Still, there wasn’t enough water.
Not in the entire desert.
Not even enough for his specialty—sand bread.
He hadn’t expected them to find it right away. Carrying the supplies on the trek was a risk that he had thought would prove fruitful. But a week later, and they had come no closer to water. They needed to turn around and return to the city. But no one wanted to go back empty-handed.
He packed up his supplies with another sigh and stared off toward Aleut.
Then, he felt something.
Something…he had never felt before.
Water.
There was water nearby.
Water…all around him.
He held his hand out, and water pooled into his palm.
He laughed. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
“A gift! A gift from the gods!” he cheered.
And suddenly, he was glowing.
Brigette roared at her advisor, “Joffrey, if you say one more word!”
He balked at her anger but was smart enough not to continue.
“Cyrene is out there, risking her life, whether she is on the battlefield or not. I don’t care that you don’t like her. I don’t care that I don’t like her. She is doing her part. And I don’t know if her plan is going to work, but she’s trying. What you need to focus on is our soldiers.”
He nodded. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
Majesty. Yes, that was right. She was the queen of Eleysia. No matter that she had left a Queen’s War behind. That there had been a vote of no confidence. When she won this war, she would go home a hero. And that vote of no confidence would disappear as far as she was concerned.
The war tent flapped open. She whirled around, hoping to find that Cyrene had completed her mission already.
But instead, Darmian limped within. A huge gash ran down his leg.
“Creator!” she cried, dashing for him. “Darmian. Darmian, are you all right?”
“Majesty.”
The truth in his answer was when he let her help support him to a nearby chair.
“Get a healer,” she shrieked at Joffrey.
Joffrey hustled out of the tent, leaving them alone. The rest of the council was otherwise engaged in the fighting or Cyrene’s business.
Brigette risked everything and touched Darmian’s cheek. She tilted his head up to look at her. His blue eyes were clear, but he looked worse for wear.
“What can I do?” she gently asked him.
“We’re…making progress.”
“Darmian, for your leg.”
“It’ll be…fine.”
Brigette glanced down at it with fear in her eyes. Then she went to work. Her mother had never taught her these things. It wasn’t what a lady, a future queen, should know. But her nurse had shown her how to bandage as best she could.
She grabbed the water basin and poured clean water down the cut to clean it. He hissed but otherwise said nothing. She found a clean linen and tried to tear it into long strips but had no luck. With a grunt of frustration, she wrapped the entire thing around his leg, applied pressure, and then tightened it into place. It would hold the wound together and hopefully stop the bleeding until the healer arrived.
“The healer will be here soon,” she assured him.
“Majesty…”
“Please, call me Brigette. We’ve known each other our whole lives. You’re…you’re the only person who sees me for who I am anymore,” Brigette whispered. “You’ve stayed at my side through it all.”
“And I’d do it again and again.”
The healer should have been here already.
And then she felt something within her. Something new.
A light inside her.
She pressed her hand harder against Darmian’s leg. She felt it change, and with shock, she watched as the skin knit back together.
“How?” she breathed.
“Because you’re special,” Darmian said, tilting her chin up to meet his gaze again. “You always have been.”
And suddenly, she was glowing.
Manasa glared at the asshole from across the bar. He grabbed her ass every time she walked by him. And, if he did it one more time, she was going to knock him out. Her daddy was the best fighter in all of Trinnenberg. All of Tiek as far as she was concerned. And, though her mother had frowned upon it, he’d shown her a thing or two.
“Stop looking at him like that, Manasa,” her boss snapped. “Just take them their drinks and be done with it.”
She wanted to quit. Throw the towel in her boss’s face and be done. But they really needed the money.
Her father wasn’t getting as many fights, and her brothers had been conscripted into the military. So they weren’t bringing in as much as when they’d been fighting. She’d begged her dad to let her get in the ring. But she knew he’d never say yes.
She grabbed the ales, slammed them down on her tray, and stomped toward the asshole customer. She said not a word as she dropped each ale onto the table.
And just as she almost made it away, the guy reached out and touched her again. “Hey baby, why not stay a little while?”
She whirled. Fury getting the better of her.
And then something else.
Something like light in her gut.
She felt strong. Stronger than she’d ever felt before.
She reared back and punched the asshole in the face. And watched as he flew out of his chair and landed a dozen feet away from where she’d hit him.
“What the…” his buddy began to yell.
And suddenly, she was glowing.
“Quickly, Isabylle,” Rita demanded. “Hurry to the tent with this. The healers will need it.”
“Grandmother, can I be a healer one day?”
“Yes, of course, child. Now, hurry.”
Isabylle fled at lightning speed. The girl could move when she wanted to. When she stopped asking questions.
Rita stared at their dwindling supplies with real fear. She had no idea how they were going to get through this war with so little. They needed more. They needed to send someone through one of those portals to get more supplies. Because the supply train they’d sent ahead of them hadn’t reached them.
It should have been here already.
Should have been here a week ago.
But they must have been stopped somewhere.
And if it didn’t make it, then not only would there be no healing…but the soldiers would go hungry.
And hungry soldiers was a recipe for disaster.
Cyrene had put her in charge of this. She would make do. Start cutting the supplies in half. Only using the pain medicines for extreme cases. And try to not burn her most valuable resource—the healers themselves. There were so few to begin with, and they could do ten times as much as any regular medicine woman.
Isabylle flew back in. “Delivered. What was my mother like?”
Rita sighed. “She was wonderful, strong, and beautiful. Just like you.”
“And she had magic.”
“Yes.”
“And they killed her for it?”
Rita nodded.
“That’s why we’re fighting.”
“Yes, child. I’m going to need more supplies.”
They all were.
She touched Isabylle’s shoulder for reassurance. And then something happened. Something within her. Deep, deep within her. A feeling she thought she had known a long time ago, but it had disappeared.