Chapter 24 The Price of War
Lana's POV
The first body arrived three days after we discovered the spy.
It was brought in on a makeshift stretcher, and even before I saw the face, I could smell the death on it. That peculiar metallic scent of blood long since dried, of wounds that had festered without treatment, of a body pushed far beyond what it could endure.
The healer who brought him was crying silently, tears streaming down her face as she laid him on one of the infirmary cots.
"Thema," she said, though I didn't need the introduction. "He was stationed at the eastern outpost. There was an attack six days ago, during the initial battle. The Council forces pushed far beyond where we expected them to. His unit was isolated, cut off from reinforcement. They fought for hours before…"
She didn't finish. She didn't need to.
I looked at the body on the cot. Thema was...had been..young. Maybe four years older than me, with dark hair and the kind of strong features that suggested he would have been handsome if death hadn't stolen that possibility from him.
His body was ravaged by wounds; deep gashes that had been hastily bandaged with cloth that had long since soaked through with blood, burns on his arms from some kind of magical attack, and a wound in his side that had definitely become infected.
"Where is his family?" I asked, my voice sounding strange to my own ears. Distant.
"His family is here," the healer said. "They arrived with him. They wanted him brought to the castle so you could try to…" She trailed off, looking at Kael's body. "They thought if anyone could save him, it would be you."
I swallowed hard. "When did he die?"
"Two hours ago. The journey from the outpost was long, and his wounds were too severe. We did what we could, but…"
But I hadn't been there. I had been training with Nyx, learning to heal, learning to use my power in new ways while soldiers died helplessly at their outpost.
"Get his family," I said, my hands already moving toward him. "Let them say goodbye."
I spent the next hour trying. I placed my hands over the worst of his wounds, the ones that had clearly killed him.
I reached deep into my power, searching for that warm, gentle healing magic that had served me so well with the wolf and the other wounded. I tried to mend the infections, to close the gaping wounds, to will his body back to life.
Nothing happened.
His heart was silent. His consciousness was gone. His body was simply matter now, and no amount of power could convince it to be anything else.
When Thema's mother entered the infirmary, she took one look at my face and collapsed. She knew before I said anything. She knew that her son was gone.
I was still trying when she fell to her knees beside the cot. I was still trying when she began to wail. I was still trying when Kian arrived and gently pulled me away from the body.
"He's gone," Kian said softly against my hair. "You can't bring him back."
"I can heal," I said, and my voice was breaking. "I can heal. I healed that wolf. I healed the others in the infirmary. Why can't I heal him? Why can't I bring him back?"
"Because death is not an injury," Kian said, holding me as my entire body shook with grief. "Because some things, even Eclipse Wolves cannot fix."
I wanted to argue. I wanted to insist that if I were just strong enough, clever enough, powerful enough, I could do it. But I could feel the truth in his words, could feel the immutable reality of what death meant.
Thema's mother wept beside the body, her hands clutching his, and I felt something inside me break along with her sobs.
Over the next three days, fifteen more bodies arrived from the battle that had taken place a week ago. Fifteen more warriors who had been injured far from the castle, treated as best as the field healers could manage, and then brought to the castle in hopes that I could save them.
Fifteen more failures.
I healed eight of them. Eight warriors who were still critically injured but alive, whose wounds I could stitch back together, whose infections I could fight. But seven of them had deteriorated too far. Seven of them died despite my efforts, despite the power that flowed through my hands, despite everything I tried.
Each death felt like a personal failure. Each warrior who I couldn't save was another person who had died because I wasn't good enough, wasn't powerful enough, couldn't do what I'd told myself I could do.
"This is not your fault," Kian said on the fourth night, holding me as I sobbed into his chest. We were in his chambers, away from the infirmary, away from the dying, away from the endless weight of responsibility. "Lana, listen to me. This is not your fault."
"Eight people have died," I said, and the words came out broken. "Eight people died, and I could have saved them if I'd been better. If I'd trained harder, if I'd learned faster, if I'd been at the outpost instead of in the castle…"
"If you'd been at the outpost, you would have died," Kian said firmly. "You can't fight. You can't survive in combat the way trained warriors can. You would have been killed, and then eight more people would have died anyway because they wouldn't have had a healer at all."
I knew he was right. I knew that logically, my presence at a battle wouldn't have changed the outcome. But knowing something logically and feeling it emotionally were two very different things.
"I've lost warriors before," Kian continued, his voice steady and calm. "I've held their bodies while their families wept. I've had to explain to mothers and mates and children why their loved ones wouldn't be coming home. And every single time, I've had to accept that sometimes, despite everything we do, despite everything we want, people die. That's the cost of war."
"I don't want to pay that cost," I whispered.
"I know," he said, and I heard the deep sadness in his voice. "Neither do I. But the Council declared war on us the moment they decided you needed to die. And in war, there are costs."
He held me as I cried myself to exhaustion, his presence a solid anchor in the storm of my grief. And when I finally fell asleep, it was to the sound of his heartbeat and the knowledge that I would never be able to save everyone, no matter how powerful I became.
Some things, I was learning, even power couldn't fix.