Spartan Promise

by Jennifer Estep

  “Covington!” Drake yelled. “Behind you!”

  Covington turned at the warning, but for once, he was too slow, even with his Roman speed, and I smashed the flowerpot into the side of his head. The clay pot shattered on impact, spewing shards, dirt, and winterblooms everywhere.

  He yelped and lurched backward. He kept his grip on Serket’s Pen, but I’d ruined his concentration, and no more basilisks appeared.

  I twirled my dagger around in my hand and advanced on him. “You’re not getting away this time. You’re going back to prison where you belong.”

  He smirked at me. “We’ll see about that.”

  Covington snapped up Serket’s Pen again, and the third basilisk still on the ground shrieked and launched itself at me. But I had been expecting the move, and I dove forward and rolled across the grass, getting clear of the monster. I hit another one of the stone planters and bounced off. Pain rippled through my shoulder, but I scrambled to my feet.

  On the lawn in front of me, Balder finally landed. Ian slid off the gryphon’s back and ran toward me, his battle ax clutched in his hand.

  “Rory!” Ian yelled. “Behind you!”

  I ducked just in time to keep Drake from running me through with his sword. I whirled around to attack him again, but Drake drove his boot into my knee, making my leg buckle. I yelped and hit the ground hard. My dagger slipped out of my hand and tumbled away into the grass, leaving me without a weapon, but I forced myself to get back up onto my feet. More pain shot through my knee, and I was barely able to stand.

  “Die, Spartan!” Drake drew his sword back for one final, fatal strike. He was going to kill me, despite the fact that Covington had told him not to.

  I couldn’t get out of the way, so I grimaced and stuck my arm out, trying to block the brutal blow—

  “Rory!” Ian yelled, his voice getting louder and closer. “Rory!”

  A shadow appeared to my right. At the last second, just before Drake was going to skewer me, Ian stepped in front of me, and Drake plunged his sword into his brother’s stomach instead of mine.

  Ian’s ax slipped from his fingers and hit the ground. He opened his mouth to say something, but only a thin trickle of blood came out instead.

  “Ian!” I screamed. “No!”

  Drake stared at Ian. For a moment, surprise filled the Reaper’s face, but then he smiled. “Good-bye, little brother,” he said with a sneer.

  He yanked his sword out of Ian’s stomach, then shoved his brother into me. Despite the pain in my leg, I managed to reach out and catch him.

  “Ian?” I whispered.

  His gray eyes brightened, and he reached up and cupped my face with his hand. “There’s no need to shout, Rory. I’m right here. I’ve always been right here.”

  His voice dropped to a whisper, and he leaned forward, as if he was going to kiss me. Then his body sagged, his knees buckled, and he slipped through my fingers and collapsed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Ian!” I screamed. “Ian!”

  Instead of answering me, he coughed again, and more blood trickled out of his mouth and ran down the side of his face.

  “Drake!” Covington yelled. “Let’s go! Now!”

  My head snapped up, and my gaze darted around the lawn. My friends were still fighting the two basilisks by the van, while the gryphons were battling the other two creatures that had attacked them. Covington was sitting on top of the final basilisk, getting ready to fly away.

  Drake raced over and climbed onto the basilisk’s back behind his boss. My friends were on the far side of the lawn, along with the gryphons, which meant that I was the closest to the Reapers. I had two choices. I could run after Covington and Drake and stop them from escaping, or I could save Ian.

  I chose Ian.

  I dropped to my knees beside him. The yells, screeches, and shrieks of the various fights rang through the air, but I tuned them out and focused on Ian. Pain filled his eyes, but he still smiled at me.

  “Rory…” he rasped. “It’s not your fault… I just wanted…to save you…”

  His eyes started to flutter shut, and I grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

  “Stay awake! Ian! Stay awake!” I yelled, but it was no use.

  His eyes slid shut, and his head lolled to the side. Desperate, I shook him again, but he didn’t respond. So I let go of his shoulders, reached down, and yanked his shirt up so I could see how bad his wound was.

  It was bad—very, very bad.

  Drake had shoved his sword deep into Ian’s stomach, and the dark, almost black blood pouring out of the wound told me it was a mortal one. Tears cascaded down my face, and a sob got stuck in my throat. Why Ian? I was the one Covington and Drake had kidnapped, so I should have been the one to get hurt. Not Ian.

  But my tears and regrets wouldn’t do Ian any good, so I wiped them both away, leaned down, and pressed my hands on his stomach, trying to slow the blood loss.

  “Takeda!” I screamed. “I need you! I need your healing magic!”

  But he was still fighting that basilisk with Aunt Rachel, and he wouldn’t reach Ian in time. Even if Takeda did manage to come over here, I didn’t know if his magic was strong enough to heal the wound before…

  Before Ian died.

  Another sob rose in my throat at the horrible thought, but I swallowed it and pressed down even harder on his wound.

  Ian sucked in a breath, and his eyes fluttered open. For a moment, I worried that I had only added to his pain, but then his face relaxed, and he smiled at me again.

  “Cold…” he rasped. “Your hands are cold…”

  “I’m sorry!”

  I started to remove my hands, but he laid one of his hands on top of both of mine.

  “No…” he rasped. “Feels good…feels better…”

  I bit my lip, wondering if I should let go anyway. I didn’t want to cause him any more pain. I had started to slip my hands out from under his when the strangest thought occurred to me.

  Ian wasn’t the only person who had said that my hands were cold over the past few days.

  Ugh! Get your cold hand off me. What did you do? Dip it in ice water? Kylie Midas’s voice echoed in my ears. She had said that when I put my hand on her arm, trying to see how badly she had been injured by the basilisk in the library.

  Your hands…are cold… This time, Gretchen Gondul’s voice whispered in my mind. I had pressed down on her wound in the cemetery, trying to stop her from bleeding out. And just like with Ian, I had started to let go of Gretchen, but she had told me not to.

  No…her voice whispered in my mind again. Feels good…feels better…

  My mind raced, thinking back over everything that had happened. Kylie had had some nasty gashes in her arm—until I had touched her. But then, when she had wiped the blood away, her wounds had faded to small scratches. Gretchen had died from her injuries, but her pain had eased when I had put pressure on her wound. It was almost as if the mere touch of my hands had made her feel better.

  I frowned and stared at my hands, which were still clamped down on top of Ian’s stomach. But how could I have possibly made Gretchen feel better when she was dying? And what did my cold hands have to do with anything—

  My healing magic.

  Whenever I was hurt, even if it was just a scratch, that cool, soothing rush of power kicked in and healed my injuries. What if that wasn’t the only thing my magic could do? What if my power was stronger and more complex than I’d realized? What if I could heal other people?

  What if I could save Ian with it right now?

  I thought of Gwen. Her psychometry magic let her know an object’s history, but it also let her pull emotions, feelings, and even power out of people—as well as pour emotions, feelings, and memories right back into them. All she had to do was touch someone.

  What if I could do the same thing with my healing magic?

  Gwen was a Champion, just like I was, and she was my cousin. Maybe our goddesses had gifted us with simi
lar powers. Maybe our magic worked in similar ways since we were related. Or maybe my healing magic had more in common with her psychometry power than I’d realized.

  A breeze gusted across the lawn, and a couple of white winterblooms from the pots I had broken twirled across the grass and landed on the ground next to me.

  Winterblooms have remarkable healing properties. Sigyn’s voice murmured in my mind, and I knew what I had to do. I’d only had my magic for a few weeks, and I’d never tried to heal anyone else with it before, but I was going to give it everything I had.

  I couldn’t bear to lose Ian the same way I had lost my parents.

  I pressed down even harder on Ian’s wound, making him groan with pain. I grimaced at the fact that I was hurting him, but I closed my eyes and concentrated on the cool rush of healing magic deep within my own body.

  Maybe it was the horrible memory of the red narcissus seed worming its way into my body, but I imagined my power as a flower—a beautiful white winterbloom that was rooted deep within my heart. I pictured that winterbloom growing and growing, the white petals flowing out of my heart and up to the surface of my skin and sticking there like small snowflakes. I drew in a breath, then imagined all those snowflakes slowly sliding down my arms and pooling in my palms, as though I were holding handfuls of white winterbloom petals.

  And then I pictured pushing all of those petals, all of that cool, soothing power, out of my body and into Ian’s. The blood loss would stop, and the jagged edges of the wound would slowly pull themselves together, then seamlessly heal. Once the wound was healed, his heart would fall back into its usual strong, steady rhythm, and his breathing would become smooth and even.

  Push my power into his body. Stop the blood loss. Seal the wound. Ease his pain.

  I pictured it all in my mind. Every single step. Over and over again, until it became like a mantra that I was silently repeating.

  My friends’ shouts, the gryphons’ screeches, the basilisks’ shrieks. Even the sun on my face and the wind tangling my hair. It all faded away, until all I could feel was my hands on Ian’s stomach and the cold power flowing from me to him like a winterbloom blossoming over and over again. My entire focus was on giving Ian all of my magic, all of my healing energy, all of my strength to bring him back from the brink of death.

  And slowly, it started to work—but not without a price.

  A sharp pain stabbed into my own stomach, in the exact same spot where Ian’s wound was. I hissed and doubled over, but I kept my hands pressed against his wound. I looked down, but there was no blood on my shirt, so I kept going.

  The harder I concentrated on Ian, the more the pain in my own stomach increased. I let go of my magic, just for a second, and the hurt immediately lessened. I thought back, and I realized that the same things had happened with Kylie and Gretchen. I had put my hand on Kylie’s injured arm, and my own arm had started itching. I had pressed down on Gretchen’s wound, and I had felt a pang in my own stomach. The same thing must be happening here.

  Ian’s wound was a mortal one, just like Gretchen’s had been. Maybe my magic couldn’t heal it. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough. Maybe I couldn’t save him.

  For the third time, a sob rose in my throat, but I forced it down. No. I wasn’t giving up. In the cemetery, I had wished that I could take away his pain, and that was exactly what I was going to do right now. I was Spartan strong, and I could be strong enough for both of us. I was going to save him, no matter how much it hurt, and even if it cost me my own life in the process.

  Tears and sweat dripped down my face and stung my eyes, but I gritted my teeth against the pain and kept going.

  The blood gushing out of his stomach slowed to a trickle, then stopped altogether.

  Push my power into his body. Stop the blood loss. Seal the wound. Ease his pain.

  I had managed the first two, so I concentrated on the final two steps. I imagined Ian’s skin drawing together, sealing shut, and smoothing out, as if he had never been injured.

  And that was exactly what happened.

  His wound healed, his heart beat steady and strong, and his breathing evened out.

  But even as Ian healed, my own pain grew worse and worse.

  The more magic I poured into him, the more pain I felt in return. I had to grind my teeth to keep from screaming, but I kept going. All that mattered was saving him.

  Sometime later, I realized that my friends were gathered around me. Takeda, Aunt Rachel, Zoe, Mateo, the three gryphons. They were all staring at me with a mixture of horror and fascination. Tears and sweat were still sliding down my cheeks, and my face was twisted into a gruesome, pain-filled expression. Combined with the blood all over my hands, I looked like I had stepped out of a horror movie.

  “Rory?” Aunt Rachel whispered. “What have you done?”

  I ignored her and the rest of my friends and poured even more healing magic into Ian. I needed to know that he was going to be okay. I couldn’t stop—I wouldn’t stop—until I knew that he was going to be okay.

  Finally, just when I thought I couldn’t stand the agony anymore, Ian’s eyes slowly fluttered open, and his gray gaze focused on me.

  “Rory?” he whispered. “Are you all right?”

  That was when I knew that I could finally let go.

  It took me a moment, and I had to concentrate, but I finally managed to peel my bloody hands off Ian’s stomach and release my hold on my healing magic.

  The pain hit me a second later, even stronger than before.

  I fell onto the ground beside Ian, screaming and clutching at my own side as though I had been run through with a sword instead of him.

  “Takeda!” Aunt Rachel yelled. “What’s wrong with her?”

  If he answered her, I didn’t hear it. The pain swept over me again, and I tumbled down into the blackness.

  * * *

  For the second time in as many days, I woke up in the grass at the Eir Ruins.

  For a long time, I just lay there, focusing on the big, white, puffy clouds that drifted across the cerulean-blue sky. The shapes reminded me of winterblooms. I smiled, and my eyes drifted shut again…

  “Hello, Rory,” a familiar voice called out.

  My eyes snapped open, and I sat upright. I looked over to find Sigyn sitting on the rim of the broken fountain, holding a bouquet of wildflowers, like she had when I’d been here before. Had that only been last night? It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  The goddess got to her feet, walked over, and held out her hand. I took it, and she helped me up and onto my feet. Sigyn smiled, then handed me the flowers. Her bouquet last night had been a mix of wildflowers, but this one was made entirely of winterblooms.

  I turned the bouquet this way and that, admiring the snow-white petals and the emerald-green hearts glittering in the center of each blossom. The bouquet was one of the loveliest things I had ever seen. And the scent… I held it up to my nose and drew in a deep breath. Fragrant flowers mixed with fresh, clean snow. Ah.

  “Will you walk with me, Rory?” Sigyn asked.

  I nodded, and we set off through the main courtyard. The sun was shining brightly overhead, and a steady breeze pushed the marshmallow clouds across the sky. The wildflowers sparkled like a carpet of jewels underfoot, and their scent tickled my nose. It was a beautiful fall day, and I looked around, trying to soak it all up at once.

  But staring at the wildflowers reminded me of all the ugliness that had happened at the estate. I held my left hand up where I could see it. No blood covered my hand, and my palm was smooth and whole, as if I had never cut the red narcissus seed out of my skin. I shuddered and dropped my hand down to my side.

  “How are you feeling?” Sigyn asked, as if she could read my thoughts.

  “Tired. Really, really tired. But other than that, I’m okay—” Another thought occurred to me, and I whirled around to face her. “Ian! What happened to Ian? Is he okay?”

  “You don’t remember?” she asked.

  “I remember
Drake stabbing him in the stomach and trying to use my magic to heal him. But it seemed like the more I tried to do that, the more I felt the pain of his wound myself…”

  My voice trailed off, and my hand fell to my stomach, but I didn’t feel any pain now. Just this bone-deep weariness, like I needed to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. The sensation was so intense that my steps slowed, and I swayed on my feet and almost sat down in the courtyard. I drew in a breath, and I got another whiff of the winterblooms’ scent. Somehow the fresh aroma made me feel better, stronger. The worst of my weariness faded away but not my worry.

  “Is Ian okay?” I whispered. “Did I…save him?”

  Sigyn nodded, and my breath escaped in a relieved rush. “Yes, you healed him, Rory. The Viking boy will live, thanks to you and your Spartan strength.”

  I frowned. “My Spartan strength? What are you talking about? I thought you gave me healing magic.”

  She nodded again. “I did give you healing magic, but that power is yours to wield however you choose. Do you remember what’s written on Babs’s blade?”

  “Devotion is strength,” I said, quoting the runes. “But what does that have to do with my healing magic?”

  “Your healing magic, your inner strength, comes from your devotion to others.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “You locked yourself in a room full of chimeras at the Cormac Museum to save your friends from being killed. And today you used your magic to heal the Viking boy, despite the fact that it hurt you, despite the fact that you felt the pain of his wound as if it were your own, despite the fact that you thought you might die in his place.”

  Sigyn stared at me, her black gaze focused on mine. “Your magic, your power, your strength, come from your willingness to sacrifice to protect the people you love, no matter what pain you have to endure yourself. That’s one of the many reasons I chose you to be my Champion, Rory.”

  I frowned again, trying to understand her words. “So you’re saying that not only can I heal myself, but I can also heal other people?”