A Curse of Blood & Stone (Fate & Flame 2)

I rush over, and snatching the merth away, I toss it at a flaming bush.

I’m breathless as I wait for him to stir.

But he doesn’t move.

“Jarek … Jarek!”

A thin moan slips from his lips, but no words.

Something’s wrong. My frantic hands fumble over his body, discovering the hilt of a dagger that blends in with his leather, sticking out of his broad chest. I don’t have to see the metal to know it’s a merth blade.

“Gesine!” I shriek into the night, my voice cracking with dread.

She jerks in my direction, and seconds later she’s clambering off the wagon. I watch with horror as she swerves to avoid a sapling’s blade a second before Abarrane chops into its side.

All around the camp, it looks like the tide is turning, the sapling numbers shrinking as the Legion hacks and carves and maims with vengeance.

Gesine rushes past the bonfire, heading toward us.

I ignite a few more bushes to help her find her way. “Okay, she’s coming. Help is coming. Stay alive until she gets here, you bigdummy.” My words are laced with emotion. “Why didn’t you listen to me!”

I swear the corner of Jarek’s mouth twitches.

Gesine’s breath is ragged as she reaches us, Zander on her heels.

I scramble aside to give her room. “You can fix this, right?”

She hovers her hands over the wound. “This is a merth blade, Romeria—”

“But you can fix it?” I plead.

Her brow wrinkles. “I will do what I can, but it will need all my power and then some.” She spares me a doubtful look before settling in. With a deep breath and a pause, as if counting down, she wrenches the blade from Jarek’s chest, earning his gasp. She tosses it away and clamps both hands over the wound, her eyelids shuttering.

I can do nothing but wait.

Zander pulls me to my feet. “Are you okay?”

I peer down at my hands, slick with Jarek’s blood. “Fearghal was shot.”

“It did not hit a major artery, so he should survive. Others were not so lucky.”

“It looks like we’re winning, though?”

He peers back at the camp, to where Abarrane has pinned one of the last saplings to the ground but hasn’t slaughtered him yet. “What you did, Romeria, going out there to free all the fallen legionaries—”

“What Pan and I did,” I correct him.

He smiles. “What you and Pan did … it is the reason we will survive. And when we interrogate one of these saplings and find out where Iago and—”

A deafening screech rattles my eardrums, cutting off all conversation, all thought.

Every hair on my body stands on end. “What was that?” Whatever it was, it was close.

“Nothing good.” Zander squints into the darkness, searching, his sword in his grip. Using the burning bushes, he ignites a line of flame that crawls along the grass, reaching outward, granting more light.

A dark form with four glowing red eyes watches us from the shadows no more than fifty yards away.

“What is that?” I hiss.