Chapter 71 The First Battle pt2
I see Whist and Shivvers, Bane and Felonious, even Steel on his own mount. But more than that, the wild alicorns are here. The brilliant colors of the animals we should have bonded flash with sweat and light as they herd the crazed ones away from us.
I watch as Zaries mounts a silvery white stallion and begins calming the others. Oberon swings up on the back of a blue roan, smiling victoriously as the beast immediately shows him trust and takes his lead.
I scan the crowd of men and beasts in disbelief, turning when one presses his soft mouth to my shoulder from behind. It was the black beast who scared me as he flew in. His silver mane cascades over my face as he strokes my cheek with his horn. Warm and full of light, healing magic courses through me. I lift my hands and cup his huge head against my own, tears of gratitude and relief pouring down my face.
“That one just broke up the fight above with the rest of his stallions for you,” Whist says as she slides off Shivvers’ back and runs to me. She has a bright red streak marring the side of her face, but she seems otherwise unharmed. She cradles the back of my hand and holds her other above my mouth. Cooling water drips off her fingers and onto my lips. “He led his whole herd down here, chased off Silas, and dove down here head first.”
“It’s almost as if he already knew you,” Steel says with a cocked brow from atop his steed. “I wonder when you could have possibly met a wild alicorn?” His obvious sarcasm is thick, but there’s a slight smile on his serious face. He knows it must have been the night I assaulted him in his bed.
I blink back tears, one hand on the alicorn and one on Whist’s wrist.
“Shouldn’t you be with Alric?” I ask her.
Whist’s face falls, despair clouding her delicate features. “He’s been taken to the healers. The damage from Malachi’s flames is too much for the alicorns to heal.”
“No…” I whisper, my voice cracking in disbelief. “Sylvain! Where’s Sylvain?”
Using the alicorn’s silver mane, I haul myself up before I’m fully healed. My stallion presses against me, holding me up, his wing circling me protectively.
She lives. Look where the alicorn she felled lies.
My gaze finds her immediately. She's kneeling over the ash pile, her hands deep into the animal’s remains as she sobs. One of the crazed beasts is lying beside her, head in her lap, healing her.
My stallion helps me walk over to her and sit beside her. I wrap my arms around my friend, letting her sob, her ash-covered hands clinging to me and the dappled gray alicorn that claimed her.
“This was her mother!” Sylvain wails, her tears, and snot wetting my neck and shoulder.
“What? How do you know?”
“It never attacked anyone, it laid next to her and grieved,” she sniffles, turning away from me and laying her body over the head of the trembling alicorn. “I think she knows I didn’t want to hurt her mommy. I think she knows…”
I look around, realizing the first battle has finished.
Yet taken a toll I’m yet to understand.
White, scratchy sheets pillow my head as I stare blindly at the healer's walls. Alric’s bandaged hand is in mine, my tears soaking the sheets and bandages. The day has come and gone and Alric hasn’t awoken. His entire body is bandaged from burns, only his eye and lipless mouth visible.
“Please wake up, please,” I whisper for the millionth time.
The fortress is in turmoil, messages and men sent to Stormcoast to retrieve Thorne, but through all the madness I’ve known only sad determination. Healers of all sorts have come and gone, trying to heal Alric, but whatever fire power Malachi learned is resisting everything.
My friend is going to die.
The only one who knows anything about me, about where I came from.
“Alric, please… Please fight this,” I beg.
“Miss, you should really go rest,” a woman in white says. “Get cleaned up. He’s not going anywhere.”
I grip the severed unicorn horn and look up at her menacingly. “The only way I’m leaving his side is with the bodies of healers in my wake for failing him, do you understand?”
The wide-eyed woman nods and backs away slowly.
“Don’t…kill…innocents…”
My head whips toward Alric, finding his one remaining eye pooling with tears.
“Alric, you're awake!” I cry, holding his injured hand up to my mouth to kiss it gently.
“So much… there's so much I needed to…tell you…” His hand flexes in mine and he groans in pain.
“It’s okay. We have time now. You’re going to be alright.”
“No…I…” Alric moves his head from side to side, his eye wide with fear. “I failed you, Anara. I was supposed to protect all of you. It was my job, my one job…”
“What are you talking about?” I whisper.
“She was supposed to stay with me… supposed to stay safe… miracle, you were…a miracle… I swore to her sister I would find you…but even she…she didn't see you for who you were…”
“Sister? I have an aunt? Who is she?” I lean in closer as Alric’s breathing becomes gurgled. Blood slowly leaks from the corner of his mouth and I sob as I whip it away. “Alric, please fight! Please hold on! I need you!”
“You…are…more…” he whispers, voice fading.
“More? Alric, what do you mean?”
His one good eye rolls in his skull before it falls on me. It’s wide, too wide, the lids peeled back almost all the way as he squeezes my hand.
“Run, Ana… you…must… live…run, run away…and live…” He sucks in a choked, painful breath, mouth stretching in silent agony. “Not…safe…here…”
His back arches, his body buckling in pain, and he lets out one long shrill scream before he falls still on the cot.
“Alric? Oh gods above, Alric!” I scream. “Help! Somebody help him, please!”
Strong hands grip me and pull me away, mages and healers gather around him chanting, but by their faces, I know it’s too late.
“He’s gone, deary,” Maggie says gently.
I turn into her familiar embrace and fall apart.