Page 328 of Scarlet Wars
I spun back toward the fight.
James stayed on the offensive, charging in with reckless intensity. His movements were fast, less like a trained fighter,more like a disaster let loose. He wasn’t fighting to survive, he was fuckingfurious.
Caden was in motion opposite to James, his Chela a blur of steel and precision. He fought like a weapon honed for this moment, every movement cold. But I knew him well enough to know this cold fury was grief turned lethal.
Together, they both moved like two halves of the same weapon.
“Emma, get down!” Rachel shouted, and I ducked right as the High Chief sent a blast of concussive energy tearing through the air where my head had been.
I threw my weight into the battle, pushing energy through my limbs, my hands alight with flame. The High Chief’s power was overwhelming, like trying to contain a storm inside a cage. He parried and struck, every move forcing us back, testing our limits.
Debris exploded outward, stone and glass raining through firelit smoke. Screams echoed from nearby alleys, and somewhere behind us, a tower collapsed with a roar that shook the sky.
All around us, the battle raged on, Radicals and Offensives colliding in brutal, tangled knots of magic and fury.
“Emma!”
I turned, heart lurching at the desperation threaded through a voice I knew too well.
Sean was still crouched over Jackson, blood soaking through his fingers, his hands slippery and shaking. The wounds I’d closed—barely—had torn open again, and Jackson was convulsing now, lips tinged blue. His shirt was soaked through with red, pooling out across the broken stones beneath him.
“No—no, no, no,” I whispered, running to them, skidding to my knees so fast my palms tore open on the rubble. “I had him—I fixed it?—”
“You didn’t!” Sean snapped, his eyes filled with panic. “Emma, he’s dying!”
I slammed my hands back onto Jackson’s chest, pouring everything I had left into him: magic and will and the sheer, desperateneedto keep him breathing. But the energy wasn’t taking. It slipped through me like water through cracks.
My fingers trembled. Why wasn’t it working?
The High Chief was still fighting James and Caden—effortlessly—batting away their attacks with a sickening, lazy precision. And he was smiling. A wide, white,predatorysmile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Your translation won’t help him, Miss Thompson,” he called out as he drove Caden back a step. “All that power you’re hoarding won’t save him. What he needs is a Healer…”
He slipped past James’s strike like it bored him, grin widening.
“And I’m guessing you didn’t bring one to this little Offensive-heavy field trip.”
He didn’t know. He didn’t know I was a Healer.
The High Chief lifted one hand, and Jackson jerked violently beneath mine, a strangled cry escaping his throat.
“Stop it!” I screamed, reaching for more power, but it did nothing to undo the damage to my friend.
The High Chief chuckled.
“Do you feel that?” he asked. “The limits of your magic? You cannot fight what you don’tunderstand. And you don’t understandme.”
I gritted my teeth, tears stinging my eyes. My magic sputtered. My fingers were numb. And Jackson…
I froze. For one awful second, my magic dimmed completely.
The wound was closing. The bleeding had slowed. And yet, he was still dying.
“What did he do?” I whispered, pressing harder, desperate to find something I’d missed. I reached deeper—beneath the blood, beneath the torn skin and muscle—trying to feel the thread of magic I could pull back together. But everything I touched kept unraveling.
“He…he did somethingtohim,” Sean said, while shaking.
“But what? Sean, I’ve sealed the arteries—I’ve fixed the damage—so why isn’t it working?”
