Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
I wish I had magic to heal this instantly. Wish he didn’t have to suffer.
“You’re careful.”
I hurriedly pull down my veil and help him sit up. “Healers don’t see enemies. We see people who need help.”
His lips press into a tight curve and his eyes grow dark, heavy, glassy. We’re quiet as I take out long strips of cloth and crouch before him. “I need to . . .” I press the end of the fabric to his waist and my fingers brushing his skin trigger a line of goosebumps up his side. He shuts his eyes as I press the bandage around his ribs. My hand curves under his arm and I carefully pass it around his back, veil fluttering forward against his chest. Quickly, I thread the bandage around him once more and step away.
Quin reopens his eyes, tries to stand and gives up with a grimace. “Shirt.”
I find him a clean meditation robe. “That’s all there is for now. More will be brought to you.”
He nods, and struggles into the robe. I’ve given him something for the pain, but there’s simply so much of it; with his organs so bruised, I can’t give him more or his liver might fail.
My gaze snags on the flutette. Magic would soothe him without adverse effects. “Music can aid in healing,” I say factually and reach for the small instrument. “You should play something.”
Quin snatches my hand away.
I try to plunge through his hold but his grip tightens around my wrist.
“Don’t.”
“An instrument is meant to be played, so much more if the music can—”
Quin’s eyes darken, and I jump a little with fright. But it’s not enough to stop me.
I let out a mocking laugh and draw my hand away. “I see.”
A twitching eyebrow.
I swallow a snort and say ponderingly, “Why buy a flutette if you can’t play? Unless . . . Ah. It was a gift?” I let out a commiserating sigh. “A useless gift, whoever gave it to you.”
He trembles in his outrage, and it has my heart skipping.
“Prove it, then.” I wave a nonchalant hand.
He raises his chin and everything. Oh Quin. At least when it comes to shamelessness, we’re a fitting match.
I can’t help it. I really can’t. I step forward and pinch his chin. “What meaning does your title have here? I’m Prins Lief’s pet healer. Of the two of us,”—my veil brushes past his cheek as I lean in to his ear—“I have more power.”
Quin laughs and hurriedly cuts it off, as if it got away from him. Something smooth and cunning shifts in his expression. He stares at me packing my instruments. “If you have more power, you’ll have no trouble getting Prins Lief to meet with me.”
I pause for a moment, with an admiring smile. How easily he turned this to his own advantage. Truly the Quin I know.
I slip my things into my bag and sling it over my shoulder. “Play every day for three days.” His jaw tightens; so does my hand around the strap of my bag. “Even now you’re hesitating? It’s just music.”
“It’s magic,” he snarls, the words laced with something raw, something broken. “It’s his last.”
Magic. My last.
It takes a long time for the floor to stop plummeting under me, and then I’m seeing red. Pins and needles stab at my throat as I barely refrain from balling my fists. I’m unaware of how I end up right before him, but here I am, yanking that flutette from his chest before he can stop me.
His dark eyes fix on mine; something surfaces in his expression and is hurriedly buried again.
“You’re brave, Haldr.”
“You’re stupid.” I press the flutette against his unbudging lips. My words start to pinch and wobble at the ends. “You’ve been captured by your enemy. Your wounds are so deep they’ll scar even with vitalian magic, magic that you have no access to here. Someone who gave you their magic would want you to use it.”
His lips slacken and the end of the flutette slips between them. His gaze is tight on me before he rips it away. After a few moments, his shoulders jiggle, and then I hear his laughter and puffed squeals.
The flutette falls back to his chest.
He’s still laughing and the tightness in my chest loosens. I rock back, relieved the veil hides my flush.
“You . . . you remind me of . . .” He shakes his head. “He’d approve.” He waves a dismissing hand. “I know what to do.”
I leave the meditation grove to rough notes being blown through the flutette. It resembles a Lumin folk song, sort of—can Quin really not play? Had I really forged ahead carving that for him on the assumption, because he had a magic root in air, he must have talent with wind instruments?
A high note screeches through the trees, and even stone-faced stormblades flinch.