I hold on to my power for another second before I release it.
Light flashes on both sides of Nathaniel’s chest.
Rapidly shutting off my power, I check his back first, then his front. Both sides of the wound are completely cauterized.
I haven’t healed him. His internal injuries are still catastrophic, but I’ve stopped him from losing any more blood. Now I need him to breathe again. And then I need to get him to a healer. I don’t know how I’m going to do that, but I tell myself to face one problem at a time.
Lowering him onto his back, I fit my lips to his.
Exhaling, I breathe into his mouth, the same way he breathed into mine after we visited the burn site where I killed my parents. It feels like a lifetime ago that Nathaniel brought the breath back into my chest.
At the same time as I breathe into his mouth, I press my fingertips against his temples, allowing my hands to warm with my power, but this time, I draw only on the calming power that I used to ease his bruised ribs yesterday. I need to ease his mind, keep him asleep so that he doesn’t feel the pain of his wound or wake up in shock.
I need to keep him alive for as long as it takes to get him to a healer.
Taking another deep breath, I exhale into his mouth again, making sure to seal my lips completely against his, sensing the air pass into his body.
I repeat this process three more times, but nothing changes and my breathing becomes desperate. Panic threatens to overwhelm me. For all I know, the spike nicked his heart and it will never beat again.
“No!” I reject my fear, shouting it out, refusing to give in to it.
Forming a fist, I thump his chest, wishing I could reach beneath his skin and force his heart to beat again.
My power flows out from the impact point, lighting up his ribs. Tears drip from my cheeks onto his. I breathe into his mouth again before I thump his torso once more, my power streaking across his body.
“Nathaniel” I scream at him. “Wake up!”
My fist crashes against his chest, a spark ignites between us, and starlight flashes back at me, rebounding so brightly that I fall back onto my hands. I gasp before I force myself to become quiet. Force myself to listen.
A soft whisper reaches me.
The gentlest breath.
Scrambling back through the dust, I lean over Nathaniel, desperately seeking the rise and fall of his chest.
Just as I press my ear to his heart, rough hands grab me and drag me backward through the sand.
Cyrian shakes me so hard, it feels like my teeth rattle. “What are you doing?”
I glare up at him in defiance, but he’s already turning to Hagan, who bends at Nathaniel’s side.
Hagan presses his hand to Nathaniel’s heart.
His voice is a low, shocked whisper. “Nathaniel is breathing.”
Cyrian whirls back to me. “That’s impossible! Your fae magic can’t touch him. Not until dawn!”
Dropping me into the dirt, Cyrian storms back to Hagan. “Finish him before the sun rises!”
Hagan tips his head back as he considers the sky. Then his eyes meet mine. He has seconds to kill Nathaniel before the Three Chances expire. If he doesn’t, he won’t replace Nathaniel as Cyrian’s champion. If he isn’t Cyrian’s champion…
Hagan is a dead man.
The sharp intelligence returns to Hagan’s eyes as his gaze settles on my cheeks, following the tear tracks from my eyes down the scrubbed-out ink of Nathaniel’s family name.
The harsh lines of Hagan’s expression soften. “No.”
“What did you say?” Dark light grows around Cyrian’s hands in the form of spikes, his razor-sharp anger manifesting along his arms. “You will kill Nathaniel! Now!”
Hagan rises to his full height. He’s bruised, bloody. Beaten. “I won’t kill for you again.”
“Then you’re breathing your last air,” Cyrian snarls between gritted teeth.
Hagan nods. Slowly. With certainty. He shocks me even more when he points at me. “Aura Lucidia, be sure to tell Nathaniel that I repaid my debt twice over.”
As he speaks, the sky brightens.
I can’t see the sun because of the haze, but the darkness lifts so suddenly that I can imagine its rays finally rising across the horizon.
It’s dawn and Nathaniel is alive.
The Three Chances are over.
Nathaniel is still Cyrian’s champion.
The third day has begun.
Chapter 2
I rise to my feet, overcoming my fatigue as a new sense of purpose fills me. Healing Nathaniel is now my only goal.
Cyrian whirls toward me, his face pale.
His champion lies unconscious in the crimson sand. If Nathaniel dies, Cyrian will lose his throne to Imatra.
The runes along Cyrian’s arm are suddenly dull and his eyes appear hollow. It occurs to me that he’s used up a lot of his dark magic—just as I’ve used up most of my starlight. He draws his power from the hearts of living humans, leeching their life force so that the Ebon Rot sets in, an illness that slowly disfigures the humans until their bodies succumb and they pass away before they reach the age of forty. He was at his strongest surrounded by a stadium of humans, tapping into their life energy, but the arena is empty now.
Cyrian directs his rage into a stream of dark magic that sizzles around his torso. I suspect he intends to immobilize me with pain like he did before, but I shout before he can release the torturous darkness into me.
“If Nathaniel dies, you’ll lose everything! Let us leave, Cyrian,” I shout. “You can’t kill me or you’ll forfeit your life. You can’t allow Nathaniel to die now or Imatra will win. I’ve proven that I will do everything I can to keep Nathaniel alive. I’m the only one keeping you on the throne.”
Cyrian freezes. His magic sputters and vanishes while his hands clench. He roars in anger, a stream of profanities so loud, I can’t distinguish the sounds.
I flinch but force myself to allow his anger to wash over me. There are only two ways to heal Nathaniel. Either I fly him all of the way to the mountains in Bright where my adoptive father, Crispin, lives, or I take Nathaniel west within Fell country to Mathilda.
Of the two, Mathilda is closer.
I consider for a moment whether or not Cyrian could use his dark magic to heal Nathaniel—because that’s what Mathilda will have to use—but I don’t trust him. He could heal Nathaniel well enough to fight but implant some sort of curse in him at the same time.
Mathilda may have been angry at Nathaniel yesterday when he brought me to Null, but she was also incredibly protective. Even if she hates me, I can trust that she will do everything in her power to heal him. I just have to hope that I can keep him alive until we reach her.
Backing away from Cyrian, I raise my fingers to my lips and give two short, sharp whistles. My hands are covered in dirt and blood, leaving the taste of death in my mouth, but I don’t hesitate. I pray to the stars that my thunderbird, Treble, is still flying above the haze, watching over me. If he is, his keen hearing will pick up my call.
Continuing to pace toward Nathaniel, I locate myself between him and the King. Inadvertently, this also means I’m acting as a shield between Cyrian and Hagan, who stands on the other side of Nathaniel.
I whistle for Treble again, my nerves setting in as I wonder whether he flew back to Bright after all.