Gods & Thieves ✔

36. Alone and Broken

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With Maricela's departure, silence reigns over the roof.

Perfect silence.

And I'm only shaking harder. Panic spreads like heat through my body, my throat cramping, my thoughts rushing somewhere, but my head is empty.

I think I'm going to have a meltdown. Loretto's shirt, pants, arms, tangled hair...my knees and a whole puddle glistening on the roof under the rising moon are all blood. I'm sitting in the middle of this blood, Tayen in my arms. Fae lies motionless, limp, barely breathing.

Please, just breathe.

I'm trying to conquer my panting, trying to figure out what to do, but so far, the best thing that comes to my mind is to bang my forehead against the roof and knock myself unconscious, too, so that I don't have to see all this. You can't. Think. Think, because now there is no one else. Think, otherwise Loretto will stop breathing soon.

Only if I could think, we wouldn't even have climbed on this roof! Nothing would have happened to Loretto if it hadn't been for me...

It was naive to believe that the Empress could not teleport in a city where she herself set a spell forbidding everyone else to teleport; of course, she had a loophole. But we don't have it, I tried it once, and it's like knocking on a closed door. And without teleportation, I will not drag Tayen's body alone, much less pull faer off the roof. I don't want to think--I want to scream from helplessness!

Abandon Mentor and rush asking for help? Where, ask who? Which of Maricela's subjects will help, and not finish faer? And if I don't get back in time, that would mean that I left Mentor to die?..

And I'm still not good at aura. If I hadn't been shaking, I might have been able to relax a little and finally summon it, but I just learned how to lift stupid books into the air. I have no idea how to heal wounds with sorcery, and experimenting is like signing a death sentence. If I knocked down a door with one wrong rune once, who says I won't make it worse now? I always make it worse.

But I can't give up, either.

Still lost, I begin to turn Loretto in my hands, careful so as not to touch the dagger sticking out of faer shoulder. I hope that thoughts will appear if I hug Loretto tighter, if I try to lift...

"Don't touch it," Tayen suddenly whispers as I reach for faer torn hand.

With a new painful groan, Loretto opens faer eyes, which scares and pleases me at the same time. Either returning to faer senses again or by some magic unknown to me, without completely losing it, Loretto pushes away from my chest and with difficulty, slowly, on the third attempt, but sits up straight. Fae looks around the empty roof. Looks at me. And then down at the blade stuck under faer collarbone.

"Just don't..."

Loretto pulls it out. Blood spills out in a wave, Tayen cries out, but, throwing the weapon aside, immediately presses faer hand over the wound.

"Bring me my robe," fae says.

My breath catches at the sight of a bloody mess of the torn shirts, skin and flesh, and I have no idea where Loretto still manages to find the strength in faerself. But this is not the time to ask. Jumping up, I run, almost slipping, to the other end of the roof, where my mentor left faer azure robe before practicing fencing with me, and hurry back.

Without worrying about the luxurious fabric, Loretto wraps the robe around faer shoulder and tightens it on the wound.

"Now give me your hand, I have to stand up," faer says, wheezing.