounds have started knitting back together, but it’s too slow. The damage has been done. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”
Silence followed until Kiel entered the room. I turned my head enough to be able to look at him. He forced a smile onto his face, replacing the drawn, heavy look he’d had when he’d entered.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I heard everything.”
“Jada …”
“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I’ll get to see Lanna again. That will be nice.”
He looked down.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “It’s nice toknowI’m going out this time. Instead of just getting run-through unsuspectingly in the middle of a market.”
“I don’t understand,” Kiel said. “Why did your wounds suddenly come apart again? What happened?”
“I don’t know. There wasn’t any notice. It just happened. No warning, nothing,” I said. “It just sort of sprang up on me.”
Kiel cursed under his breath. “I shouldn’t have told you about your heritage. I should have known your mother wouldn’t want that burden on your shoulders. It was too much.”
Reaching out, I laid my right hand on top of his.
“I know I’m supposed to say it’s okay and I forgive you and all that,” I said. “But, Kiel, you need to stoplyingto people. Stop hiding the truth from them. You have totrustpeople. From the start.”
