Esteban blinked out of existence.
When faced with someone who could actually fight back, of course he ran. I stumbled to my feet, my head still ringing, my vision going in and out.
Instead of making it to Fin, I dropped again to my knees and fell forward. It was just going to take a minute here until I got my sea legs back. The mage I hadn’t killed finally extricated himself from the others and stalked toward me. I held my arms up to fend him off, but as he raised his knife to strike, a sword came through the mage.
That made things easier. I settled back onto the ground, looking up at the trees. The captain’s face swam above mine and I waved at him to get away.
He reached down and dragged me up. “No napping on the job. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
I clutched his shoulders and focused on keeping myself upright. “For the record, I already killed those guys. You were just on clean-up duty.”
“Yeah, yeah, your bad ass status is still in full effect. We’ll never speak of this again,” he said, dragging me toward Fin who still lay on the ground.
A pack of mages sprinted from the forest and tackled us both to the ground. We grappled with them, separating to fight our own battles. One of the mages climbed on top of me and punched me in the face.
“Not cool,” I said through a mouth full of blood.
I reached up and dug my thumbs into his eyes, at the same time ramming my knee between his thighs.
He let out an unholy screech and toppled off me. I took his own knife and jammed it into his throat. His blood coated my hand, and I wiped it onto his shirt. I knew I should feel something for each of these lives taken and yet, I couldn’t summon anything more than the blanket of exhaustion I’d been cloaked in since the day before.
When could I just lay down and rest?
Before I could take a step to help the captain, the world spun around me and I landed on my back again. This time, I’d done it to myself. Pain shot down my side and I clutched at my ribs to find sticky fresh blood seeping from a wound I hadn’t noticed during all the fighting.
My eyes drifted closed, and I let myself sink into the ground. Fin’s magic washed over me again, banking some agony climbing through my body. I feared touching his magic though. I wouldn’t turn Fin against me again for making the wrong decision like I had last time we were here.
Someone’s gruff voice cut through the darkness. “Damn it, Zoey. Heal yourself. You aren’t dying like this.”
“Mmm,” I said.
“That’s not even a word. I know you’ve got some jokes left in there, come on, yell at me,” the captain said, his voice hoarse and tired.
“Can’t,” I managed. “Sleepy.”
He slapped me hard, and it dragged me partially from the darkness, so I could see his face coming in and out of my vision.
“Come on,” he said. “Use the bond to heal some of this mess. You can use it. You won’t hurt him again.”
“Fin,” I whimpered.
“Yes, that’s right, Fin. His magic can help you,” the captain said, covering my wounds with his hands to try to stop the bleeding, seeking out the worst of them to focus on.
Fin’s magic called me, and this time I let it flash through me and fill me up, head to toe.
Some of the pain ebbed.
The captain sat ba
ck and heaved a sigh. “Damn it. You scared the hell out of me. Next time, use the tools we’ve given you and don’t be so stubborn.”
I sat up in the grass, my body a maze of cuts and bruises, half healed and aching. “Yeah, well, the last time I used his magic, things didn’t exactly go as planned. I couldn’t risk us all by taking too much.”
“So you take none at all. What kind of logic is that?” he asked, standing to reach down and pull me up.
“Can you stop yelling at me? I’m tired. I want to go home. Where did Esteban go? He was here and then he disappeared,” I said, holding my hands out so I didn’t touch any of the blood coating me.
That caught his interest. “What did he want? Did he tell you?”