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“Thank God,” Truly whispered. “You’re back.”
“Where are we?”
“Weeping Hollow, in the bottom of a well.”
Sitting on his ass, he stared at her, not understanding.
She clarified. “It’s trying to eat you.”
His brows collided. “What?”
“The forest is trying to eat you,” she said, as though the explanation made perfect sense — and she didn’t sound like a lunatic. “It doesn’t like the Electi. Magic of any kind, really.”
“I’m not an —”
“Half.” Kneeling in the muck beside him, she grabbed his arm and pulled, trying to force him to his feet. “You’re half Electi. Apparently, the Hollow doesn’t discriminate in its dislike.”
He scowled.
She yanked on his coat. “We need to get out of here. Can you walk?”
Could he walk?
Westvane frowned. He didn’t know. Pain drilled deep, infecting his muscles, gnawing on his bones. The worst of it, though, knifed along his spine and down the back of his thighs. He glanced over his shoulders. His stomach dropped. His wings were gone, nothing but bloody stumps, black feathers strewn like fallen soldiers around him. Ragged and moth-eaten, his leather trench gapped open at the back, exposing raw skin scorched black underneath.
Gritting his teeth, he reached for Truly. “Help me up.”
She didn’t hesitate. Throwing his arm around her neck, she used her legs to pry him off the ground. Torn to shreds, the back of his pants fell away. The skin on his ass and legs peeled off, leaving part of him stuck to the stone floor.
Agony laced him.
Baring his teeth, Westvane beat back a roar.
“Okay?” she asked, readjusting her grip on him.
Leaning on her, he forced his feet to move. Each step brought more pain. Bile burned the back of his throat. Fighting his gag reflex, he rasped, “Where… where?”
“The bucket.” Struggling to stay upright, Truly grunted beneath his weight. She moved him forward, steering him around rock formations, across a cavern. “We need to get into the bucket.”
His vision wavered.
Squinting through the blur, Westvane tapped into the mercurial force underpinning his power. Volatile, temperamental, it never failed him. Was always swimming beneath his surface, ready and waiting, desperate to be used. But as he reached for the magic, something strange happened. His senses didn’t sharpen. His vision remained flat, hampering his ability to see in the dark. The predatory instincts he relied on (and under the circumstances, obviously took for granted on a regular basis) failed to arrive, showing him nothing but dark corners and shifting shadows.
So forget about the bucket.
He couldn’t see five feet in front of him, never mind navigate his way toward safety. Which made him helpless.
He washelpless. Unable to fend for himself. Forced to rely on another. At a woman’s mercy, just as his mother had been all those years ago. All of a sudden, it struck him, and he understood — the vulnerability, the inescapable quality of it, the raw, deafening roar of unfairness. What most Azlandians must feel and endure every day.
Even as a child, he’d never been weak. His mother had seen to it. His experiences in Eckizbad prison and the Parkland had honed him to a lethal point. Made him strong, but also arrogant and selfish, allowing him to wall off the outside world and self-isolate, keeping others at a safe distance in order to protect himself. But as Truly steered his path across the cave, Westvane acknowledged a truth he never wanted to before.
Friendship was important, invaluable in so many ways. Loyalty to one’s tribe was paramount. Being part of a team meant everything, and as he leaned on the Door Master, he realized something else.
Alone in the worlddidn’t need to mean family-less. Sometimes, when left with no other option, a warrior simply needed to build one of his own.
“Truly.”
Breathing hard, she propelled him across uneven ground. “Yeah?”
