Page 73 of Heir Of Sun And Moon
“What does your magic do?” he asks warily, bringing us to a halt. “Put it away!”
I thrust a luminescent hand into his eyes, hoping the light blinds him in the near darkness. He releases me immediately, screaming in terror as his hands rub his eyes. I waste no time turning around and hobbling in the direction where I last saw Flynn, trying to find that small bit of silver light to guide my way. My steps are filled with pain, my body beginning to fail after using up all of its adrenaline. I slow my steps down, each thud of my boots causing an all-consuming acidic fire to radiate from each wound throughout my entire body. I stop to breathe through the pain, my chest heaving as I push away sweaty strands of hair from my face. The forest is now silent. There is no clashing of swords or shuffling of leaves under feet. There are no harsh breaths or whimpers of pain except for my own. I’m alone, Flynn and Bella nowhere to be seen.
I force myself to keep moving, but I’ve lost all sense of direction. My shaky hand reaches up to the arrow sticking out from my shoulder, my muscles flaring in pain from the movement. It entered from the back, and I gasp as I feel the tip of it just underneath the skin near my collarbone. A noise comes from my left—where I ran from the guard that tried to take me. Panic threatens to immobilize me, but I cross through the small clearing of trees to the other side and drop to my hands and knees behind a large trunk. The sound of leaves being stepped on echoes loudly throughout the forest.Crinkle.Pause. Crinkle.Pause.Like the ticking of a death clock, I hear whoever it is come closer and closer. My body is moving faster than my brain, and when I lean up against the tree, I’m quickly reminded of the trauma to my back. White hot pain sears my shoulder and arm as a renewed trickle of warm blood flows down to my fingers. I try to force air into my lungs, but the agony is too much. There’s a pounding in my head and ears as I collapse onto my side, one hand gripping the earth in front of me. Blackness creeps into my vision, like one of the swirling galaxies from the Middle, and slowly begins to consume it.
A pair of black boots stepping before me is the last thing I see before darkness descends.
The scent of the forest wraps around me as my body is faintly jostled from side to side. My limbs feel heavy as they just hang there unusable. I try to move an arm, but I’m met with a fiery ache in my shoulder that halts my attempt.
A small whimper leaves me as more and more pain starts to filter into my consciousness. It radiates from my shoulder and my thigh until I’m gritting my teeth and hissing out breaths between them. Memories start flooding back into me: the ambush of guards, Flynn and Bella missing, footsteps nearing as I…Oh gods.What if I’m being carried back to the king? My fingers start to tingle, the sensation working its way up my arms and to my shoulders before draping back down my body like a warm ray of the sun—reminiscent of the mind cleanser exercises Alexi taught me. Just his name in my thoughts chills some of that warmth, thatotherfeeling twisting inside of me like a snake poising to strike.
“Rhea, are you awake? Open your eyes.”
Flynn. My panic immediately calms, the warm richness of his voice soothing my fear. It takes all of my effort to force my eyelids to open, to obey his simple command. When they do, it’s too blurry to make anything out. This continues on for another few moments as I try to clear out what feels like a haze surrounding me. Finally, my eyes adjust, and even in the inky darkness, they find his. They always do.
“There you are, Sunshine. Stars above, I’ve been so worried about you,” he rasps. My head is leaning on his chest, his arms holding me remarkably stable as he steps over jagged roots and pointed rocks on the forest floor. I turn to lean my head further into him, to bury myself into the safety of his hold, as his scent—that autumnal changing-of-the-leaves scent that is just so uniquely him—invades my lungs. “We need to get these arrows out of you. There’s a small stream up ahead that should muffle—” He interrupts himself, breathing in deeply before continuing, “It should muffle the sounds when I pull them out.”
My screams. He’s talking about my screams of pain when he removes the arrows. I tilt my head away from his chest to look up at him. I can only make out the cut of his strong jaw and those incredible cheekbones. If I had to guess, I’d wager a few strands of his wavy hair are hanging over his forehead. Even in the shadowed darkness that surrounds us and through the waves of pain that keep hitting me, I am still so drawn to him. Like a moth to a flame, all I can see—all I can think about—is the mortal guard who risked everything to save me. Words fueled by the overwhelming emotions winding inside of me stack one on top of the other in my mouth, trying to break past my lips, but I swallow them down and instead focus on our surroundings. My eyes adjust to the dark, noticing how it all looks the same as it did when we entered the forest: trees for miles. I look down and see Bella walking a few feet ahead of us.
“How long was I out for?” I ask, trying to hold my head up but failing to do so for more than a few breaths.
“I don’t know exactly. Maybe an hour.”
My head swings back to him, trying to see his eyes but failing. “Have you been carrying me this whole time?”
“Yes,” he says quietly before leaping over something sticking out of the ground. I barely move in the process, his bicep muscles bulging with the effort.
“I can walk. You must be exhausted from holding me.” I move to wiggle out of his grip and let out a yelp of pain which only causes Flynn to lift me farther up his chest, his arms tightening as if he believes I possess the strength to actually get away right now.
“Do I appear weak to you, Sunshine?” he teases. But there’s a tension there too, his words marginally more clipped than how they would normally sound. It hits me then that I can decipher his voice and cadence, even in just our few short months together. I feel like I don’t know very manythingsabout him but I have a decent grasp onwhohe is.
“What? No,” I answer honestly. “Your body is built like you could carry ten of me, but it doesn’t mean that you should have to.Orthat it doesn’t get tiresome.”
“Hmm, tell me what else you’ve noticed about my body,” he says, his voice low in a way that makes me feel very inappropriate things at a very inappropriate time. As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Flynn chuckles before giving me a chaste kiss on my forehead.Thisis what is actually appropriate at this moment, but I wish someone would tell that to my body. Flynn grumbles out a “finally,” and I’m confused at first until I start to hear the gentle trickling of water. We must be nearing the stream.
“Are you okay?” I ask tentatively. I want to touch his face but my good arm is pinned to his chest by the way he is holding me and my other arm is left immobile by the arrow.
“I will be. The sooner we get these arrows out of you, the faster and farther away we can get from the king.” His fingers flex tightly where he’s holding me, his anger and frustration palpable as we clear a few large rocks and start to descend down to the water. The closer we get to the stream, the colder I begin to feel—like the cool air off the water is poking holes in the warm humidity around us. At least, I hope it’s the water that’s causing an icy shiver to wrack my body. The trees begin to thin out as Flynn follows Bella’s guidance. She leads us along the bank of a stream until a small piece of flat land comes into view, just below the bank and near the water. Flynn descends the bank swiftly, carefully. “When I lay you down, do you think that you can call your magic up to the surface so we have some more light?” he asks, his voice now more raw than it was a minute ago.
“Yes.” My magic hums in answer as well. Through the larger gaps in the canopy, I can see the glittering moon—its presence welcoming.
Flynn gets down on one knee and gently lays me on the ground on my good side, moving a few leaves away so they aren’t completely surrounding my face. I lay my head on the ground as I extend my arm out in front of me, palm up. I suppose that if there is an upside to being shot by two arrows, it’s that they hit on the same side of my body. Bella lays down where I can see her, providing silent support as I prepare myself mentally for what’s coming. I focus on calling my magic to my palm, trying to angle it awkwardly towards where Flynn is kneeling in front of me. It moves more slowly than the last time I tried, and I wonder if it’s because of how injured I am. My magic has healed me while I’ve slept and fought to get free when I’ve been in danger, and it has heeded my calls, to either use or suppress it, every time I’ve tried. To feel it move so sluggishly causes a tightness in my throat. I may not understand how I have magic or why, but I’ve become used to the way it feels, the way its presence is almost separate from my own and alwaysthere.
When the mellow white glow finally illuminates our space, Flynn carefully begins to peel back the torn pieces of my trousers surrounding where the arrow sticks out. He curses soundly under his breath, and were this any other time, I might actually laugh. But the concerned look on his face has me working to swallow my fear.
“What’s wrong?” My voice comes out shaky and uneven as the terror I’m repressing finds its way into my voice.
“Did you summon your magic to heal your wounds?” he asks while I lay my hand down on the ground.
I shake my head in response before saying, “I don’t think so anyway.”
He eyes me for another moment before dropping his gaze back down to my leg, a crease forming between his brows. “I’ve never—” He pauses, clearing his throat and running a hand through his hair. “We’re going to have to re-injure you as we pull the arrows out.” His voice is so gravelly that it sounds like it has been dragged over shards of rock. He adds more tenderly, “It’s going to fucking hurt.”
“It’s okay,” I murmur, holding his gaze. “I’m used to pain. I can handle it.” His body goes completely still, like he has suddenly become made of stone. I survey him in confusion. “Flynn? What’s wrong?”
“I will kill him, Rhea. I promise you.” His dark eyes dance with rage as he looks just beyond me at the water.
To anyone else, he would be downright terrifying right now, and maybe even a month ago, I might have shrunk backwards at the way his body is radiating such lethal anger. But I know Flynn won’t hurt me. I know his rage for the king isn’t misplaced. And while I hate to admit that I have a tight feeling in my chest at the thought of him murderinganybody, I’m not naive enough anymore to assume there is a place far enough away from the king that he will stop looking for me. His death may be the only way I stay free, and I don’t know why that thought makes me sick to my stomach. There’s also the not-so-small detail that King Dolian knows I have magic now, and based on his obvious hatred for mages, I don’t know if that affects his plans for me. I know that I’ll never go back there willingly. He’ll have to drag me back while I’m either unconscious or dead.
