Son of Khyber_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [83]
“You can do this,” she said. The words came to her without thought. “Remember who you are. Remember what you’ve done. What’s one more to one such as you?”
Daine stiffened at her touch. Then, as she spoke, crimson light burned at the shadows along his skin. The ruddy glow reclaimed the lines of the dragonmark, and the mark itself pulled back against his flesh. He gasped, falling forward and catching himself with one hand.
“You have my thanks, my lady.” His voice was ragged. “I knew I could count on you.”
Thorn didn’t even know what she’d done or where the words had come from. Yet it had felt terribly familiar, as if she’d done it before.
“Of course,” she said.
“Xu,” Daine said, rising to his feet.
The chaos had passed. Thorn saw that Brom was sprawled out on the floor behind him. Daine was still unsteady on his feet, but he pushed passed Thorn toward the mass of savage children.
The battle was over. The children were sprawled across the room. A few bore signs of injury, but others seemed completely unharmed. As Thorn followed Daine, she saw that all of the fallen were smiling, their faces frozen in expressions of joy and peace.
Not so Xu’sasar. The dark elf had held her own, but the children had possessed the manic strength of the marauders at the tunnel, and she’d fought dozens of them. She was covered with bruises, and there was something wrong with her left leg—a sprain, if not a broken bone. Blood was flowing from her mouth, and Thorn wondered if there was internal bleeding.
Daine took her in his arms. She looked at him, and her pale eyes were glazed. “It reflects poorly on the soul … when one is killed … by children,” she whispered.
“You’re not dying here,” he told her. “Drego!”
“I cannot let you … stand alone,” she said. “The spirits told me … danger still to come.”
“I will not be alone,” he said. “And you have done your duty to the spirits.”
“Brom’s dead,” Drego said, coming up behind them. “A mercy after what that thing did to him.”
Daine looked up at him then back at Xu’sasar. “Help her.”
Drego looked down at the injured woman. “There’s little I can do—”
“Do it.”
The Thrane knelt beside Xu’sasar, studying her wounds. Even weak as she was, she refused to cry out in pain. But it was plain to see that she was in agony. It was then that Thorn remembered what she had in her cloak. Finding the proper pocket, she produced the second vial of dreamlily that she’d taken from the Tarkanan stores.
Xu’sasar resisted when Drego tried to give her the medicine. “Weakens the mind,” she murmured.
“Drink,” Daine said. “I need you alive.”
On his order, she swallowed the potion. Her breathing slowed, and she relaxed.
Drego studied her for a few more moments. “She’ll live,” he said. “I need to splint the leg, and she needs to rest. But as long as she avoids any strenuous activity, she’ll survive.”
“Do what you need to do,” Daine said. He looked away, and Thorn finally had a good look at him. His dragonmark had spread, covering his entire neck and a wider portion of his face.
“What happened?”
“Vorlintar,” he said. “He’s bound within my mark. It’s difficult to hold such a powerful spirit. Fortunately for me, I had an experienced mentor.”
“Your mark’s spreading.”
“I know. It always does. I imagine the spirits I had bound were released when I died. When I returned to the flesh, my mark was the same size as when it first appeared. With each new spirit, it grows. I can feel it, writhing against me, struggling to be free.” As if to illustrate his point, the lines along his arm twisted and shifted. “But I held it before, and I can contain it now.”
Thorn said nothing, just watched the aberrant dragonmark as it crawled on his flesh. Drego called them back.
“I’ve