Flames of Fury

Ember

I can’t bring myself to look back at Mags and Xander standing in the palace doorway, likely watching me as I retreat back into the palace. I told her I’d go with her, be there in the field healing anyone who needed it. But they both shot me down immediately, though for different reasons. Xander said they couldn’t risk one of three true healers in the grove getting injured in battle. Mags, however, outright refused to let me go back there citing that I had spent too much of my life in that pit and she’d sooner die than see me down there again.

I both adore and hate that all-or-nothing, absolutist quality about Mags. It makes her a fierce friend and formidable foe, but it also makes her appear stubborn and rigid sometimes. Seeing her with Ro and Varian has been very entertaining as they really are the only ones that can get her to bend. It’s incredible.

I head straight over to the infirmary, I might as well wait there. I need to be there when people start porting in so I can make sure none of them are Mags or her family, and if Gods forbid they are injured then I need to be here to heal them.

The other two healers, Heather and Dr. Alers, are there showing the medical staff from Shadowmoon around the infirmary. They came straight to us this morning volunteering their time and skills for today’s battle.

The beds are empty, supplies are stocked, and operating rooms are clean and sterile. All we can do is sit and wait, and hope that we’re not needed.

Just under an hour later teleporters start appearing in the halls holding and carrying bleeding and wounded warriors. Normally these wounds would begin to heal on their own but the poisons the Drow rely on prevent natural healing from taking place.

Despite the influx of warriors needing patching up, there’s nothing too serious or overwhelming that me and the other healers can’t keep up with.

Or, at least it wasn’t, until Xander appears in the hall with so much blood all over him I don’t know where the source is.

“Ember!” He shouts, frantically searching the halls. “Ember! Alers! Help me, it’s Ro!”

I drop the gauze I was applying to a young man from Pine Grove and race towards the room Xander goes into alongside Dr. Logan from Shadowmoon.

I’ve been a doctor for many decades and in full control of my healing abilities twice as long as that. But never in my nearly two centuries of life have I ever seen a sight as gruesome as the one before me now. I’m not sure I can stomach it, and knowing it’s Ro only makes it that much harder.

Ro lays on the hospital bed painted red from the neck down with an arrow lodged in his throat.

“Ember!” Xander is in front of me now, his voice is muffled like I’m listening to him from under water. “Ember! Heal him!” I snap out of the shock that had taken hold of me and rush over to Ro’s side with shaky hands. I grab a wrist checking for a pulse and flush his body with golden light, willing his body to heal.

My heart begins to thunder in my chest and there’s a high pitched tone ringing in my ears. Flashbacks of Griffin’s death enter unbidden into the forefront of my mind.

This isn’t going to work. It’s too late.

“What are you doing? Why did you stop?” Xander is shouting, on the brink of hysteria.

“I— I can’t. I can’t heal the dead. I can’t — I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry.” I’m sobbing by the end. Ugly, fat tears roll down my face.

“No, no he can’t be.” Dr. Logan tries to remain the professional she is but her voice cracks exposing her true emotions.

She rips off his vest and shirt, cuts off the arrow head in the back of his neck, and pulls the shaft out of his throat.

“If I can get you a pulse, can you heal him?” She asks me as she works.

“I— I don’t know. Maybe?” I answer honestly. His injury is extensive, but clean. He’ll need a blood transfusion without question, but if she can get his heart beating then I can seal the hole in his throat and hopefully that’ll buy us enough time to get him the intensive care he needs.

I can do this. I have to do this…for Griffin and for Mags. I couldn’t save Griffin, but now’s my time to make up for that.

Dr. Logan charges up the paddles and positions them on Ro’s broad chest.

Thump!

She shocks him and we wait but no heartbeat comes. The machine whirrs and winds up again, she replaces the paddles on him and Thump!

Nothing.

“Come on Alpha, come back!” Dr. Logan shocks him again, her voice angry and desperate.

Thump!

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Holy shit. A pulse!

My hands fly to his neck, his pulse gets weaker with every passing second as his heart struggles to beat without fresh oxygen.

I inundate his body with warm, golden light. I think of all the times Mags ever spoke about them, for a while it was the only time she ever smiled. I think about the glow they all wore the morning after their reunion, finding them in the woods having welcomed their twins together, and how if their eyes aren’t on her then their hands are — requiring near constant connection to one another. Come on, Ro.

The loud, desperate gasp for air that comes from Ro scares me half to death causing me to trip backwards over my feet. Xander catches me in his arms before I can fall flat on my ass and helps right me on my feet.

Ro continues to gasp and take in deep, greedy breaths of air.

Dr. Logan sticks her head out into the hall and shouts for blood for a transfusion.

I grab onto Ro’s arm, pouring a steady stream of healing light and energy into him. There may not be any injury but I hope it keeps him calm and his heart strong enough to work until we can replace the blood he lost.

“How did this happen?” I ask Xander through residual tears now that the urgency and panic has subsided a bit.

“I don’t know. One minute I’m dropping off Drow for him to rip apart and the next he’s collapsing on the bridge. I teleported over to him and immediately brought him here.” Xander recalls the harrowing tale.

Dr. Logan comes back and sets up the IV and blood bags. Within seconds his color begins to improve and his pulse strengthens.

“Thank the Gods you were there.” I breathe my first steady breath in minutes.

“Ember!” There comes another cry from a room across the hall.

“Go. I should head back.” Xander says.

“What? You can’t be serious!” I’m incredulous, did he not just watch Ro die? The fact that we got him back is nothing short of a miracle.

“Ember! Someone, please!” The voice belongs to Incandis, and it’s just as panicked as Xander’s was.

“Ember, go. It’ll be fine.” He says it like he honestly believes it and then disappears.

“You okay here without me, Dr. Logan?” I ask her before I take off just in case.

“Yes, thank you Ember.” She says through tears of joy, her voice shaking from the adrenaline.

I run across the hallway to a disturbingly similar scene, just with different brothers.

Incandis and Varian are covered in blood which is still actively oozing from a shallow slit in Varian’s throat.

After the shock of seeing Ro in the state he was, this seems like a paper cut by comparison. I put my hands over his neck and easily heal the cut. It takes him a minute but he coughs out the blood that had slipped into his lungs and airway and his breathing becomes less and less laborious.

I’m about to lay into Incandis about how this happened when I get a glimpse of lines of bloody welts around his neck and hands.

I move over to him and heal his superficial injuries. “What happened to you two?” I ask more gently than I had planned to moments prior, but it’s not Incandis who answers me.

“Illian happened.” Varian rasps. “We felt Ro’s bond snap, we felt him die. Mags went feral and headed straight for Illian on her own.”

“Illian trapped me with an electrified whip. The current kept me from teleporting. He cut Varian’s throat and gave Mags an ultimatum. Marry him, and Varian and I go free.” Incandis says with a hung head.

“You don’t honestly believe she’d accept that.” I scoff.

“She did.” Varian scowls. “She dropped her weapons, walked right into his arms, and let him stick his tongue down her throat. She should have killed him and let me die.”

“Incandis you need to go back, Xander just teleported back to the fight. If she really made that deal they’re all in danger. Illian will kill every last one of them no matter what he says to Mags otherwise.”

“Fuck. Alright, I better go.” Incandis sighs.

Varian throws his legs over the side of the hospital bed. “I’m coming with you.”

“Sir, I really think —“ I begin but he cuts me off with a growl.

“He killed my brother and took my mate…twice. What does that say about me as an Alpha? I’d rather die fighting for her than sit around here and let her sacrifice herself.”

“Incandis, go. There’s something I need to show Varian.” I say sternly to the two of them.

Incandis doesn’t waste another second, he teleports out leaving me alone with an irritated Alpha.

“Save your snarling for Mags when she gets home, don’t think I don’t know what kind of kinky fucks you all are. Follow me.” I’ve successfully stunned him into silence, but he follows me regardless.

I lead him across the hall to where Ro is resting comfortably in his hospital bed looking much more like himself, scowl and all.

“Ro?” Varian breathes his brother’s name with disbelief. “How are you alive?”

“I’m not altogether sure about that myself. Why are you here? Where’s Mags?”

My phone rings as Varian begins to answer so I excuse myself to take the call in the hallway.

“Hey Heather, what’s up?” I greet Heather, one of the other healers from the Grove.

“Hey, there’s an Elder here from the Elder Council asking to see you.”

“Me? Why me?” I’m baffled, I have no rank here, I’m not even a member of the Grove. Why would an Elder be here looking for me?

“I’m not sure. She asked for you by name, she’s in the lounge.”

On the other side of the infirmary sits a large lounge for medical staff or families to sit and relax whilst here, and despite the many couches and chairs throughout the room, the Elder stands waiting for me by the windows looking out into the Grove.

“Much better view than you’re used to, wouldn’t you say?” The Elder asks me without turning around to face me.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, you seem to have me at a disadvantage.” I try my best to be polite, but in reality I want to get out of here as fast as possible so I can get back to helping our people. I can’t afford for my time to be wasted.

“Indeed. Well, let me cut right to the chase. I would hate to waste your time.” She turns to me now and lifts a very deliberate and unsettling brow at me. “I need you to get the Queen here.”

I almost scoff at her audacity, but perhaps this is how all Elders are. Either way, even if I could get a hold of Mags there’s no way Illian would release her.

“Not Magnolia, dear. Queen Ianthe.” She corrects me, making me pause to question whether I had actually said the words aloud rather than in my head.

“I’m afraid she’s unavailable today. Could you return tomorrow? Or perhaps I could deliver a message to her?” I offer.

She smiles at me condescendingly, “how quickly your loyalties change, dear little Ember.”

“With all due respect, even if I could get a hold of her she wouldn’t respond to me. I’ve only just met her myself.”

“I don’t care what you tell her, make something up if you must, but you will deliver her to me.” She orders.

My hands move before my brain does, reaching for my phone and calling Ianthe.

“Ember, what a surprise. How has it been going? Any word from the warriors?” Ianthe is a master of control, she doesn’t sound anxious in the least though I know she must be.

“Uhm, actually ma’am, I think you should come over here.” I pause, trying to fight the words that are rising like bile in my throat demanding to be released. “It’s the Alphas. Ro died and Varian suffered a mortal wound.”

The call ends without further discussion. I worry what I’m supposed to say to the Elder if Ianthe still doesn’t show up.

“Well done, my child, Ianthe is on her way.” The Elder says to me as she turns to face me at last.

Her beauty strikes me first, tall and slender, with high, prominent cheekbones and porcelain skin. Her inky black hair is slicked back elegantly in a tidy bun and her eyes are so blue I can feel an icy chill crawl up my skin as she assesses me.

There’s only one other person I know of who has all these same attributes.

“What did you say your name was?” I stumble over my words as my body begins to tremble.

A slow, sinister grin crawls across her face. “Elder Illana.”

The blood drains from my face and my heart plummets like a stone in water to the bottom of my stomach.

Oh, fuck. What have I done?