She took off, racing toward a man with the side of his face burned away. Lowri appeared frozen on the stairs, taking in the horror with wide, terrified eyes. I shouted for her to fetch a bucket of water. She spun toward the door and disappeared.
Some of the men didn’t seem to have sustained too much damage. I bypassed them in favor of a man leading another with a crude bandage wrapped in a torniquet around his thigh. “Set him down here,” I told the man holding him upright. Once the wounded soldier had been laid onto the sun-warmed stones, Lowri appeared, shoving a towel beneath his head.
Untying the bandage could bring about more bleeding, but since the blood appeared to be dry, I assumed the wound had clotted. “I need to get to his leg.”
The man withdrew a dagger from his belt, cutting the breeches away, revealing deep purple bruises extending from beneath the bandages. I pressed my hands to the exposed skin, closed my eyes, and tried to focus on sending my magic, but there was too much noise and mayhem.
The air reeked of blood and what if I couldn’t save him and—
I could do this.
Iwoulddo this.
After three deep breaths, heat collected in my chest, streaming down my arms toward my hands and passing into the man’s leg. It felt as though I was throwing it into a void, filling the emptiness with all I had, and yet it wasn’t working. I gave more and more, sweat collecting on my brow. I felt the man’s need begin to wane. When I opened my eyes, the color had returned to his face.
“He should be all right,” I assured his friend before standing on wobbly legs and moving on to the next soldier, a man who looked as if someone had hacked at his shoulder with a saw. Before I closed my eyes, I saw a figure in all black sprinting down the stairs, heading for the heart of the mele.
Prince Caiman vanished into the crowd while Lord Kerrington stood on the bottom step, his face an unhealthy shade of green.I forced them both from my mind, closing my eyes and reaching for my magic, hating how thin it felt as I pushed it toward the wounded soldier. Once he’d been healed, I went to the next man. And the next, and the next, Lowri at my side, offering assistance where she could.
“Milady, please,” a man begged, waving frantically at me from where he knelt by a soldier with pain-glazed eyes. “Please help ‘im. He’s my best mate. Please.”
My knees cracked against the cobblestones when I fell to his side, sending pain shooting through my legs. “Where was he struck?”
The man tugged up his friend’s shirt, revealing purple and blue bruises across his abdomen. Lowri gasped, clutching her throat. “What happened to him?”
“Cannon fire, milady.”
“Cannon fire? Where?” I hadn’t heard any cannon fire, and my fae ears could hear better than most.
“In Southbay.”
The world suddenly tilted on its side, forcing me to clutch the ground to keep from falling into a chasm of utter hopelessness.
Alrec had gone to Southbay. What if he was here? I had to check. I had to find him. When I went to stand, the man caught my hand, his own fingers bandaged and bloody. “Please, milady. Please don’t leave ‘im.”
One more. One more man, then I’d search for my prince.
As with the others, I closed my eyes, directed my healing magic, waited and . . .
Blocked.
I tried and tried and tried, but nothing I did made a difference. The man was dying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
That isn’t true.
I could give my immortal life in exchange for his.The man’s friend looked at me with such hope. Hope I was about to steal away. “I’m . . . I’m so sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”
The soldier’s eyes filled with tears. His head started to shake. “No . . . No . . .” He took his friend’s hand, murmuring words of quiet reassurance.
“Stay with him,” I told Lowri, her eyes as watery as my own. “Make him comfortable.”
When I stood, my spinning head left me stumbling until an arm snaked around my waist, keeping me from collapsing. The rich scent of sage and bergamot teased my senses. I knew who held me without having to turn.
“I tried to save him.” My voice trembled as I listened to the dying man’s last rattling breaths with tears streaming down my cheeks. “I tried, but he was . . .”
“It’s not your fault,” Caiman said. “You need rest.”
How could I rest when there were still at least thirty men who needed tending? The physician I’d met in the king’s suite was there, and my mother darted from one man to the next, healing what appeared to be the worst cases. If I were stronger, perhaps I could’ve saved him.