had settled into the foothills of the Nine Mountains. Gangs who warred with one another and set their own rules to suit themselves. And if you managed to avoid them, the ufa packs would hunt you down.
“Didn’t he tell you?” Belen jerked a thumb at Kerrick.
“No time last night for idle chat,” Kerrick snapped. “Our sick friend is on the other side of the Nine Mountains.”
It would take us more than two months to reach him. “How sick? He might not last.”
“He’s been encased in a magical stasis.”
Interesting. There weren’t that many magicians left. I wondered how long it took Kerrick to find one. “By a life magician?”
“No. A death magician.”
Even rarer. I considered. “How bad is your friend? If he’s on the edge of dying, I won’t be able to help him.”
“He’s pretty healthy. Sepp was able to pause his life force just after he began the second stage.”
The second stage? Dread wrapped around me. Had the plague returned? As far as I heard, there hadn’t been any more victims in two years. Then I remembered Kerrick had been searching for me at least that long.
“He has the plague. Doesn’t he?” I asked.
“Yes,” Belen said. “We know you can heal him. With the whole world dying, how could a hundred of you save six million of them? You couldn’t. The Healer’s Guild sent that missive so they could organize their healers, set up a response based on need, but that’s all in the past, Avry. It’s only one sick man.”
“But—”
Kerrick interrupted, “Belen, do you need to rest?”
“No, sir.”
“Gentlemen, prepare to go,” Kerrick said.
His men scrambled to pack. I checked my knapsack. All my belongings remained inside. I removed my cloak, draping it around my shoulders.
Should I tell them the real truth about the plague? They had saved me from the guillotine and I owed them my life. They seemed receptive to reason, unlike all the other survivors I’d encountered, who, at the mere mention of a healer, spat in the ground and refused to acknowledge the truth. I’d almost been caught a number of times defending healers so I’d stopped trying.
However, Belen was right. I could heal their friend of the plague, but then I couldn’t heal myself.
What they asked of me would be essentially trading one death—swift and certain—for another—slow, painful and just as certain.
I decided to wait and learn who their friend was. Perhaps he would be like Fawn, worth my life to save. Hard to imagine. Children deserved to be saved. They hadn’t lived, hadn’t made bad choices and hadn’t had time to harm others. That couldn’t be said of a grown man, but I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Kerrick set a quick pace through the forest, heading north. Rays of the late-afternoon sun pierced the tree canopy, leaving pools of shadows on the ground. The crisp air smelled clean and fresh.
We walked in a single line. I stayed behind Belen, and Flea trotted at my heels like an overeager puppy. No one said a word. Leaves crunched under my boots, drowning out the slight noise the others made. The men held their weapons ready as if expecting an ambush at any moment. Kerrick and Belen held swords, Loren kept an arrow notched in his bow, Quain palmed a nasty curved dagger and even Flea brandished a switchblade.
Traveling through the Fifteen Realms was difficult, if not impossible, for small groups. When I moved to a new town, I’d try to hook up with a pilgrimage—a caravan of people searching for lost friends and relatives, collecting needed items from abandoned houses and burying any dead bodies left behind. Even well armed, a pilgrimage still kept to the major roads between Realms.
So it wasn’t a surprise that in the middle of the forest, we encountered no one. No Death or Peace Lilys grew near our path, either. Odd that the gigantic flowers were nowhere to be seen. With the lack of manpower to cull them, they had spread like weeds everywhere, and had invaded farm fields, adding to the survivors’ struggle to feed ourselves.
Unused to the pace, I tired after a few hours. We stopped a couple times to eat, but it was always in silence and didn’t last long. My legs ached and eventually all I could focus on was Belen’s broad back.
The sun set and the moon rose. It had climbed to the top of the sky when I reached my limit. Stumbling, I tripped over my own feet and sprawled among the colorful leaves.
Before I could push up to my elbows, Belen scooped me into his arms. He carried me like a baby despite my protests, claiming I weighed nothing. Exhausted, I dozed in his arms.
By dawn, I had reenergized. That was when I felt his injury. I squirmed from his arms and pulled his right sleeve up to his elbow.
“It’s nothing,” he said, trying to pull the fabric down and cover the six-inch-long gash in his forearm before Kerrick and the others could see.
I stopped him with a stern look, then traced the wound with a finger as magic stirred to life in my core. The cut was deep and dirty—borderline infected. Belen kept his face neutral, although I knew my rough examination had to hurt like crazy. Impressive.
“Belen?” Kerrick asked.
“It’s just a cut I got stirring up the town watch the other night. Nothing to worry about.”
“It’s going to get infected if it’s not taken care of,” I said.
“Can it wait until we find shelter?” Kerrick asked me.
“I can heal him now. It doesn’t matter.”
“That’s not what I asked you. Can it wait or not?”
“How long?”
“A few hours.”
No sense arguing with him. “It can wait.”
There was really no reason to wait. I wouldn’t let Belen carry me, but I rested my hand on the crook of his right arm. As we walked, I let the magic curl around his forearm, healing his wound as it transferred to me. The cut throbbed and stung as blood soaked my sleeve.
By the time we arrived at another cave to rest for the afternoon, Belen’s injury had disappeared. Loren, Quain and Flea gathered around him, exclaiming over his smooth skin.
“There’s not even a scar!” Flea hopped around despite having walked for the past twenty hours. I suspected this behavior was linked to his name.
Kerrick, though, strode over to me and yanked my sleeve up, exposing the half-healed gash. I hissed as he jabbed it with a finger.
“Why didn’t you listen to me?” he demanded.
“There was no reason—”
“You don’t make those decisions,” he said. A fire burned in his gaze. “I do.”
“But—”
