Kinked

“There’ll be fresh water at the top of the bluff.” She eyed the path tiredly. “We just have to get up there.”

  “One step at a time.” He dug in the sack and pulled out wayfarer bread. The apple brandy bottle hadn’t broken. Fuck yeah. They ate slowly and took sips of the brandy as they watched the sunset. He said, “If I don’t see another wafer of wayfarer bread for a hundred years or so, I’ll be okay with that.”

  She nodded as she looked around, and he did too. The current had washed Galya’s head onto the beach beside the nearest pier. A few minutes later, she said as she chewed, “I like to see her rotting.”

  She sounded so peaceful. He snorted, which didn’t hurt quite as badly as it had before. He told her about his dream, and she gave him a dark look that was almost laughter. Of course, that also meant he had to tell her what the shadow wolf had told him, and she paled underneath the coat of her grime.

  She whispered, “They were Wyr after all.”

  “Yeah. Hopefully they’re at peace now. Have you ever heard of this Phoenix Cauldron that the wolf mentioned?”

  She shook her head and shrugged. “I wonder if it’s one of the seven God Machines. Except all the stories say that Numenlaur had only one.”

  He pushed the mystery aside, finished his wafer and said, “Paragliding is not stupid.”

  She looked at him blankly.

  “The shit fit you threw earlier,” he said. “You said—screamed—that paragliding is stupid, and it’s not. It’s not, sunshine.”

  She ducked her head and muttered so low he almost couldn’t hear her, “It is if you’re not there to do it with me.”

  His throat tightened. “That’s not ever going to happen.”

  She turned to look at him, and everything was right there in her eyes. Fear, vulnerability, and a startled, fierce love. Uncertainty.

  He stamped on that last bit with the whole force of his personality. “You made me a promise that you were going to make it, no matter what,” he growled. “And you will. You will not endanger your mate.”

  He held her gaze until, blinking rapidly, she nodded, glanced away and then back at him. “You look terrible,”

  she said, her voice unsteady. “Why haven’t you gotten out of that armor yet? You must be baking in this heat.”

  He fingered the scab on his cheek as he told her, “I’ve been postponing it. I think the tunic underneath has stuck to my chest.”

  Her eyes widened in horror. “You just left it stuck to you? Oh gods, where is a knife?”

  “You can’t cut it off,” he said, baffled. “I think it needs to be soaked.”

  She waved a hand impatiently at him as she looked around. Eventually she settled on one of the short swords and knelt on her good knee beside him, her other leg awkwardly propped to one side. They used the tip of the sword to cut carefully at the fastenings between the plates, which had swollen from his swim in the salt water. Then they stripped the pieces off of him one at a time. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as the last piece, the damaged breastplate, came away without any trouble.

  They looked down at his chest where the tunic was indeed stuck to the giant scab.

  Aryal’s good hand snaked out. She ripped the tunic off of him.

  Fresh fire exploded across his chest.

  “GAAAAHHH!” he roared furiously, his fists clenched. “Why did you do that?!”

  “Isn’t that better?” His demonic mate held up both hands in a placating gesture. “See, it’s done now, it’s all done. We can put it in the past and move on.”

  “What ever happened to ONE-TWO-THREE!” he shouted.

  “That’s a vastly overrated system. I never recommend it. The element of surprise is always best.” She patted at the air, her expression turning worried as she eyed his raw, bleeding wound. “Er, can you do something about that now? You can cast a healing spell on yourself, right?”

  His energy had picked up after eating and drinking, but he didn’t feel in the mood to reveal that to her right away. He snarled, “I used up everything I had on healing you, dumb ass, which you would have found out if you had talked to me first.”

  Her eyes widened in dismay. “Oh God, did you really?”

  Inside, his dark sardonic sense of humor had started to chuckle. He told her pathetically, “We’ve got nothing to clean this wound with, and nothing to use as a bandage. I guess we could tear off a corner of the sail and use that if we had to.”

  Her dismay turned to outrage. “We’ll do no such thing! That sail has got to be filthy, and besides, it’s thick, rough canvas. We might as well take handfuls of sand and throw it all over you!”

  “What am I supposed to do, sit here and bleed?”

  She made a face and looked with dread at the steep path that cut up the bluff. “We’ll have to get up there somehow. We’ll need fresh water soon anyway, and somewhere there’ll be something suitable that we can use as a band—”

  He cast a light healing spell on himself. The bleeding slowed to a stop as the wound scabbed over.

  Her mouth shut with a click and pursed up tight. She accused, “You did that on purpose.”

  “You think?” He looked over the water and his jaw angled out. “I can’t stand it any longer. I’ve got to get clean. Or at least cleaner. And if you think I look bad, you should look in a mirror.”

  “No need. What I can see of myself is bad enough.” She gazed longingly at the water as well. “Are you too mad at me to help me up?”

  “Of course not, stupid.” He stood, held his hands out to her and pulled her upright. Her leg, still in the too-long longbow splint, canted to one side at a sharp angle.

  “I’m sick of this awful splint,” she snapped. “I might as well cut it off and be done with it.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Give it another night to be on the safe side. And even then you should keep your weight off that leg.”

  He put an arm around her waist and helped her hop to the water. Then they both submerged, clothes and all, and rubbed at themselves and each other to clean off as best they could. Aryal scooped up handfuls of sand to scrub the worst of the dried blood out of her hair and skin.

  They didn’t take long at the task. He didn’t want to risk losing his scabs again if they got too soaked with the salt water, and neither one of them had any business being on their feet for long. If they had been home in New York, they would have been in a hospital.

  Afterward they helped each other back to their “tent.” Quentin was so exhausted he could barely stay on his feet, and from her pale, set expression, she wasn’t any better. Probably, given the state of her injured wings, she was a lot worse.

  I hurt so bad, and I’m so tired, and all I want is another hug from you.

  He swallowed, stroking her wet hair, and kissed her forehead. She hopped into a turn and leaned on his good shoulder while he held her. He whispered, “I should try to find wood for a fire.”

  “Don’t bother,” she mumbled. “It’s warm enough and we’ll air-dry. I just don’t want to lie in the sand again in these wet clothes.”

  He pulled at the half-unfolded sail so that it lay spread out on the sand. He said sourly, “Behold, a bed.”

  “It’s better than the cell.”

  “Maybe, but not by much.” He helped her ease down onto it and then joined her, making sure that she was on his good side. Groaning, he lay back and held out his uninjured arm. “Come here.”

  She eased over gingerly and fit herself against him, and he hugged her tight as his world settled into rightness. Her body shook with a deep sigh. She pressed a kiss to his bare shoulder and draped her arm across his waist.

  “We should be okay enough by morning to sail back,” she muttered. “Maybe avoid the path up the bluff altogether. Don’t you think?”

  “I do.” But they didn’t have to face that right now.

  The sun had set and the worst of the heat had gone out of the day. A steady breeze still blew off the water, and his trousers felt cool and clammy while his burns fel
t fiery hot. The sand felt hard and lumpy underneath him, and he had rarely been so uncomfortable.

  While he had never been so happy.

  Still, despite Aryal’s reassurances, he was worried about her. The more time passed, the more likely it was that she would sustain permanent damage to her wings. He was ready to start back home and anxious to see what help they could get for her. But that was another task for tomorrow. For now, as her body grew lax against him and her breathing deepened, he was just thankful they had survived another day. He pulled a corner of the sail over their legs to block off the breeze and fell into another profoundly deep sleep.

  Something roused him. A sound, or a great movement in the air. He blinked his eyes open, or tried to anyway, and ended up squinting as his healing eye had gummed up again.

  The sky had paled with the beginning of dawn. A large, winged form angled down and landed, along with another. Then another. Wyr gathered around them, shapeshifting into their human forms. Each of them carried backpacks and bristled with weapons.

  Quentin poked Aryal gently in the shoulder. She woke and lifted her head to look around.

  Almost all the sentinels had come. Alex, Bayne, Constantine. Grym. No Graydon, who must have been the one to draw the short straw to stay on duty in New York.

  Dragos had come too, along with Pia and Eva. Pia carried Liam in a baby harness. Linwe was also with the group.

  Quentin had never seen Dragos look so flummoxed. Despite the many differences in temperament and personality in the group, every one of them wore an identical expression of blank incredulity as they drew close and stared down at the couple entwined on the beach.

  Quentin drew a deep breath. Yeah, well. There was that.

  Aryal offered in a helpful tone, “He has issues.”

  “Shut up,” Quentin grumbled.

  As some kind of crisis of expression bolted over Pia’s face, he pulled a corner of the sail over his and Aryal’s heads.

  TWENTY-ONE

  After taking in the mess strewn all over the beach, everyone leaped into action. Something happened to Galya’s body and detached head. Someday Aryal meant to ask what they did with it, although they probably just did the predictable, boring thing and buried her somewhere. All she knew was that the witch’s remains disappeared.

  Others collected Quentin’s supply sack, their borrowed Elven weapons, the empty healing potion vials and the brandy bottle, and folded up the sail they had used for shelter, while Pia and Alex, who was the most accomplished field medic in the sentinels, examined Quentin and tried to examine her.

  “Don’t touch me,” Aryal told them hoarsely. They both hesitated, clearly unwilling to listen when she was so injured.

  “Do as she says,” Quentin snapped at them. “She needs to see a specialist as quickly as we can get her to one, not another round of blanket healing.”

  His tone was so harsh that both Pia and Alex recoiled. Pia’s expression was tight and closed off with some kind of suppressed emotion as she handed Liam over to Eva. Aryal watched dully as Pia talked with Quentin in a low voice. Then, still talking, they both walked away.

  When they returned several minutes later, Quentin was healed. Completely.

  During the confrontation two months ago in January, Dragos had been hurt badly—worse than Aryal had ever seen or believed was possible—yet somehow after Pia had reached him, he had risen to his feet, apparently unscathed.

  So Pia had done whatever magic hoodoo she knew how to do on Quentin. Aryal was glad for that. It was one less thing to worry about.

  Quentin was not unscathed. He carried scars on his chest and shoulder, neck, and along the ridge of his cheekbone and on the brow on one side of his face. She wondered if it was because his wounds were magical in nature, or because he had gone some time and had been partially healed by the time Pia got to him. In the end, the reason didn’t matter. He was better, and part of the tight, worried coil inside of her eased.

  As soon as Quentin had mentioned a specialist, Dragos strode over quickly to kneel beside Aryal where she huddled and hugged her good knee. She had cut off the longbow splint but didn’t want to strain her leg, which she kept straight.

  Dragos put a hand on her shoulder and asked his question with a look.

  She couldn’t say the words out loud. She told him telepathically, My wings are pretty fucked up.

  Dragos’s gold eyes widened in sharp concern. His Power speared through her in a quick, comprehensive scan. Then he shapeshifted into the dragon so abruptly that everybody else had to scramble out of the way.

  “We’re leaving now,” he said to Pia. “We need to get Aryal to a hospital as quickly as possible. Quentin’s right, she needs surgery. The broken bones in her wings weren’t set properly, and they are already fusing together. Any healing right now might make the damage permanent.” He turned to the others. “Stay only long enough to finish cleaning up and do a sweep for more looters, then come home.”

  Pia, Liam, Eva and Quentin climbed onto the dragon. Aryal couldn’t sit astride because of her bad leg, so she sat sideways while Quentin’s arms settled around her firmly. Dragos wrapped them in his Power to protect them from the harsh, chill winds in the upper air and he flew with such speed, she watched the route she and Quentin had taken to the shore scroll backward like a movie on rewind.

  There was the side street where the shadow wolves had crippled her.

  There was the house with the silent, still nursery.

  There was the long meadow, rippling like another sea, and the forest, and a quick glimpse of the riverbed that had shrunk to the size of a creek, and last, the Guardian’s house set high in the cliff by the crossover passageway.

  It was almost like watching the recent events of her life come undone, except that what had happened in Numenlaur, for good or for ill, had marked her indelibly.

  Dragos didn’t slow as they hit the passageway. Instead he speeded up. Aryal’s heart thumped as she remembered how the canyon narrowed at ground level, but thirty feet in the air, the dragon merely banked his wings and used his momentum to shoot through the opening with so little room to spare, she could have reached out with one hand to touch the canyon walls on either side of them.

  Immediately past the bottleneck, he snapped his wings out and they completed the crossover passageway without ever having touched earth.

  On the other side, the Bohemian Forest looked chill and pale in comparison to the summer heat they had just left. She caught a glimpse of a hastily erected encampment for a much larger group than four inexperienced Elves. The new High Lord Ferion had learned a hard lesson. Unfortunately it was one that had cost the Elves yet another life.

  “How much time has passed on this side of the passageway?” Quentin asked.

  Pia answered him. “Almost two weeks.”

  Time had passed more quickly than it had in Numenlaur.

  “Plze will have the closest hospital,” Dragos said. The dragon’s deep voice vibrated through his body. “We’ll go there.”

  “No,” Aryal said. Everyone riding on Dragos’s back turned to look at her. She shook her head at them. She said, “I want to go home to Wyr doctors.”

  Nobody tried to argue with that. She knew if they were in her shoes, they would want to go home too.

  Dragos said, “Then I’ll bargain with one of the Djinn for transport to New York.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said dully. “While I appreciate the effort, it’s not worth any possible danger that might come from a bargain with the Djinn. I’ve already healed so much from the first time we were attacked, some of the damage has already solidified.”

  He spread his wings and glided a moment, his body language clearly speaking of his reluctance as he thought about that. Everyone else remained silent, waiting, while Quentin’s arms tightened around her to the point of pain.

  Then Dragos flew for the airport at Plze, where the corporate jet sat on standby. They boarded the plane rapidly with a minimum of fuss. Moments later, the pl
ane taxied onto a runway and took off. When a ruler of one of the largest Elder demesnes on Earth was in the middle of an emergency, he could slash through a lot of red tape.

  As soon as the plane reached a high enough altitude, both Dragos and Quentin started making phone calls. Aryal lay on one of the couches, eyes closed against a pounding headache, as she listened to snatches of their conversations.

  … notify the hospital of our arrival. We’ll be there in eight and a half hours, max …

  … call Dr. Shaw, and have her assemble a surgical team …

  … book an operating room and have it on standby …

  “I don’t care if operating rooms are limited,” snarled Dragos. “This is one of my sentinels we’re talking about. We will get there just as soon as we can, and you will hold that room ready and available for when we arrive, or I will tear through your hospital from the inside out. Got it?”

  Coming from Dragos, that was not an idle threat. Apparently the administrator on the other end of the line understood, because that was the end of that exchange.

  For the rest of the flight Aryal dozed. When she did wake up, Quentin urged her to drink lots of water, so she did. Occasionally she caught glimpses of Pia, holding Liam and staring at her intently. Weirdly enough, the baby seemed to stare at her too, his soft, miniature Buddha’s face scrunched up and pensive.

  But that couldn’t be right. Pain and tiredness must be making Aryal hallucinate. Liam was only a few weeks old. She doubted that he could even track anything with his gaze yet.

  In less than two days, at least according to her internal body clock, Aryal went from a beach in Numenlaur to surgery in Manhattan.

  Her arrival at East Manhattan Medical went by in a blur. In her Wyr form, her body and wingspan were much too large and unusual a shape for an MRI scan. Nurses x-rayed images of her wing joints in sections.

  Then she met with the surgeon, who was a sharp-eyed Wyr falcon named Kathryn Shaw with thick chestnut hair, honey brown eyes, and a blaze of Power that was as sharp as a scalpel in her nervy, slender body.

  Dragos kept Kathryn on retainer to treat high-level staff when needed, and Aryal already knew her. Kathryn had worked on all the sentinels at one time or another over the years, for injuries sustained on the job. That familiarity, along with the fact that the surgeon was both female and avian comforted Aryal immeasurably. Maybe her wings couldn’t be repaired, but at least she knew that this surgeon would feel any failure instinctively deep in her gut.