Another zap. A little more precisely aimed this time.
Finally, the man’s heart seemed to resume a steady beat. Darshan fumbled for a wrist, holding it close to his chest whilst measuring the pulse. Regular. Relief relaxed the constraint on his magic and it flowed through the man, mending the remaining minor injuries.
Darshan sagged, barely able to keep himself from falling to the flagstones. He thanked the gods for already being on his knees, for he certainly would’ve dropped to them.
People collected the litter, lifting the now completely healed man and carrying him through the crowd. Others who’d suffered lesser and similar injuries were also being escorted inside.
Drawing upon every ounce of his strength, Darshan hauled himself to his feet and followed the litter. His body cried out for sleep, for food. He couldn’t indulge in either yet. That wasn’t how Nanny Daama had raised him. He’d a duty to his patient first.
~~~
Hamish raced through the halls. He hadn’t heard the crash that’d been the pulley system failing, but the bustle around it stirred the whole cloister. Spellsters and priests poured from the entrance, rushing to aid the wounded or assist in those who already were.
He trotted down the stairs, tailing his brother. The pulley was absent of people, but seemed strangely intact for something to have caused so much trouble. Especially when people lay groaning and bleeding like—
Darshan.
The Udynean knelt in the middle of the crowd, slumped over beside one of the makeshift litters. The sleeves and chest of his sherwani were stained with blood. His own? Had he been struck by the pulley? What had he been doing out here, anyway?
One of the litter bearers bumped him, jolting him into the realisation that he’d been standing on the steps like a statue.
He hastened through the crowd, forging a path to his lover.
The crowd closed in before Hamish could reach Darshan’s side. When it parted again and allowed him through, the man was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the litter.
A quick survey of his immediate surroundings also revealed a complete lack of the man. Where…? He wouldn’t have gone beyond the courtyard gates. But the cloister was big and he had looked injured. Would those carting the wounded inside care that his bloodstained attire wasn’t of this land?
What if Darshan mistook a healer’s attempts to aid him with danger? Would he fight them? How would the priests react to such an action? With his imprisonment? His death?
He whirled on the closest person, realising he had grabbed his sister only when her face was inches from his. “Darshan?” he blurted, clutching at her shoulders lest she also vanished. “Where is he? I saw him, but he’s gone.”
“He followed one of the workers inside.” She jerked a thumb up the stairs as if he hadn’t just descended them. “Said he was heading to the infirmary.”
Followed. Not taken. He could move under his own power, then. Maybe the wound had been superficial. Something that he could—
Heal.
Hamish bowed his head, relief and embarrassment at his own stupidity quaked through his gut and squeaked out his mouth. Whatever injury Darshan had suffered, it clearly hadn’t killed him, so his magic would knit him back together. Just like it had with that arrow wound back at the outpost.
That didn’t explain why Darshan was going to the infirmary, but it was a question easily satisfied. “Can you take me to him?”
Nodding, she trotted up the stairs. He followed at her heels, silently taking in the number of bloodstained and battered people being led inside. It had to be half the workforce stationed at the cliff base. What had happened?
“I must say,” Caitlyn said over her shoulder. “He’s nicer than I thought a vris of the Mhanek would be. A little morbid, but polite.”
“Dinnae let him hear you say that, I think you might actually offend him. Especially seeing as he describes himself as being arrogant and selfish.” Whilst Darshan didn’t seem overtly proud of the fact, he was quite insistent that he had no redeeming qualities. Even with evidence to the contrary.
They passed Gordon on the way through the main entrance. Their brother fell into step beside Hamish, a faint query tightening his brow.
“Well, your selfish man just risked his life to save another’s.” Caitlyn shook her head as if Darshan was only a child having returned from a successful, but ultimately foolhardy, hunt. “I’ve nae seen a spellster throw themselves into a healing so thoroughly. Nae one who has lived more than a few minutes, at least.”
“Should I take that to mean you approve of ‘Mish’s new man?” Gordon rumbled.
“Well, he—” Caitlyn swung to eye their brother before turning her gaze on him, continuing to backstep her way down the corridor. “I was only having a lark before, but he really is?”
“I guess so,” Hamish mumbled, his face burning.
“You guess?” Gordon quipped, playfully nudging him in the ribs. “He followed you into a cloister, I dinnae think many foreign spellsters would do that.”
Hamish shot his brother a death glare, but Gordon had long built up an immunity to such looks and merely grinned back.
“Your man is quite reckless, in a fearless sort of way.”
“How so?” He had witnessed Darshan’s healing abilities on others before. Granted that had been a broken jaw rather than the crushed ribcages or shattered limbs he had witnessed in these injuries, but his lover hadn’t seemed any worse for wear.
“We’re instructed to be careful when healing another. The old writings’ warnings about the risks of draining the self to mend another are quite explicit. Put too much effort into it and your body starts cannibalising itself for fuel. That man was on the brink of death, I felt it trying to take me with him and yet…” She shook her head, disbelieving. “Most who’ve tried healing those that close—of those in Tirglas, at least—have
