Page 45 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
“We gotta help him,” he muttered, unsure why he’d said it, or why he believed it. The man deserved to die a thousand times over. The Cerls hated them; had it been Niels under that beam, the King would have almost definitely left him to his fate.
But Niels was not a Cerl. He was a man of the Nardens, and he wouldn’t leave someone to die if there was a chance he could save them, no matter who they might be.
Hallie didn’t speak. He inched himself closer, breathing carefully through the pain. Hallie might’ve been the one who’d let the errant bullet loose, but the only one Niels could truly blame was himself. He knew better than to toss a pistol like that.
In the heat of the moment, all he’d thought to do was keep firing, and worry about the consequences later.
He hadn’t thought a half-functioning leg would be the consequence.
Still quite a sight better than the Cerl King’s situation. At least the bullet had only gone in one leg.
“If we can get this beam off…” Niels pulled his hand back. He couldn’t see any blood pooling underneath the body, but it could be hidden by the rubble. He chose to take that as a good sign. “If we can lift this, we might be able to…might be able to…”
Might be able to what? Even if Filip lived, his legs had been crushed to smithereens; he might never walk again. Niels and Hallie weren’t medics, and they were stuck stars-knew-where without any way of getting help.
He looked back at Hallie, who stood, staring at the King with fear in her eyes—fear and something else, something dark as the yawning mouth of a mineshaft. She opened and closed her mouth, but no sound emerged.
Nerves chattered his teeth. “Hallie…”
“No,” Hallie finally managed to croak out. “You were right; we need to run. He’s good as gone, and Fely’s injured. It won’t be easy for her to follow us, and even if she does, she’ll stop to help him. This is our chance.” She inspected the surroundings. “I think we’re in the old ruins, so we only need to hike the mountain to the city. It’ll be slow going with your leg, but we can make it.”
Niels blinked at her. He wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “But he’s still alive.”
Hallie shook her head. “Not for long. I know it sounds bad, but…”
His mouth dropped a little at the shock of her callousness. “I’m only up and walking because he helped you heal me.”
“He only did that because he needs something from me.”
“He already had you. He coulda let me die, and he didn’t. I ain’t paying that back like this!”
He grabbed his pack and looked for anything he thought could help, but he knew it was worthless. Nothing in his pack would fix crushed bone.
Hallie’s pallor contrasted heavily with the freckles across her nose and cheeks. “He allowed Correa to torture me and Kase.”
When she put it that way…maybe Niels was being too kind. But that didn’t sound like the Hallie he knew. What had happened to the Hallie who wept when his family’s lamb had died after breaking its leg too badly to be fixed? What had happened to the Hallie who’d cried over a book with a cracked spine like most folk wept at funerals? What had happened to the Hallie who’d—
“Niels,” she snapped, interrupting his worries. “What are you waiting for?”
He chewed on the edge of his tongue and looked back at the King.
Correa had tortured her, not the King. The King might have ordered Niels’ family killed, but he hadn’t done the deed.
There were always consequences, intended and not, when you had that much power. If the Cerl King had been looking in his family’s faces when he’d ordered them killed, would he have still given the order? A faceless enemy was much easier to harm, to hate, than one you had to look in the eye.
A scream came from the corridor they’d just exited. Fely had caught up quick enough after all; she stumbled forward, face bloodless and pale as a new star. “Heal him! Heal him now!”
Hallie moved out of the way just as Fely fell on her knees at the Cerl King’s head. “I can’t. I don’t…I failed earlier. I don’t have the right—”
“Use this!” She thrust her locket into Hallie’s hands. “He can’t die, he can’t, he…he can’t. Heal him.”
Hallie simply shook her head this time.
“Without him, wealldie, do you understand?” Fely looked up, angry now, cheeks wet with tears. “Do it!”
Hallie clutched the locket in her fist. Niels put his fingers to the King’s wrist again. His vision swam; the pain in his head increased with each passing second. He blinked away the darkness at the edge of his vision. He couldn’t succumb to the migraine now. He had to fight it. Blasted Fogs.
The pulse beneath his fingers was erratic, weaker than before. He was no medic, but he guessed they only had minutes, if that. “Hurry, Hal.”
