Page 175 of To Bleed a Crystal Bloom
“No,” I mutter, maneuvering her onto my lap. “She needs elevation and water. Her lips are cracked.”
I shift my attention to Kavan and Vanth, watching the scene unfold through wide eyes, spears hanging at their sides. “Make yourselves useful and go fetch a pitcher!”
Nobody moves, Mishka continues to battle for breath, and my insides twist into messier knots.
Frantic, I turn to Rhordyn. “Why aren’t you helping?” I hiss, smoothing Mishka’s hair back from her face.
She releases a sob that’s half whimper, then calls out for her mom.
Again.
My heart folds.
I cradle her head and sooth her fevered brow, just like Cook used to do when I was sick. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay ...”
A bolt of lightning highlights the carnage in a fierce, silver light.The first heavy droplets of icy rain begin to fall, and I lean forward, trying to shelter her from the worst of it.
Her pupils shrink, focusing. Her face crumbles,as if she’s just acknowledged something awful. “Help m-me ...”
I grip her flailing hand and squeeze, staring into wide, wild eyes. “I will. You’re safe now, I promise.”
Rhordyn leans so close his chilly lips skim my ear. “Her wound is from a Vruk.”
The words land like death blows, but I dash them off.
“Has anything vital been severed?”
“No.”
There’s a brief, gurgling squeal behind me, and I gasp, attention swinging to the horse now bleeding out through a slash in its throat—to Baze, crouched beside it with a bloody dagger hanging from his hand.
The animal is no longer breathing. Moving.
Making any sounds.
I blink, and a wet warmth slides down my cheeks.
“It hasn’t severed anything vital,” Rhordyn continues, his words a whispered assault on my ear. “But it will rot her.Slowly,in vicious, vile increments that will suckle her sanity and turn her rabid, until she finally drowns on her own composting lungs.”
I drag a shuddered breath, attention drifting back to the woman who seems to have lost that sheen of lucidity from her stare. “But she’s... she’s ...”
Rhordyn shifts, and another bolt of lightning draws my attention to the dagger poised in his steady hand.
Our gazes clash.
“Look away,” he orders, and there’s an unapologetic savagery in his stare.
It bites my chest, snatching my ability to draw a full breath.
I remember Mishka standing before Rhordyn at the Tribunal. Remember her hands resting atop her lower stomach like a shield.
My tears flow freely.
Look away,he said.
But I’ve been looking away my entire life.
“No.”
