Warrior Blind (5 page)

Eaudne wrapped her in her arms, and then Bron felt the air around them pulling on her. Just as it had when she’d been flashed by Koios, and then by Ren a few moments earlier.

This time she controlled her stomach contents much better than the last. “I wish people would stop doing that to me.”

“Then stop letting them.”

“How do I do that?”

“You’ll figure out the answers to that question soon. But we have more important things to be concerned with now.”

They both could hear the screams of the dying. Bronwen froze, afraid to move, afraid to think about what was happening in this city. Her next words were whispered. “What do we do?” She had never healed anything on a grand scale before. Her work had been done at Kindara’s side for as long as she could remember.

“We find the center, find the wounded. Together we do what we do best. We
heal.
Stay at my side; I will do what I can to keep you as sheltered as possible. Aureliana and her male arrive soon. They will protect you as you do what you must. You know what lies within your hands, within your heart. Use it. Trust. Every Dardaptoan healer of your Kind has one thing in common—you possess a piece of the greatest healer’s soul. I know this; I see it in you. It is the soul of my son Dekimos; it shines bright in you. Brighter than so many others. Do not waste his gift, but embrace it.”

But how was she supposed to do that?

Chapter 7

WHEN
next Koios opened his eyes he knew something was different around him. For one thing, his skin seemed too small, too tight, and too damned soft to be his. He was in a long hallway, and it was mere seconds before he recognized it.

The south tower of his castle. Where the girl had been kept so many months ago. He looked down at his hand, expecting to see the ring his father had given him when he’d assumed the high seat along with his brother so many years ago.

Instead he saw small, pale fingers and light skin.

A hand that trembled. And one that he recognized.

He tried not to curse.

The Laquazzeana had somehow put him
 
in
 
the body of the healer girl.

Someone yanked on his hands—her hands—and he realized they were bound. And far too tightly. He wanted to strike out at the one pulling him along but he couldn’t.

Ramorakin had a hand fisted in the girl’s tunic and he jerked her around far harder than any male should ever touch a woman. Was this how the slave keeper always treated the females?

An open palm landed against Koios’ cheek, his
 
gamata’s
 
cheek. He felt the force behind the blow all the way down to his knees. What was Ramorakin trying to do? Why did he feel it necessary? The girl hadn’t spoken, nor had she resisted the slave keeper at all. So why the abuse?

Koios could hear her thoughts; or was he thinking them along with her?

Absolute terror, pain, and betrayal. Mixed with hope.

The hope was what hurt him the most.

The instant he had spoken her as his
 
gamata
 
ancient forces that no one in Relaklonos had ever been able to identify had started weaving his heart and hers together. Only if she denied him for years—perhaps centuries—would those bonds start to lessen. That she had suffered so greatly hurt
 
him.

That he was the cause of such hurt sickened him. It took everything he had to keep the girl’s body from retching.

Ramorakin wrapped his hand in the long dark hair that Koios now knew was softer than the finest silk and yanked so hard Koios knew handfuls of Bronwen’s hair would be broken—if her scalp was not bleeding as well.

The girl was crying now and trying to fight; that just seemed to enrage Ramorakin even further. He slammed Bronwen into the white rock wall so hard Koios felt her ribs crack.

He would kill Ramorakin as soon as he was able. As soon as the Laquazzeana freed him from Bronwen’s body the slave keeper would be dead. And Koios would make sure the male knew exactly why.

Her tears fell unchecked to the tunic she wore.

Ramorakin finally spoke. “You cry
 
now
? You will cry more for me when the king is finished with you. He will forget about you, and you will be
 
mine.
 
To do with as I wish, Dardaptoan.”

She was dragged farther down the hall and toward the last room. Koios recognized it; he’d ordered it left empty until repairs could be made within it. It was not fit for a prisoner of any ilk. There was no glass in the window—a long gone sorcerer had destroyed the windows, and the rock wall surrounding them. Instead, thick metal bars prevented anyone from escaping through the hole.

The room was too damned cold for even a warrior prisoner; why was Ramorakin putting a Dardaptoan female there? Everyone knew the Gaian Kind was far too susceptible to low temperatures. Had Ramorakin been trying to kill her from the onset?

There was no bed in the room, just a pile of old blankets and a crude toilet.

His
 
gamata
 
had been kept
 
here
? Koios had given specific orders that she was to be well cared for, had told Ramorakin specifically that the girl was worth a fair amount of coin, even if she hadn’t been taken directly from the High King. Yet Ramorakin had treated her thusly?

He’d known she had been misused in Ramorakin’s keeping; that had been evident by her condition when she had been found. But that she had been abused from nearly the moment he had given her into the other male’s keeping surprised him.

Koios had thought much of her injury had been due to her being an obviously fragile example of her Kind.

Perhaps he had been wrong? Perhaps…she
had
been extremely ill-treated while in his care? Perhaps
 
he
 
had more than just wronged her?

Was that the reason for her great sense of betrayal?

He
 
had promised her the night he had taken her that she would be safe while in his keeping, and she had seemed to trust that. Had been so meek with him. It had surprised him, but after he’d turned her over to Ramorakin he’d damned near forgotten her as he’d dealt with other pressing matters in his kingdom. But he had vowed safety to her…

Koios had never been proven a liar before, especially by one of his own people. He had
 
trusted
 
Ramorakin with the girl’s keeping. And that betrayal of trust would be harshly dealt with.

He was pushed inside the room and his head—his
 
gamata’s
 
head—banged into the floor. Hard hands pulled the girl to her feet, then up until she could see the warrior more fully. Until Ramorakin’s face was right next to hers.

Not that she saw that well to begin with. What was it like, to never know where a threat was coming from?

“Please…” She could barely speak, the pain in her ribs preventing it. Ramorakin showed no compassion for one so weak compared to him.

“I shall
 
please
 
myself with you, once the king is done with you.” Ramorakin—strong and an experienced fighter—had little difficulty tossing the healer girl to the blankets. Koios felt the impact as it jarred her, as an already broken rib punctured her lung. “This is your bed. Best not get used to it. Soon it’s my blankets you will warm.”

The girl shook her head. “No…Auri will come for me. They’ll come for me.”

“Won’t matter if you’re dead before they get here.” Ramorakin leaned over her and pushed her onto the blankets.

The girl tried to fight, but Ramorakin was far too big.

Koios had never felt so much pain in his soul as he did in that instant, trapped within his female, trapped beneath a male who’d just threatened to rape and kill her. Who was already trying.

Koios couldn’t help himself—and he couldn’t help
 
her.
 
He tried to lend her small body what strength his warrior soul possessed, but it did little good.

So damned little good.

HER
knife, the special tool given her by Kindara at the end of her apprenticeship, would be permanently stained from the blood of those she had helped—and of those she had lost.

She had never been in anything as terrifying as this, except for the attack on Relaklonos months ago. When Auri had died and been changed.

Eaudne stayed close to her and Nalik was there somewhere. Cass, and others she cared about.

But she couldn’t worry about them. There were too many falling around her.

The Rhacshas—and she recognized them from the sounds they made—were vicious. One scratched her as she tried to heal a fallen Dardaptoan.

She didn’t know who the Dardaptoan was, but she knew when she touched him that it was almost too late for him.

There was shouting all around her and the sounds of people screaming, dying. The sounds of swords clashing. She’d heard it all before, hadn’t she?

The day Phaenna turned Aureliana into a Laquazzeana. It had been Rhacshas then, too.

And Bronwen had healed on that battlefield. Even healed Ren and Rathan’s brother Shaw when he was injured.

She could do this.

She just needed to focus on the injured around her. On the needs of each one.

“I need someone to carry the wounded!” She yelled as loud as she could.

“I’m here!” Her brother Thadd yanked her closer. She hadn’t known he was anywhere near there. “Bron, get inside! Get out of the fighting, you will do more good inside!”

“I will! Just get the wounded into the dining hall! We can set up there!”

It was what Kindara had done in Relaklonos when the Rhacshas had attacked there, hadn’t she? Set up in the main dining hall; she could do this. She could.

Someone lifted the Dardaptoan off the ground. She stumbled toward the next body.

It wasn’t Dardaptoan. It was warrior, and he wore a medallion similar to Koios. But it wasn’t him, thank the Goddess. Her
Rajni
was still wherever Nalik had taken him.

This warrior still lived, and he was trying to say something in a language Bronwen did not understand. He pulled her tight to his chest as someone else shouted near her head. The sound of swords clashing within inches of her had her screaming.

Thadd was there again, and Eaudne. They pulled her to her feet and dragged her toward the edge of the fighting.

Her brother was saying something, cursing at her for her carelessness.

She tried to explain that it wasn’t carelessness, that she had just somehow ended up there in the midst of everything.

She was a healer, and people were dying. What else was she supposed to do?

Eaudne seemed to understand. “You stay next to me here. Gara, Min, and Kol—these three will assist you! And I will be nearby!”

Bronwen nodded, already feeling the injured souls calling out to her.

There was so much work to be done, and so few people to do it.

Every one of the healers counted. Could make a difference.

Including her.

It was what Kindara and Thadd had trained her to do.

It was what her gift demanded.

“I’m ready!”

Chapter 9

HIS
screams of frustration and anger echoed around him as he felt a hand yanking his soul free of his
 
gamata’s
 
body. The dark cavern where the Laquazzeana waited reformed around him. And he could see it, this time.

Koios fell to his knees before her. “I did not know.”

“She cannot bear to speak of it.”

“I need to know. Did he rape her?” If he had, Koios would personally watch as the male was castrated before being flayed to death. Ramorakin’s fate was sealed; as soon as Koios could order it done, it would be. But how that man would suffer before his death was dependent on the Laquazzeana’s answer.

“I know your thoughts. Do you think your healer girl would wish such treatment on anyone, even Ramorakin?”

Koios did not care. “It will be done. She does not have to be present. It
 
will
 
be done, and I shall be the one to do it.”

“If your brother does not do it first.”

“Did he treat the princess as the same?”

“No. She was treated as you would expect a prisoner of her status to be treated. It was only when she got with the healer did she face true threat.”