Page 80 of Of Serpents and Ruins
Kine shot underneath me, twisting onto his back so that I struck the side of his belly and slid the rest of the way down. The wind gusted from my lungs. Flopping onto the stone, I tucked my legs in before my ankles struck the iron table.
Up above, Brandt staggered, the force of the impact leaving him reeling. Hord attacked from the side and forced him back. Paintings and tapestries fell from the walls as he slid to the ground.
I had to get up. My lungs struggled to fill. Frigid stone pressed against my body. Wait, wait. Where were my clothes?
I’d barely registered this when Kine pounced on me. He threw his outer robe over me and then swept me up into his arms. Quick as a serpent, he carried me out of the room as Hord continued to fight, draining Brandt of his strength and driving him to exhaustion.
A protest rose in my throat, but my body ached. I struggled to process everything. The fall, even broken by Kine’s placement, had left me stunned. Worse, I was naked. Well, would have been naked except for Kine’s robe wrapped around me like a blanket.
"I need to fix this," I said hoarsely. "Where are Candy and Elias?"
Four other guards hurried into the chamber. Chaos continued within the throne room, chairs cracking and stones grating. My heart quailed. Brandt. The knot in my throat threatened to choke me.
"Elias got her to the physician. She cracked her skull pretty good and probably broke her arm." Kine set me down in the hallway beside one of the blue-and-white embroidered silk screens and turned to give me privacy.
Rain spattered through the window onto my bare skin. The storm raged outside. These windows were just openings with shutters, so weather was able to penetrate them. My movements were stiff and halting as I pulled Kine’s robe on. The dark-blue material with light-blue and silver accents was a couple of sizes too large for me despite his narrow waist and hips. Thank goodness he wore his clothes looser, or I would have been in trouble.
I hugged the garment tighter around myself. "What happened to my dress?" I asked as I stepped out from behind the screen. My knees trembled as if I had spent hours swimming.
"You probably absorbed and purged it in the transformation," he said. "I don’t think it was protected against shifting like your jewelry."
He pulled up my loose sleeve and crushed a cluster of tart punji berries against my arm. The purple juice ran down my bicep, staining the fabric before I could roll it up high enough.
"Kind of embarrassing," I said, swallowing hard. Heat flared in my cheeks.
"Don’t worry about it, Bug. It happens all the time, especially during shifting. You used to be real good at keeping your clothes intact. I'll bet you get it back in less than a dozen shifts." He tossed the remains of the berries into the little bin beside the screen and the table.
I hesitated, about to ask what the other circumstances when one absorbed clothes were, but the question died. My gaze locked onto the doorway into the throne room.
Kine tugged at my elbow. "Come on. There’s nothing more to see. They’re going to wear him down, and then they’ll take him back to his room to rest and recover."
I hugged myself tighter, shaking my head. "I can’t help him, but I won’t leave him."
It wasn’t the way it had been previously. No magical haze or heavy hum burned within me and rooted me in place. Maybe it plucked at the edges of my mind like a discordant harp, but it had changed again, its presence muted by pain and sorrow. Now, I just had to see him. I had to know he was all right. It wouldn’t hurt anyone for me to stay. The berry masked my scent. The door hid my presence. I had to stay.
Kine relented, his hand still on my arm.
After what felt like hours but was likely only a matter of minutes, they filed out, carrying Brandt on a stretcher. A plain red blanket draped over his body, his chest rising and falling at an achingly slow pace.
My hand flew to my mouth. Tears rose to my eyes. His humanity had returned to him, but he was spent. Exhausted. Turning my face, I wiped away the tears.
My Brandt.
He was ferocious and powerful, but he was not a brute. This curse made him something he wasn’t, and it kept changing in little ways. It was as if someone tweaked it each time it surged into its power. As if the Gola Resh taunted and undermined us, showing that nothing was secure. This curse was fluid, and the Gola Resh was determined to take everything from us she possibly could.
Part of me wanted to ask what more could she take when she was already draining the life from Sepeazia and had set my mateagainst me in such a horrid way, but it didn’t take much for me to realize that she could still make things worse. Much, much worse.
STELLA
The wind and rain howled outside the castle. Thunder shattered the sky. Lightning lit it up to reveal high-peaked storm clouds, their chaos reflecting my thoughts. The elation from shifting had faded. Now, I was left empty and aching as I tried to process what had happened.
"It’s all so strange," I whispered, my voice breaking. My fingers pressed into my arms as I hugged myself. "Each time I see him, it feels a little different. The curse, I mean. It’s like being drunk and drugged and emotionally raw and desperate. I hate it, but I can’t stay away from him."
As the heavy tramp of the guards’ footsteps melted into the silence, I turned to Kine. He looked almost as lost as I felt.
"I know you were trying to get me out of the throne room before everything went insane. I just…I couldn’t move."
"Yeah. I know." Kine pinched the bridge of his nose as he shook his head. For a moment, he seemed far older and wearier than he had in all the time I had known him. "I know. It was strange. Had to be the curse. It was like…it was like you got heavier. Physically. I couldn’t move you." He gestured toward my arm. Purple and green bruises shaped like fingerprints marked my bicep and forearm where he’d tried to drag me away.Even now, I barely felt it. The ache in my lungs and in my heart dominated my focus.
