“I wanted to fly.” Tears brimmed in Jamie’s eyes, escaping as he blinked.
“You did. Need to work on the landing, though.”
“I hurt.”
“I bet. Let me see.”
Enar didn’t need to run his hands over the boy to know Jamie had a broken arm and leg. One of the bones of his lower leg jutted through his trousers, opalescent white covered in blood.
He let loose with another round of cursing.
“Oh, my Goddess! What do we do?” Enar jumped as Lily’s voice sounded from behind him.
“Willowbark tea. For the pain,” Jamie groaned.
“I can make it. I’ll return in a few.”
As Lily darted back to the campsite, Enar watched her fine arse hustle before Jamie cleared his throat, causing him to focus on what he should be doing.
“Lad, you are more trouble than you’re worth
.” Where is Fafnir when we need him?
Gray eyes shot through with a dose of pain turned his way. “My arm hurts too.” Jamie tried to move the offending limb and grimaced.
“Don’t move.” Enar pointed a finger at Jamie and gave the boy his best ferocious stare, the one used to put the fear of the Goddess in others.
Jamie’s face paled even more, his eyes widening as he gulped.
Enar gathered two pieces of wood, strong and thin, and carried them back to Jamie.
“When we get to the Temple later this afternoon, the priestesses will heal you. They will set your arm and leg and you’ll be up and about in no time. For now, though, I need to splint your arm so the bones don’t move.”
Silence greeted his statement, punctuated by the rapid blinking of Jamie’s lids. Maybe the silence meant the boy took the do-not-move order seriously.
“And you’ll need to give up some of your clothing.”
Jamie’s eyes grew in size. “Huh?”
“To bind the splint to you. You think it just stays there on its own?”
“I’ve never watched Keara splint a brokened arm before.”
“Broken.”
“That’s what I said.”
Enar grunted. Using his dagger, he cut through the leg of Jamie’s trousers above the jutting bone, forming long strips of cloth. Picking up the two sticks, he placed one on either side of Jamie’s arm, binding them with strips of Jamie’s clothing.
One down, one to go.
He gathered more sticks, this time choosing longer, thicker ones. By the time Enar finished foraging and returned to Jamie, Lily sat beside the boy, a steaming cup of hot tea resting between them.
With Lily’s help, and despite Jamie’s screams, Enar managed to get the bone back under the skin. It wasn’t set right, but they would be at the Temple later in the day and the priestesses would fix his clumsy attempts at healing.
Where was Fafnir when they needed him? The dragon knew something about the healing arts and Jamie needed more help than Enar knew how to give.
“Jamie, do you know where Fafnir is?”
“Nuh-uh. That’s why I fell.”
“Because you didn’t know where Fafnir was?” Maybe the boy hit his head hard.
“We had a game. I’d climb a tree and he’d go invisible and then I’d jump and he’d catch me. And there’s this bird’s nest that belongs to this ginormous bird up there so I climbed and jumped and how was I supposed to know he wasn’t around?”
“Why did he let you do that? You could have died!” Lily shook her head.
“I told you Fafnir is crazy.”
“He’s not crazy!” Jamie glared at Enar. “He was teaching me to fly.”
“Obviously not well enough.”
“You don’t know nothing.”
“I know you’re hurt and I’ll have to carry you to the Temple. I know Keara,”
provided she lived
, “will be mad at you for falling out of the tree.”
Jamie blinked and looked away. “I’m sorry,” he muttered.
“Don’t do it again.” As if those words would stop him. But at least the next time Jamie took a dive out of a tree, Enar wouldn’t have to clean up the mess.
Where had Fafnir gone? Enar focused on the thought pattern Fafnir used to talk to him and tried mind-speaking to call the dragon.
Fafnir!
He waited for Fafnir to respond while Jamie sipped his willowbark tea. Despite calling the dragon several more times during the tea sipping, Fafnir refused to answer.
Maybe he had decided to go to the Temple without them. Maybe he flew back to River’s Run. Maybe the dragon completed his journey to insanity and was stomping about the countryside.
Bloody goat innards. Fafnir clearly was nowhere to be found. Nothing to it but pack up and go. Jamie needed attention sooner rather than later.
“Jamie, are you sure you don’t know where Fafnir is?”
“Do you actually think he would have jumped out of the tree if he knew Fafnir wouldn’t be there?” Lily raised an eyebrow at him.
He returned the expression.
“He didn’t say anything to me.”
“It looks as if he’s gone.”
Again.
“I’ve tried mind-speaking, but he hasn’t answered. We need to get you to the Temple, Jamie. Lily, stay with him. I’ll go pack the bags.”
Lily thrust Jamie’s empty cup into his hands, and he carried it back to their campsite. He stuffed the cup into a bag and wondered what he’d done to deserve this journey.
Who knew a lad could be so much trouble. Had he been this much trouble at Jamie’s age? He paused, hand on a bag’s drawstrings, and remembered being a child with Thoren. No, they definitely hadn’t been as much trouble as Jamie.
They never fell out of trees.
Not only did he have Jamie to contend with, but Fafnir hopped onto their dysfunctional wagon and whipped the metaphorical horses into a frenzy. Something was off with that dragon. Probably due to all the years he spent locked behind titanium bars. Maybe suppressing a Draconi’s magic rendered the Draconi insane.
Interesting thought. One he’d investigate later.
And then there was Lily and her questions. He knew she would want to know what her new life would be like. Knew she would ask questions he’d rather not answer.
So why was he so bothered when she did?
Because he stupidly hoped if she never knew then she wouldn’t hate him.
And the chances of her continuing to look at him like he was her savior were about to crash into the land of not-very-likely.
The thought of her blue eyes showing fear or hate caused the strange sensation in his chest again. He rubbed at the pain. Think of Lily hurt and he hurt. Why? What happened to him in River’s Run that caused this ache? He needed to see one of the priestesses this afternoon and let her diagnosis the problem.
He froze while reaching for a blanket. Why hadn’t he thought about the priestesses earlier? Specifically one priestess. Aryana. The High Priestess. His former lover.
Were there rules for introducing one’s present lover to one’s former lover?
He grabbed the blanket and stuffed it into a pack. Since he found Lily, the memories of all other females faded like a colorless dream. Lily was the one he wanted to live with. The one he wanted to wake beside each morning. He wanted to see her smile and—dare he say it—love in her eyes. None of which would happen once he returned to his village. And not going back was out of the question. He needed to prove once and for all he was ever bit as much of a Watcher as his old man. Maybe then his father would acknowledge him as his son.
Why he bothered after all these years remained a mystery. His father would rather cut off his balls than admit Enar came from his loins. Didn’t matter Enar looked like a younger version of the old bastard or that no man dared look at his mother with lust. Never once had he told Enar he was proud of him. No, not his old man.
Enar kicked dirt over the smoldering fire as he remembered being sent to live with Thoren’s family as a child. Undoubtedly, his father meant it as punishment, but he saw it as the best thing to ever happen to him. Thoren’s family was so, well, normal. Loving. Everything Enar’s was not. And therein lay the problem. No other Watcher grew close to his Draconi ward. By his race’s standards he was an oddity. His own father, for all intents and purposes, had disowned him, he’d rather spend time living with the Draconi instead of guarding their lands and he had never claimed a woman.
Until now. And what a woman she was. As his people’s epitome of beauty, Lily was the perfect female specimen. The whiteness of her skin, the paleness of her eyes. All Watchers wanted a woman with her beauty, but none had found one. No one but him.
With Lily on his arm, the taunts he endured since childhood, the longings of fitting in, would be over. He could start anew. Prove to the Watchers he was a man.
And she would be his way to his father’s heart.
Enar slung the packs over his shoulder and walked back to where Lily sat with Jamie.
Enar dropped the packs at her feet. Jamie glanced at the packs and then to him. “How am I going to get to the Temple?”
“I’ll carry you. There are leather straps somewhere,” he rummaged through the packs until he found the straps. “Ah-ha, here they are. I’ll fasten a sling out of these and you’ll be nice and not try to jump out. All right?”
Jamie nodded.
“I’ll take some of the bags since you’re carrying him.”
Lily started gathering bags to carry while Enar constructed the sling. He wrapped the straps of leather around Jamie and gave them a tug.
“Ready?”
Jamie squinted his eyes. “Uh-huh.”
Lily helped him move Jamie into a sitting position. Back to the lad, Enar fitted his arms through the straps and stood.
Jamie whimpered. And there went the chest ache again. Apparently Lily wasn’t the only cause of it.
Lily tied Keara’s herb bag around his waist, handed him a pack that he slung across a shoulder, and picked up the rest of their belongings, strapping them across her body and around her waist.
His claim looked like a pack horse.
“You all right?”
“Yes.”
“Give me that one,” he pointed to the largest.
“You have Jamie.”
“You’re about to fall over. Give it to me.”
With a huff, she ducked her head out of the strap and handed him the bag. Enar threw it over his other shoulder and started walking.
With each step, Jamie whimpered, small involuntary noises that crept out from between his lips like squeaks from a wheel. Lily pulled her cloak over her head, trying to hide from the light that lit her cheeks like a flame.
Enar stared at the sun. The thing couldn’t move across the sky fast enough.
Chapter 15
The path widened into a packed dirt road meandering through trees, weaving itself right up to the largest monstrosity Lily had ever seen.
Tall, gray stone jutted from the ground, carved into twisting shapes she couldn’t decipher from the distance. A stone wall surrounded the thing and Lily’s feet screeched to a halt.
Enar took a couple of steps before turning around. “We’re almost there.”
Lily’s arm pointed at the gray stones in the distance. “What is that?”
“The Temple. Our destination.” Enar started walking.
Jamie twisted around, trying to look over Enar’s shoulder at his first glimpse of the Temple. “Will Keara be there?”
“I hope she is. But even if she’s not, the priestesses will take good care of you.” Enar reached behind him and patted Jamie on the head. “You’ll feel better once we get you there.”
Lily forced her feet to move forward, the gray stones forbidding even from this distance. What would it be like close up? Was the place as scary as it seemed?
Small dots moved around the periphery of the stones, branching out along what appeared to be roads. Lily’s chest seized.
So many people!
She clutched her hood tighter around her face.
The dots grew larger the closer they came to the Temple, turning into black-haired beauties. Lily tried not to stare, but the whole lot of them had Thoren’s coloring. She tucked wayward pieces of her hair under the folds of her hood. It still covered her aberrant coloring, but she felt the stares as people passed. She took a step closer to Enar.
Who seemed to be thriving with all the attention. Smiling, nodding, he parted right through the mass standing at the gates. Greetings were tossed their way courtesy of a cluster of white-robed women.
Lily felt her stomach roil at the women’s greetings and fawning. The whole lot of them must have sand in their eyes from all the blinking they did.
Once through the gates, the smell of flowers assaulted her, overwhelming her senses. The stone walls opened into a green courtyard, filled with shrubs, trees and multi-colored flowers. White-robed women walked through stone-paved paths winding between the trees.
Peaceful. Beautiful. And totally frightening, for as soon as Enar stepped into the courtyard the conversation died as everyone turned toward them, the only sounds the chirping of birds.
Their stares pierced her attempt at disguise, laying her bare for their perusal, but their gazes didn’t show hatred. Curiosity gleamed from their eyes as they glanced at Lily, their gazes settling on Enar.
More simpering and fawning. Great. Enar had obviously impressed other women prior to meeting her. The remaining-aloof plan required a sense of not caring, which was rather hard to do with the current seeds of jealousy running through her veins.