Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
But even as she did it, she knew it was pointless. They couldn’t get someone up here fast enough. He’d already lost so much blood. The snow was red with it in an ever-widening circle.
A thought struck her.
What had Titania said about her ring?
The Ring of Endings was not just destruction. It wasn’t an immunity to magic. It was the intention of the ring by Belenus to force his healing magic into the ring itself. He hadn’t meant for all the other properties to come from it. But life and death were two sides of the same coin. Life and death.
Kerrigan had no idea how it worked. She hadn’t thought to ask Titania how the ring functioned. It had always been passive. Like it had been when it saved her from Wynter’s trick and March’s magic. This was different. This time, she had to use it for healing, and she had no healing magic. Fordham would die if she didn’t figure it out.
She reached inside of her and tried to feel the ring as part of her. She didn’t know how healing magic worked, except that it aligned with water affinity, which she had little of. But there was water everywhere. If it needed to use the water magic through her to fix this, then so be it. She would stretch every bit of water magic she had to make this work.
But she felt nothing.
She pressed the ring to the opening of the wound, but nothing happened.
“Why?” she shouted at the damn thing. “You are supposed to know what to do. You are supposed to fix this!”
The ring remained dormant.
It was a magical artifact. It wasn’t conscious of what it was doing. It stopped magic without actively doing anything. She had never felt it working. It just did. Maybe the healing was the same. She couldn’t make it heal. It could only do what it had been made to do.
Kerrigan slipped the ring off and shoved it onto Fordham’s finger without a second thought. Then, she sent a prayer out to all the gods who would listen and yanked the dagger from his chest.
“Work, damn it,” she said through tears.
Blood gushed from the wound. She pushed her hands against it to try to staunch the blood flow, watching them stained red with his blood. If she was wrong, then she had just sentenced Fordham to death. There was no other way to help him anyway. No one could get here in time. She had to believe that this would work.
She cried over his wound with blood up to her elbows. “Please,” she begged.
Nothing happened.
She looked up into Fordham’s handsome face. His eyes had fluttered closed when she removed the dagger. No last words from him. Nothing at all.
Then, with a gasp, she looked down and found the wound knitting itself back together.
Kerrigan leaped backward in alarm. She’d hoped for a miracle, but not expected one. Nothing like this.
Within the span of a breath, Fordham’s chest was whole. He rolled over and retched. Kerrigan cried even harder, putting her head into her bloody hands.
“Kerrigan,” he groaned.
“Gods,” she said, throwing herself into his arms.
He grunted and fell backward. “Ow.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You were dead. You were dead.”
“I feel dead,” he croaked. “What happened?”
“Wynter stabbed you. I fought her and stopped her, but you were too far gone.”
“How did I survive?”
“I remembered Titania saying the magic in my ring was healing. I didn’t have another choice. I had to try it,” she said, the tears trailing off. She brought her hand to his face. “You’re alive.”
He caught her hand with a rueful smile. “Because of you.”
“Thank the gods.”
“Thank Titania.” He kissed her once on the mouth. “I will never doubt your visions again.”
“You’d be dead without me.”
“I will never doubt you again either.”
Kerrigan leaned over and sobbed as the anxiety of the last few minutes took her over. Fordham held her. She could tell he was still recovering. The magic wasn’t done with him. He’d lost too much blood. Far too much blood. But at least he was alive.
A half hour later, Tieran and Netta landed in the clearing. An Erewa healer that Kerrigan recognized as Mendy rushed over.
“How can I help?”
“We had a miracle,” Kerrigan explained.
Then, she took Mendy away from the huge pool of blood to avoid having to answer too many questions. No one should be sitting up, let alone standing and walking gratefully to their dragon, after losing that much blood.
Mendy invited them to spend time with their tribe, which they did gratefully as Fordham recovered. Mendy marveled many times over the fact that he didn’t have a scratch on him, but he seemed unwell. She couldn’t think how it made any sense. Kerrigan wasn’t about to explain it.
The following day, after rest, food, and a much-needed bath, Fordham pushed the ring back onto Kerrigan’s finger.