Page 82 of The Courting of Bristol Keats
“That was some catch you made,” Quin said. “I don’t think any magic could have acted faster.”
“He was motivated,” Glennis added with a hint of insinuation.
“Though gloves might have been helpful,” Esmee complained. “I’m a physician, you know? Not a god. You could have lost those fingers.”
Dalagorn grumbled under his breath. “Damn fool.”
“You saw too?” Tyghan asked.
“Everyone saw,” Kasta answered, shooting him a warning glance.
“We were hanging back,” Glennis explained, “waiting for Cosette to make her move.”
All of them watching. Did they see the terror in his face? What was it Braegor said? A young buck stuck between trees? He certainly wasn’t the picture of the hardened Knight Commander they expected.
“Almost done,” Esmee said as she wove the skin on his palm back together. She did it faster than Tyghan could have done it himself, and healing your own wounds was never recommended. Scattered concentration, especially with bad injuries, could result in unfortunate outcomes.
Finished with the weaving, she examined his leg next, probing the slash for hyagen claws. When he winced, Esmee applied more of her soothing balm.
Unlike Madame Chastain, she had a distaste for pain. While she wrapped his wounds with bandages, Tyghan surveyed the carnage around them.
“Do you think Liam was the herald for the attack?” Glennis asked.
Tyghan remembered Liam’s last tormented words.I’m sorry.
It was every knight’s worst fear, being used by the enemy to spy on your own, kept from death in a limbo world, every part of your humanity stripped from you but your consciousness. That’s what the claws did, their poisonalmostkilling you, leaching flesh and bone into a nether existence until you were truly only a shadow of who you once were.
Quin nodded confirmation. “The timing wasn’t coincidence.”
None of them blamed the young knight. He couldn’t control where the shadow took him or what it saw, but whatever was witnessed was relayed back to Kormick, and the Fomorian king didn’t like what he saw—the intense training of hundreds of knights at the garrison.
“He thinks you’re going to challenge him at the Choosing Ceremony,” Quin said.
“And he will,” Kasta replied. “He has to.”
Glennis cringed. “But what if we don’t have Cael back by then?”
“We’ll have to see how things play out,” Tyghan said, not committing to a course of action. He already knew that anyone was expendable to keep Kormick from ruling Elphame. Including Cael. But letting him die would also serve a demoralizing blow to all the kingdoms. If even the most powerful Elphame nation was at Kormick’s mercy, what chance did any of them have?
The knights exchanged tense glances, knowing a decision regarding Cael would have to be made soon.
Esmee broke the tension as she continued to wrap Tyghan’s thigh. “Rose is a scrappy little thing, isn’t she? Olivia took her to the treatment chambers. Her neck wasn’t badly hurt, but it appears she tore a ligament in her shoulder and cracked her scapula, and with her being an avian shape-shifter, we have to treat her bird bones carefully or she’ll never fly again. I’m certain Olivia will do a fine job of it.”
Tyghan wondered if Bristol had injuries other than her bruised neck. Did she break anything? He didn’t know what else Braegor might have done to her before he got there. What if—
“There you go.” Esmee admired her work and patted Tyghan’s arm. “Done.”
He eyed the excessively large bandage on his hand.
“Fingers are a tricky lot to heal,” Esmee explained. “And you managed to nick tendons. Leave the bandage on a bit longer than usual—at least until morning.”
“He will,” Kasta answered.
Tyghan noted Melizan and Cosette lingering on the periphery of his officers and as soon as Esmee stepped away to treat other injuries, they moved in.
“Looks like your troublemaker’s going to be all right,” Melizan said.
Tyghan nodded. “I think so.”
