Page 208 of War Queen
His brows dipped. She seemed nervous. He’d never seen Katya nervous before. They’d just finished a war for gods’ sakes.
She only stared at him.
“Katya?”
She swallowed. “We’re all your family,” she said finally. “You have us all.”
That wasn’t… what he’d expected. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. She clasped his shoulder and then continued her work across the battlefield looking for survivors.
Adrian turned his own attention back to the battlefield. The injured had been carried off, but Bahoul still looked like a mountain of bodies, and the hills around it a rolling sea of death. He recognized a Crest warrior half buried and hurried toward him. Dropping down beside him, he reached a hand to the man’s neck to feel for a pulse.
He was gone.
Adrian stood again, his eyes still on the warrior. So many were gone—so many he knew, so many he loved.
He continued, sweeping side to side, searching.
Then, in the hallow of a hill, he saw something that made him stop.
Lucien.
He lay on his back. Blood seeped from underneath the armor on his chest, down his sides and into the ground. His face was turned up toward the sky, staring blankly.
Adrian drew closer, and Lucien’s hand moved ever so slightly.
He still lived.
He stepped even closer, his shadow falling over him, and Lucien’s eyes found him.
“Adrian,” he said weakly, so quiet he almost didn’t hear.
Slowly, Adrian sank down beside him.
Lucien opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. He reached his bloodied hand along the ground toward him.
Adrian stared at it. If he took it, Lucien could come to him, enter his mind.
“Adrian,” Lucien struggled again. Pleading.
Adrian’s lip trembled as Alexander’s face looked back at him—the face that tore his heart in two, the face that he missed more than anything in the world. He looked down at Lucien’s outstretched hand, then took it and closed his eyes.
In the depths of his mind, they were still in the battlefield. But now, Lucien stood in front of him, whole and well.
“Brother,” Lucien said.
Adrian looked at him warily.
“I broke the tether,” Lucien told him.
“But it won’t help her now, will it?” It wouldn’t heal her.
Lucien’s eyes tightened, as if filled with guilt. Did he feel guilty? He was. “I’ve sent someone to help her. A friend.”
The faintest of hope flickered in him. “A healer?”
Lucien shook his head. “I lost my healer.”
Adrian shifted. “Will this friend save her?” Did he dare to hope?
