TBATE: A Hero's Return

Promise Me

ARTHUR LEYWIN

I woke up slowly, my hand groping against the sheets, alarm growing when I found the space next to me empty. I tried to sit up, hissing at the pain in my leg that streaked up all the way to my hip.

Someone touched my arm. "Hey. Everything is okay."

I cracked my eyes open to see Caera leaning over the side of my bed.

The panic I felt only worsened. Why was Caera here? How did she get here? And for that matter, where the hell are we? I looked around, anxiety spiking in my chest, until my eyes fell on Tess, curled up on her side on a small camp bed, looking perfectly peaceful.

I breathed out, collapsing back on the bed below me.

"She's fine," Caera says. "I finally convinced her to get some rest. She was near dead on her feet. She refused at first, of course, but once Seris came back—"

"Seris?" I ask, voice little more than a croak.

Caera winced, lifting a cup with a straw from a table next to the bed. She helped me to sit up enough to not choke as I drank.

"Better?"

I nodded, collapsing back against the bed. Christ, I was weak. But not dead, which is certainly an improvement from what I thought would happen. "Seris?" I repeated.

"Yeah," Caera said with a raised brow. "Do you not remember what happened?"

"No" I said, trying really really hard to follow what's going on, but I was not doing a particularly great job of it. The pain in my head was pounding rather unpleasantly.

She smiled. "Want me to get her?"

I nodded, wincing at the pain that came from the action.

Caera hesitated. "How's the pain?"

"Bearable."

She presses a hand to my shoulder. "It's really great to have you back."

I had no idea how Caera got dragged into this, but I assumed that I probably wouldn't still be alive if she hadn't. "Thank you," I said. "Thanks for ignoring my demand, and coming to save my butt."

She smiled. "Anytime, you freaking masochist. But really, you should be thanking your girlfriend. She was the one who refused to take any of this lying down and got us all to act."

I glared at her. "Tess?" I glanced at Tess once again. "You should have left her out of this." I felt anger flare in my stomach.

Caera laughed. "Left her out of it? She came to find me. Nearly killed me out of rage when she realized I was hiding something."

"What?" he asks, looking over at Tess.

"During talks, she seems quiet and composed. But that day I saw a side of her I never saw before. She can be pretty scary, that girl of yours."

I forced myself to look away from her. "I know."

Caera continued. "You should have seen her. She was ready to drag me to hell and back to get what she wanted, and that was just to avenge your death. Didn't seem to bother her what my current position was or that her actions could have been taken the wrong way politically. Once she knew there was a chance you were alive..." She shook her head, still looking impressed.

Things were hazy, but I remembered that clearly enough. A rather unpleasant memory of Tess staring into the eyes of Dragoth as he got ready to kill her played in my mind. Willing to die to buy me a couple extra seconds for potential backup to come. Backup that she very well knew might not have even been coming.