If you fight me, it will hurt.
The Enchassa’s hands held him, her mouth descended to his, ready to tear out his life-force and make him her thrall.
Jeren’s hand pressed against his back. Small and warm, full of life and magic. His lover. His mate. Her love washed through him and the spell fragmented, falling away like shards of ice.
Shan found himself face to face with Fethan and snarled. Before he could stop himself, he seized the Seer by the throat and that dark and wrathful thing inside him had full control.
“You’d use my own memories against me?”
Not just his memories. His nightmares. His very worst nightmares from that moment on. The ones which brought him sweating and screaming back into reality in the dark of the night.
“Shan,” Jeren was saying. “Please, put him down. Gods, you’re killing him. Put him down.”
But he didn’t want to put him down. He wanted to wring the life out of this petty, over-ambitious fool. He wanted—
“Enough, Shanith Al-Fallion. Control yourself.” Indarin propped himself up on one elbow, his taut face the colour of parchment, his eyes dull and yellowed.
Shan released Fethan so sharply the Seer dropped to the ground like a pile of discarded rags. He came up on shaking legs, spitting out threats, but Shan hardly heard him. Satisfied, Indarin slumped down again and Jeren ran to his side.
“She can’t touch him!” Fethan screamed, spittle spraying out in front of his mouth. “Her magic is unclean.”
Shan turned on him again. “She can heal him. Which is more than you can do!”
“She’ll corrupt him! Like she corrupted you!”
Shan’s hands itched to throttle him again. He balled them into fists at his sides. “And yet she has never used her magic as a weapon against me, Seer.”
“Enough!” the Ariah yelled, as she stormed inside throwing the canvas doors back like wings. “Silence, both of you! Shistra-Phail and Seer should treat each other with respect, with love, and you are like a pair of bickering children when Indarin needs peace.”
But Fethan was beyond reason now. He stalked towards the Ariah, who stood firm before his approach. “What would a child like you know? You don’t deserve to be the Ariah! You’re nothing but an accident of a moment.”
Shan threw the punch before he even thought about it. His fist connected with the Seer’s jaw and threw him back to the ground. This time he didn’t move.
For a moment everything stilled in shocked silence.
“Oh, very good,” said the Ariah. She glared at him, her arms folded across her chest. “Really. Very impressive. That’s really going to help me bring the Seers into line, isn’t it?”
“He’s a fool.”
“One I’ll deal with,” she said and turned her back on them, facing Jeren instead. “Jeren, can you help Indarin?”
“Won’t the Seers—” Shan began.
“Enough about the Seers, Shan. Jeren, help him!” Tears sprang into her eyes and Shan could only stare. An Ariah didn’t show emotions.
“I’ll do what I can,” Jeren said.
Indarin’s eyes flickered open as she knelt at his side. He winced. “Shouldn’t do this.”
She half smiled. “Shouldn’t, but I will. I’m stubborn, remember?”
Shan watched in bemusement as they smiled at one another, jesting in spite of the situation. This was not his brother. Not as he knew him. But he was her teacher, her friend. And Jeren was not going to let him go anywhere.
“I’m dying, Jeren. The Shimmering tore the magic from me, part of me and it’s gone.”
“You shouldn’t have done it. I was—”
He tried to laugh and grimaced instead. “You were dying. And Gilliad would have won. Couldn’t have that.”
She shook her head. “Couldn’t have that,” she echoed. “Or this. Hold still.”
But Indarin wasn’t finished arguing. “It’s too much Jeren. Too dangerous. There’s too much damage.”
“Just let her do it, Indarin,” the Ariah said, her words slicing through the intimacy like knives. “That’s an order. I command it.”
Indarin was not Fethan, however. He lay back, closed his eyes and snorted. “Command all you want, Lara. You can’t command life and death.”
“Shh...” Jeren placed her hands on either side of his face. A smile flickered over her lips, affection, amusement. She was magnificent, his mate, even in the face of such stubbornness. She was a River Holter, he supposed. No one could possibly be as stubborn as her. And he loved her for it. More every second. “Think of something good in your life. Think of something that brings you joy. A good thought.”
“Like my student?”
She laughed again. “Hardly.”
He smiled, and his gaze moved to the far side of the tent, towards the place where the Ariah stood. They grew distant, as if he was remembering or dreaming and the tension in his features bled away. Jeren nodded, and then she released her power into him.
Shan recalled when she had healed him, the glow of light and bliss, the memory of his home, his family, the way she had used that to give him strength while she pulled the pain and suffering out of him, used magic to reknit torn flesh and restore fragments of bone. He’d taken an arrow to the leg that would have killed him slowly and painfully. But Jeren couldn’t let that happen.
Stubborn.
Magnificent.
Magical.
Her skin glowed with power, healing energy that she poured into Indarin, bringing him back from the brink, refilling his body with the life that had spilled from him in the embrace of the Shimmering.
When Indarin groaned again, Lara took an involuntary step forward, but Shan caught her arm to stop her. She almost wilted against him. She didn’t speak, and he didn’t comment. There was nothing to be said. He squeezed her arm in support, in warning, and she froze, understanding how close to betraying her feelings she had come. Feyna didn’t show their feelings if they could help it, their leader least of all.
Jeren worked in silence and Indarin lay still, allowing this to happen, even though it went against all his beliefs. Because he trusted her.
It seemed to last for an eternity. But at last, Jeren sat back on her heels with a sigh. Indarin opened his eyes and sat up.
Shan released Lara, who rushed to Indarin’s side and Shan gathered his wife in his arms, helping her to her feet.
“I’m fine,” she murmured, though she didn’t look it. “Indarin should rest, regain strength. His body is whole, but I couldn’t do anything about his magic. I... I’m sorry. I think I need to lie down again.”
And with that she fainted.
Jeren stood over Devyn’s grave beside the Rohs, listened to Doria’s sobs, watched shudders of silent agony ripple through Leithen’s body, and wished she knew what she could do. Easy to heal another, easy to snatch Indarin from the jaws of death... well, easy might be an overstatement, but she had done it. No one could bring another back from the dead. It wasn’t possible. She of all people knew that. When she healed, she wrapped the life of another around her will and used it, and her own life-force, to repair physical damage. If there was no life left, or if it proved too elusive to grab hold of, she could do nothing to help.
But he had been so young. And if it hadn’t been for her, he’d just be a boy growing up back in River Holt, without a care in the world.