The Amulet Of Nicmir (The Scripts Of Neptune, Book 1)

Chapter 46

The nightmares were back.

Every night. Every time Crynia closed her eyes. They started out painful, with Sarin's soft smile, a few quiet words spoken between them, a kiss that left her wanting more, and blood as his wounds became real again and stole him away. The shadowy wraith of a woman would appear, offering to take the pain, seething with rage when Crynia refused, shaking, every time. The woman would fill her with burning darkness, agony would overwhelm her, and she'd shoot awake to blankets soaked with sweat and Sam staring at her from across the room, his expression so sad and longing and confused it made her ache.

That's how it was tonight. Her arms trembled as she sat up and combed her fingers through her dirty hair, desperately wishing for a bath. Tears and sweat—she could hardly tell the difference—streaked through the dirt on her cheeks.

When she dared a glance at Sam, he was sitting on his cot, back to the wall, eyes darkened by shadow as he watched her. It didn't seem to matter to him that it was an ungodly hour of the morning, and that the city above them was bathed in waning moonlight and the grey beginnings of dawn. He just watched her, unmoving. Waiting.

Gods, did he ever sleep?

About as much as you, apparently, a snide voice remarked in her head. She shoved it down.

She knew what he was waiting for. Her answer. Her choice. The one she wasn't brave enough to face.

She wanted him. Wanted the possibility of love again. Her heart hurt like it was bruised every time her eyes drifted over to where he sat, every time he looked at her. And she loved him. She knew that now, and she hated herself for it. And she didn't know if this new, colorful, aching longing was enough to ease her heart away from what'd happened to the last boy she'd loved.

The boy she still loved.

Pulling her damp blanket over her shoulders, Crynia rolled over, her back to Sam. She couldn't face him. Not yet.

So she closed her eyes and faced the nightmares instead. Again.

***

Agnir had been injured again. Not a stabbing this time, Craventi had explained in the flickering, fleeting message he'd managed to get through, but serious enough that he needed a healer—a magician. Perhaps it had something to do with an army's hesitancy to march on a capital city in the encroaching winter, or maybe the same wraith who'd struck before had once again left a mark.

Either way, Chad hadn't been summoned since the night they'd left civilization behind. He'd tried practicing the lessons Craventi had been slowly teaching him—a few emergency techniques and healing tricks. He'd managed to close the wound on his arm by himself, but not without passing out. Personal wounds, Craventi had informed him, took a heavier toll.

The cuts and bruises he'd healed for the children brought to the hospital to be patched up were getting easier every day, however. Magic was like a muscle, Craventi had explained; the more you used it, the stronger it became. Chad didn't particularly want his magic to be stronger, but...he liked what it could do when he used it like this. Helping people, healing children. It wasn't just destructive anymore, ending lives, stripping souls from bodies with the twist of a hand. It was soft, a ripple of quiet power in his veins as skin knit and bruises faded. And he liked that. Liked the wonder in a little boy's eyes at the sight of his skin healing so quickly, or a small girl's delighted embrace after he patched a badly scraped knee.

And in those two days of getting bored at Lillian's bedside and assisting the doctors from time to time, he came to realize that that deal he'd made with Craventi to bribe him into saving Nyle after the flogging...maybe it wasn't so bad.