Falling to my knees, I gave it my all to just shut the world out. It all stopped. The flow of power, the light around me. I was empty without it, the world looked dark and bleak. All of the forest around us was nothing but ashes.

“Oh god, what have I done,” I croaked through a tight throat.

I’d taken way too much.

Chapter 11

ISAY

IN A DAZE I STUMBLED AFTER KARMUTH OUT OF THE FOREST. HE had a hold on the collar of my shirt and kept on pulling me along.

I tripped over several roots before they desiccated at the touch of my soft soled shoes. The damage went on further, a large blotch of death all around us. Ashes crunched under my feet, flew through the air as a gust of wind broke apart a tree two metres away. My whole world was black and grey.

At one point, patches of green appeared between the grey. Then the forest came alive around us, but its life force felt fickle, and it pulled away from me instead of greeting me like it had earlier. I had become its enemy.

The walk back was so much longer than I remembered, but eventually the electrified fence loomed in front of us. I now knew it wasn’t to keep the fae inside. It kept the delthers out.

“Kar, you’re back,” a different guard than the one who’d let us through stood at the gate. “Pir said you’d gone out. I thought he was joking.”

“Drek,” Karmuth said in a greeting. “Not a joke.”

When we got closer Drek inhaled sharply. “Heavens, you’ve fought off a delther, haven’t you?”

I took a good look at Karmuth and found his arm that was not still holding onto my shirt dripping blood from hundreds of small cuts—blood and a yellow pus. While he was glowing from the ecos I’d pushed into him, he also looked paler than his tanned skin tone was supposed to.

When he breathed in, it sounded raspy. The rabbit in my arms squeaked when I gripped it tighter.

“My princess,” Drek said with a bow as if only now seeing me, then turned back to Karmuth. “You should get this treated right away, before the venom kicks in.”

“It’s already kicked in,” Karmuth grunted.

I saw then that he’d been keeping himself together for my sake and now that we were back to safety—or at least what he considered safety—he sagged and let go of the pretence.

Drek ushered us through the gate and locked it behind him. “No one in and out until I’m back,” he called to another guard high up in the tower I hadn’t noticed.

We were left to stagger after Drek, and I was hoping they were good friends and that he wouldn’t take advantage of our disarrayed state. He led us to a small cabin not far from his guard post. Cosy living space with only one other door leading further into his home.

“Drek, you’re back this soon?” a soft female voice came weakly from the other room, and I fixed my eyes towards the sound, expecting the woman to walk out to greet us. She did not.

“Just for a moment, Ronya. Kar needs etheris salve on his cuts.”

“He’s here with you?” Ronya asked, before a coughing fit overtook her.

“Him and the princess,” Drek confirmed after it was quiet again in the other room. He searched through the cupboards for the said salve, soon pulling out a small container.

Karmuth grunted to announce his presence but didn’t say anything further. I bit my lip and stayed quiet.

“The princess?” Ronya’s voice was nothing but a soft sigh through the closed door.

“They were out in the forest,” Drek called back. It sounded like they often talked like that without being in the same room. “Sit down, Karmuth, you’ll feel better in a minute.”

Pulling out a chair for him, he waited until Karmuth’s ass was firmly planted before setting to work. He cut through the fabric of his shirt that stuck to the dried blood, exposing the full damage the delter’s tentacles had inflicted on him.

The skin was littered with red splotches of irritation that rose up similarly to goosebumps, but oozed the yellow goo mixed with blood. Goosebumps? More like pimples. Giant ones that burst from a simple pressure. The rest of his arm was blue from being gripped so tightly.

I grimaced at the sight. As if feeling my eyes on him, Karmuth met my gaze. His face remained an unreadable mask, but his words worked to soothe me.

“I’m fine, Isay.”

“You’re not fine,” I objected, furious at my own stupidity. It sounded as if I was shouting at him. “Look at you! Look at what I—” did to you. I couldn’t finish the sentence, but I knew everyone listening knew what I meant to say.

My eyes flashed to his face, but besides gritting his teeth, he gave no other reaction to the damage.

While Drek was carefully washing Karmuth’s arm with warm water before smearing the etheris salve on it, his head twitched. He was attentively listening. The woman next door stayed quiet too, but if her soft voice had reached us, then my much louder outburst didn’t go unnoticed by her either.

“Isay, none of this was your fault,” Karmuth said, dead serious.

I couldn’t stop the hysterical laughter bubbling through my tight throat. “How can you say that? It was my idea to go to the forest. It was my idea to chase after the delther. I destroyed the acres of land. I—”

“Two can play the blame game, Princess.” His voice was a low growl, but I didn’t feel threatened. “I agreed to take you out of the reservation. I didn’t tell you about the delthers. I wasn’t paying attention when one sneaked up on us, and I didn’t stop you from running after it. You saved us both. If the forest was to suffer for it, so be it. Your life is worth more than that of a few trees.”

My breath hitched. I couldn’t fathom how it was suddenly so warm in the room when a moment ago I’d felt an impenetrable chill. Karmuth was trying to make me feel better? He didn’t blame me for his injuries?

“You saved the rabbit, too,” Karmuth added.

I ran my hand over the soft fur of the animal in my arms, and some of my guilt quieted down.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let us go?” I asked quietly.

“I didn’t think you’d stay put either way. You wouldn’t have listened to me. Not after last night, after what you said during the training session. I was hopeful we wouldn’t run into trouble.”

Drek finished wrapping Karmuth’s arm in bandages and looked from him to me with a raised eyebrow. He didn’t move away from Karmuth to put the ointment back to where he took it from or make any unnecessary noise to be able to eavesdrop on the whole conversation. He also didn’t interrupt or ask questions. I’d be curious to know what I’d done to the forest or how was I the one to save us, Karmuth being the obvious choice, if I hadn’t been there to see it for myself.

“We did, though. We ran into trouble, and now I’ve—” I thought back to the feeling of not being able to sever the connection to the forest and lost my composure. “I’ve… I’ve…Oh gods.”

Gulping for air I couldn’t manage much more than short frantic breaths. I heard his chair creak as he stood up, but it was a distant sound. What was he expecting to do, anyway? He crossed the room and stood in front of me, his undamaged hand twitching as if to reach out. He knew better.

“Take deep breaths, Isay. It’ll be alright.”

“You don’t know that. The king will—”

“No one else has to know,” Karmuth repeated my words from the morning he caught me in the kitchen.

“Kar?” Drek finally stepped in.

The warrior locked his firm gaze with Drek’s. “I am not telling King Grath about this. I’ve been to him once already this week. We’re going to bury this here and now. This never happened.”

“Kar, you know you’re like a brother to me, but I can’t do that. I need the king’s favour. Ronya doesn’t have long left. This could get us the ecos that she needs to pull through.”