Her heart was failing her.
If he’d sought out the sorcerer as soon as he’d delivered the mortal-fae to his lord in Averne, would he have found him? Could he have prevented all of this?
The guilt all but choked him and it would haunt him the rest of his very long life, not knowing the answer.
If she died…
“No,” he whispered, the word nearly lost to the silent night.
As he carried Tyriel out into the clean-smelling night air, he rested his chin on her hair and clenched his jaw against the grief that rose up in his chest.
He’d think only of saving her, because thoughts in beings as strong as the fae had power.
He’d think of saving and doing the work needed to accomplish that—and that work must start now.
The metal at her waist, her wrists, her ankles weakened her. It would have killed Jaren, or another full-blood. If they could get those off, get her onto clean earth to buy them time…he felt a big warm nose nuzzling his arm.
“My lady…help her…” Kilidare’s wild, too intelligent voice murmured into his mind, another thread of chaos in the whirlwind of his thoughts.
The house behind him was starting to fall into the earth. Aryn had destroyed Tainan. And much magic had been woven into that house. The entire demesne would fall now that its master was dead. Lifting tired eyes to the elvish stallion he said softly, “I will try. But I am no healer, Kilidare.”
The stallion pawed the ground and tossed his great head.
“Kilidare help her. Kilidare heal.”
Jaren stared at the elvish steed blankly.
“You.”
Kilidare stamped a large, powerful foot. “Kilidare.”
Within Jaren, understanding and hope began to burn. Without another word, he went to work.
He donned a pair of thin leather gloves and pulled a pair of lock picks from his belt before he went to work on the iron. Within moments, he tossed the damnable stuff to the side, away from Tyriel and himself, then spread out his cloak on the ground, the elvin-spun wool thin enough to let her soak in the earth’s energy, but still a warm protection from the chill of the ground.
Carefully, the steed settled down and Jaren helped moved Tyriel into the cradle of Kilidare’s warm, still overly shaggy hide.
Immediately, the pulse of healing magic filled the air.
“I’ll be stuffed,” he muttered, shock rippling through him. “You’re an animus.”
Kilidare gave Jaren a decidedly smug look. “Kilidare heal.”
The animus—an animal spirit imbued with powerful protective instincts and select magical abilities…like healing—were rare in the world.
Humans often called them familiars and associated them with witches, but truly, an animus could choose anybody to be his or her master.
Kilidare had chosen Tyriel.
Eying the steed with new eyes, he said, “Her wounds go far deeper than what we can see with our eyes.”
“Yes.” Kilidare rubbed his head against Tyriel in what could only be described as devotion.
The clarity of the steed’s speech, his intelligence made so much sense now.
Kneeling by the pair, he pulled a vial of vesna oil out and went to work on the angry red and blackened flesh that had formed under the metal bands.
“Kilidare heals body. Kilidare cannot heal hurts inside.”
Jaren made the steed’s forlorn eyes. “No. But we can love her.”
* * * * *
That was how Aryn found them, Tyriel’s battered body cupped in the curve of her protective stallion’s body, his head arched impossibly around to nuzzle her belly and arm and face as magic and power crawled through the air.
He knew the feel and scent of it by now, but didn’t quite trust his mind. “Irian, am I going mad or is the horse working magic?”
Irian chuckled as he shimmered into view. “Stranger things have happened. Kilidare is no more a mere horse than you are a mere human. You stopped being merely human within three o’ four years of wieldin’ an enchanted blade. Kilidare is an elvish steed, and may resemble a horse on the outside, but all similarity ends there. Heard tales, I have, of warrior-trained elvish steeds, who had no masters, who were their own master...but this surpasses even those tales.”
Aryn moved his eyes back to Kilidare and slowly shook his head. Healing horses? What is bloody next?
Kilidare lifted his head and Aryn would swear the bloody creature winked at him.
“I’ve gone mad,” he muttered. “Utterly mad.”
Then, before the grass could begin to serenade them while the trees played harpsong, he knelt at Tyriel’s side and cupped her cheek.
She didn’t so much as stir.
There had been a time when he couldn’t enter a room without her sensing his presence.
Now people strode around her while she slept like the dead, unaware and still.
Rage unlike anything he had ever known tore through him with jagged claws, side by side with grief, and relief.
She was alive.
She was battered and bruised and beaten and scarred.
She was alive.
A soft sigh escaped her.
Her lids lifted slowly and he saw the dullness there, the lack of realization before her lids drifted down again.
Alive, yes.
But she was also broken inside, so deeply, deeply broken.
* * * * *
As the hours trickled by, the bruised and blackened, burned flesh where the iron had bitten into her flesh faded, almost as if melting into her skin.
The steady pulse of healing magic continued, even as Kilidare fell into a light slumber.
At some point, Jaren’s own steed went to lay by the other mount. The pulse of healing magic had grown…quieter, but after Lieva settled by Kilidare, it strengthened and steadied into the same rhythm as before.
She’d shared…something with the animus, Jaren knew. And now he wondered if he’d have re-evaluate his opinion of just what elvish steeds truly were—something he’d have to consider after talking to Kilidare—at length.
But that was a thought for later, when grief wasn’t a cloud in the air and Tyriel didn’t lay still and quiet, as motionless as a doll.
“She would be the only soul in all the High Kingdoms to bond with a fucking animus masquerading as an elvish steed,” he muttered as they built up a camp for the night.
Aryn barely looked at him but Jaren wasn’t talking to him. He wasn’t talking to…anybody, really. He was trying to convince himself that the Tyriel he knew was still with them. Somewhere.
Kilidare flicked one ear and huffed out an annoyed breath, but otherwise paid him no attention.
The elvish stallion had appeared one day in the meadow where Tyriel rode one of the horses from her father’s stables. While many of the fae rode steeds, not all succeeded in taming the equine creatures—once tamed and taken to mount, they were called elvish steeds. Before that, simply steeds. Those who had little reason to little their cities often didn’t bother with the work involved because there was no guarantee they’d manage to find a steed, much less tame one to their hand.
Kilidare had sought out Tyriel, something unheard of.
“Did she bewitch you the way she’s bewitched so many?” Jaren asked the steed.
Kilidare chuffed and Jaren smiled a bit because it almost sounded like the steed had laughed.