Felling Kingdoms (Book 5)

by Jenna Van Vleet

  “Did you suspect beforehand?”

  “Right before, yes. We went for a ride the day before and were ambushed. He was wounded and not able to ride that night. I was so flustered I was blind to his true intentions.”

  Gabriel had paused, a full spoon halfway to his parted lips. “Was not able to ride? What kind of wound?”

  “To the hip.”

  He lowered the bowl. “Where?” he asked in an exasperated tone.

  She stooped to point to his hip.

  “So you slept in the tundra? Why did you not summon me?”

  “I did! You were busy.”

  He ran a palm down his face. “So he was ambushed, wounded, and spent the night sleeping next to you.”

  She cringed. “It sounds worse when you say it out loud.”

  “No,” he held a hand up to halt her rising voice. “I’m not mad at you. It sounds like a suspicious ambush.”

  Robyn leaned back. “You don’t think….”

  “Often, and certainly at this time.”

  “You think he arranged his own attack?”

  “To get you to stitch him in a precarious place and have no means of escape that night? I’ve seen soldiers ride with busted limbs and gashes the size of your hands. He could have ridden.”

  She put a hand on her head. “I…feared that was the case, but I was flustered at the time and not thinking straight.”

  “Are you always flus—”

  “Don’t say it!” she jabbed her toe in his thigh. He grinned and went back to his soup, drifting off into his thoughts. “I so am sorry about Aisling.”

  He nodded and swallowed. “I am going to kill them. As soon as I’m stronger, I’m going after Challis. I’m bringing Arch Mage heads back with me. I’ve dallied too long, and it cost three people their lives.” He finished the last bite of the soup and set it above him on the desk. “For now, I need to put the Council back together.”

  He slowly climbed to his feet and strode to the tray Mikelle brought, downing the flask of water. “Water never tasted so sweet.”

  “You starved yourself, didn’t you?”

  He shrugged as he turned. “Would you want to live like that? I couldn’t…. I want to keep you here for a while. Aisling had your hinge ring, yes? I’ll get it back.” He leaned down to give her a kiss. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For still being mine.”

  Chapter 23

  Gabriel sat with his head bowed over Dagan’s. The extensive damage done matched the reports. He was without oxygen for several minutes before being cut from the vines. Brains hummed with electricity, but Dagan’s quietly fired away just enough to keep his body alive.

  Dagan’s beautiful wife Lailee sat by his side with a hopeful gaze. Gabriel hoped he could live up to her expectations. He had studied the brain, but it always unnerved him. One slip could leave the person dead or worse. But with a blank canvas like Dagan’s, it did not matter. Gabriel’s hands hovered on either side, his fingers slowly moving as he wove the damage away and renewed the tissue.

  It took about ten minutes before Dagan’s breathing changed. Gabriel did not see it as a success yet, knowing his old trainer’s life lay between his hands. He reflected back to the days in Urima Manor. Dagan would find him hiding in the rafters to avoid his lessons or would appear right before Gabriel did something he knew he should not. The man had plenty of practice with his own four children, and to Gabriel made an excellent father. Gabriel would not leave his children fatherless.

  Lael watched from the doorway, looking far better than he had when Gabriel left. The color returned to his cheeks though it looked strange to see him without slicked-back hair. The healers had just washed him, and his thick hair fell across his forehead and ears haphazardly to made him look younger.

  “His hand moved,” Lailee breathed, gripping it tightly. “He was not paralyzed?”

  “No,” Gabriel whispered. “His breaks were to the front of his body.” Afton and the healers had done an expert job putting him together again. Gabriel could not feel the repairs done to the bone, and were it not for clusters of ripped nerves, he would never have been able to guess where the vines wrapped around him. There had been on one around his neck, two around his chest, and three around his legs. His damage had been internal and suffered much, but the healers had worked quickly to save him.

  “Here we go,” Gabriel breathed a while later and pulled his hands apart. “Dagan?”

  “Ten more minutes,” Dagan muttered.

  Lailee let out a cry of excitement and threw herself onto his chest to hold him as best she could. Gabriel leaned back and worked his way through the nerve damage down the rest of him. Dagan raised his long arms to wrap up his wife. She finally leaned back with a glowing smile.

  “Stars,” Dagan breathed. “Who saved me?” Lailee pointed to Gabriel by his head. “Stars above, you are alive.” He raised a hand to grip Gabriel’s. “I knew it.”

  “Did everyone?” Gabriel asked.

  Dagan looked to Lael who nodded. “We suspected you might be able to break out. We were going to try and kill you to see if that issued a fight response great enough.”

  “It came in a different form, but I appreciate everyone trying to murder me.” They chuckled in nervous relief, and Gabriel patted Dagan’s shoulder. “Galloway next.”

  Afton kept Galloway under a permanent sleepers-pattern to hold his pain back, and Gabriel delved his spine, instructing Afton to wake him. Galloway’s eyes came open with a snap, and he gasped gripping the bed sheets.

  “Stars above, Head Mage, I never thought I’d see you up,” he breathed.

  “I’m glad someone was thinking rationally. Hold on, Galloway, I think I feel the problem.” He held a healing pattern in his palm and rotated, reattaching nerves and aligning the electricity of the spine.

  Galloway let out a breath of relief, and his grip on the blankets released. “Oh, stars, that is much better.”

  He ran his hand over the legs to repair any ripped nerves. “That should fix everything,” Gabriel replied as he double-checked the pelvis. “What hit you?”

  “I never saw it,” Galloway shook his head and sat up. “I could not even tell you which Element he used.”

  “I will have a healer walk you to your quarters,” Afton said with a respectful bow. “Head Mage, Markus is two doors left.”

  Markus had been kept for observation more than anything. He had lost a great deal of blood, but the Mage looked chipper and alert when Gabriel walked in.

  “Still abed,” Gabriel grinned.

  “They won’t let me leave, and these books are dull.”

  Gabriel sat beside him and sank a delve into his chest. “How bad was it?”

  Markus nodded with wide eyes. “It—it was bad. It ripped me open, and I could not breathe. Shaun arrived moments later and wrapped us in condensing-patterns to hold the blood in. That man, Head Mage, that man is responsible for all of us still being alive. I heard Mikelle scream his name, and no more than a minute later, he jumped through the window and starting pulling us back together.”

  Gabriel stitched his nerves, feeling tiny notches along his ribcage where someone had realigned his chest. “You broke the whole front of your chest open?”

  “Aye,” Markus breathed. “I passed out from pain shortly after Shaun arrived. Head Mage,” he lowered his voice and put a hand on Gabriel’s arm. “I am devastated for you about Aisling.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We understand you have one of Evony’s hairs?”

  “I’m going after Challis tomorrow after I’ve regained my strength. She should be with them, and if not I’ll be bringing heads back.” He still had one of Maxine’s hairs and was just waiting for the right opportunity to search her out.

  “I know you do not want to think about this right now, but I would be honored to serve with Shaun on the Council. He held this castle together after the attack. He is a true leader.”

  Gabriel smiled and nodd
ed. “I’ve been thinking about replacements, and you’re not the first person to say that.” He twisted the pattern in his hand and pulled the nerves along the skin into alignment. Much of the skin had been completely regrown, and there were no nerves yet. Gabriel formed them carefully. “How did Malain take the death of his son?”

  “As well as any father.”

  Gabriel nodded understandingly. “That should do it.”

  Markus ran his hands over his torso, poking and prodding his new skin. “Well done.” He slid off the bed and threw on a coat. “I have a mountain of work to see to. There are a thousand things that need to be ordered for spring. Did you know we cannot Class without a full Council?”

  “I didn’t, but it’s just as well.” Gabriel sighed. “The Arch Mages brought their battle here, so it’s time I bring mine to them.”

  Afton met him in the hall. “Adelaide is the last. She’s waiting in the sitting room.”

  He walked slowly down the hall, feeling the strain on his already weak body. Adelaide stood with her back to him, her gaze out the window. Her long brown hair, usually bound up in a braid, fell loosely around her left shoulder. She slowly turned to look at him, and he realized why.

  “Oh, no,” he breathed.

  Her left eye was white. A slash ran through the center obscuring what little color her brown eye had left. She cast her gaze down as he approached, but he took her chin in his hand and raised her face to his. “Adelaide…I….”

  “I know,” she whispered. “If you knew how to fix eyes, you would have repaired Shaun and Afton by now.”

  He turned her head back and forth, watching the eyeball move without issue. “I have done some research but not enough to attempt a healing yet. The eye is terribly complicated, and it does not help that it attaches directly to the brain. Tampering with it is dangerous. I need more research before I try anything.”

  “Do you think you could heal it?”

  “I have not been stumped yet. I have considered removal and regeneration of the eye, or cutting the damage away and regrowing it anew, but I dare not try it yet.”

  She smiled a little, her lips not curving normally. He sank a delve into her face and repaired the nerves. Her lips fell into place properly as he seized Void and set a reveal-pattern to see jagged white circles over her face and chest. “How far did the impaling go?” he asked as he worked his way down her neck.

  “The stomach. Penny’s chair exploded, and I caught it all.”

  “You are lucky. They probably thought you done for.”

  “Lucky,” she muttered.

  “I will increase my studies. It would help if I had more books.”

  “I will find others.” She watched him with her good eye, and after a moment she took the hand that held the Void reveal-pattern and turned it on him. She touched his fingers to his collarbone. He knew what she saw but was surprised by her stern reaction. Adelaide was a Fire Mage, a strong woman, and he expected nothing less in her face as she searched his skin.

  “Stars above,” she whispered as he continued to work down her front. “Has any place on you not been healed by Spirit?”

  “Oh, yes,” he replied. “The waist to mid-thigh are relatively unaffected. Everything else though….” He leaned forward as he mended punctured nerves to her stomach.

  “Can I see?”

  He never had a strong rapport with Adelaide. She usually opposed his decisions and never made an effort to know him. He straightened, “Where?”

  She shrugged her shoulders as if banishing the idea, but he shucked off his coat and unbuttoned his vest. He lifted his shirt to his shoulders and touched the reveal pattern to his skin.

  “By the stars,” she whispered, tracing his lines as she did a slow rotation of his body. “I—I never thought you endured this. What caused all this?”

  “Mostly Nolen.” He lowered his shirt and tucked it in, releasing Void.

  “You cannot feel anything, can you?”

  ‘Oh, not this question.’ “I can. I was healed.”

  Her brows rose. “By whom?”

  “You don’t want to know,” he whispered and threw on his vest and coat.

  She crossed her arms in the familiar female posture of ‘you will tell me’. He huffed and faced her.

  “Do you remember when the Arch Mages made it into the courtyard and put Misery on my wrist? They got in with a ring like this,” he pointed to the one tucked around his finger, “that belonged to a Secondhand. Maxine had it and I befriended her until I was able to get it off her.”

  Adelaide’s face remained calm. “I thought Unwind got them in.”

  It had. “It was the ring,” he lied.

  She nodded thoughtfully. “And she healed you. I always wondered how your hand got better, but you are so full of secrets, I forget to ask.” She smirked pensively. “She taught you Void.”

  “She did.”

  Adelaide smiled. “I am impressed, Gabriel. I have not given you the credit you deserve.”

  That was the first time she ever called him by his first name. He grinned appreciatively.

  “Your secret is safe with me. Thank you for trusting me with that.”

  He bowed his head and strode out into the hall. Afton was in Dagan’s room with a tray of food and water. “The Council is as mended as I can make them.” Gabriel reported.

  “Adelaide’s eye?” Afton asked.

  He shook his head. “I need to do more research before I attempt to heal anyone’s eyes.”

  Her brows rose in surprise and she smiled a gleeful line, handing Dagan a mug of water. “What will you do now?”

  “Rest and bring Challis back in the morning.” He paid them all a nod and made his way back to the Lodge. He took the long way to make sure people saw him. He was greeted by numerous Mages who shook his hands and clapped his shoulders. A few even embraced him with beaming smiles. It took him four times as long to make his way to the Lodge than he expected, but he felt renewed by the time he reached the doors.

  Robyn sat with Mikelle in his study, drinking tea and watching the sun sink into the Greynadaltynes. Robyn poured him a cup and handed it to him as he went to his desk, easing into the old chair. He missed it more than he expected. Naturally, there was nothing on his desk to be addressed, so instead he shot a searchers-pattern through the amber chain he hid in his desk to pinpoint Challis.

  She was far away southeast most likely in Viorica. He searched Evony next and found her in the same location, as was Maxine. Foolishly, he never grabbed one of Pike’s hairs when he had the chance, but he suspected they were all together.

  He rubbed his temples as he planned his morning attack. His greatest advantage had been taken from him. They knew he was coming, for Maxine would have told them. He would have to make a fast, lethal strike to be successful.

  “Can you count the thoughts in his eyes?” Mikelle asked quietly.

  “I cannot count that high.” Robyn tittered.

  Gabriel looked their way and grinned. “You two should not be friends.”

  Mikelle looked at Robyn with interest. “I’ve told you about the first time I saw him naked, yes?”

  “You did, but you can retell it in greater detail.”

  Gabriel grimaced and looked away as they tittered. “I’ll be right back. Make sure one of you is gone when I return.”

  He seized Void and shot himself towards Arconia to locate Lace in her mansion on the cliffs. He appeared behind her as she stood solemnly before a cradle, talking quietly to Pesh within.

  “Lace,” he said gently.

  She spun with a cry of surprise, but her lovely face swelled with relief when she saw him. She ran to embrace him tightly. “I thought you were done for.”

  “I nearly was,” he whispered and held her back. “I cannot stay long, but I wanted to make sure you were well. How is Pesh?”

  “She grows every day.”

  “And you?”

  “I am even better seeing you.” She broke away.

  �
��Lace, I am concerned for you, and the other women who bear my children,” he said quietly. “Arconia is about to be caught in treachery, and I fear your lives may be in jeopardy.”

  “What has happened?”

  He explained everything briefly. “Will you do something for me? I need you to locate all the women I….”

  “I know.”

  “And tell me where they are. I plan to bring you all to a safe place before this plays out.”

  “I thought you wanted nothing to do with them.”

  “I’ve had a change of compassion. They are still my children.”

  She smiled and nodded. “I will do as you ask and summon you when I have their locations.”

  He kissed her hand and slipped back into Void and back to Jaden. Robyn was alone standing by the windows, a steaming teacup in her hands.

  “Where did you go?”

  “To Lace.”

  Robyn turned. “Is she well?”

  Gabriel stepped beside her and leaned on the window frame. “She…gave birth.”

  He winced, waiting for her hurt face, but she smiled broadly. “Your first born? Oh, how wonderful. Boy, girl?”

  There it was, the little twinge of jealousy that flitted through her lips. It quickly died as she composed herself. She was entitled to it.

  “Girl, a little thing named Pesh.”

  “She was born early.”

  “Pike attacked. I fought him and brought him here…it was all part of his plan.”

  She slipped a hand around his waist. “Do not blame yourself now for what you could not fathom then. Rejoice you have a healthy child.”

  He looped his arm around her shoulders to say with actions what he could not say with words.

  “Marry me,” she whispered.

  He smiled. “Not yet. Soon. This will not take much longer, I can feel it.”

  “Will you…tell me what happened with Lace?”

  He looked down to see her large eyes staring expectantly up at him. “I….”

  “I think I know, but I wanted to hear it from your lips.”

  He flicked his hair off his forehead nervously and searched the horizon for an answer. “Nolen suspected I was not bedding the Arconians, so he watched to make sure I did.” He turned his head away, ashamed. She squeezed him tighter. “Please don’t hate Lace. She had to otherwise he would have known I had allies.”