Chapter 196
ATASHA’S POV
“Your Highness, you should rest,” I heard Grace say behind me, her voice rough from hours of issuing orders. “You have already healed a lot of soldiers, you are starting to sway, you—”
“I am fine,” I answered, pressing my palm against another chest.
The man on the cot gritted his teeth as my fingers met his skin. His breathing hitched, then steadied when the warmth spread through him and his ribs stopped grinding with every inhale. The puncture wound near his lung knitted together under my hand, skin closing over muscle that had been torn open by something sharp and unforgiving.
I pulled my hand back. Someone else took my place instantly, adjusting his blankets, checking his bandages, calling for water. Another lieutenant shouted numbers from the far end of the long room, counting who still needed attention.
The infirmary had always felt cramped during smaller skirmishes, but tonight it resembled a crushed lung. Cots stood so close together their legs nearly touched. Men lay on the floor where there were no beds left.
Grace moved closer. “Your Highness, you have been on your feet for hours. You already healed the worst cases from the courtyard, then the patrol group from the west wall, and now this line. Your hands are shaking. If you push any further—”
“Then someone who can be saved might die,” I cut in, moving to the next cot. “Help me instead of arguing.”
There were so many more than during the red moon.
Back then, they had been bloodied but still able to fight. Wolves with broken bones and torn flesh, men who had seen the attack coming and thrown themselves into it. This time, half of them never even shifted. They collapsed and then they died with foam on their lips and black veins on their necks, or they woke up hours later with no memory of how they had fallen.
The corrupted stones had stolen their strength before they even had the chance to lift a blade.
My hand hovered over a soldier’s side, over a deep gash that exposed yellow fat and damaged muscle. He watched me, eyes wide, jaw clenched so hard his teeth creaked. Someone had bound it in a rush, fabric already soaked through. The wound pulsed under my palm, hot and angry.
I pushed my power into it.
Heat spread from my fingers into the torn flesh. His breath stuttered, then eased as the gap drew closed. The edges pulled together as if dragged by invisible threads, blood flow slowing, skin stitching itself back into something whole.
He exhaled shakily. “Thank you, Your Highness,” he whispered, voice hoarse,
I forced a small smile and moved on.
So many.
Far too many.
They were soldiers who trained in the snow since childhood, men who did not flinch at broken fingers and fractured ribs, yet the stone had dropped them like dead weight. Some of the cots held only still bodies with sheets pulled over their faces, because no healer arrived in time.
Now I understood why northerners spoke of witches with so much hatred in their eyes. I had seen their cruelty before, but this was different. Those stones turned warriors into prey. They killed without giving them even the dignity of a fight.
Someone called my title again. I turned, and the room tilted for a moment.
The ceiling seemed lower than before. The light from the lamps wavered. The beds blurred at the edges, too many shapes merging into one long smear of color and bandages and skin.
I drew in a breath and pushed it out slowly. “Next,” I said, stepping toward the voice.
Sadly, my foot missed the edge of the rug.
The floor shifted under me. My vision narrowed, and I had just enough time to think that I was about to meet the ground, face first, in front of a room full of people who already looked at me like some strange thing out
of a story.
Yet, I did not hit the floor.
Firm hands caught my shoulders from behind and hauled me back against a solid chest. My knees buckled, but the grip on me only tightened, one arm locking around my waist, the other bracing my upper body.
I did not need to look over my shoulder to know who it was.
His scent reached me first, cutting through the musk of blood and herbs. Smoke, steel, and something warm that my body recognized before my mind finished the thought. My fingers curled instinctively into the forearm holding me.
Cassian.
“You are done,” he said, his voice low near my ear, close enough that the words sank straight into my spine. “You will not take another step in here.”
I blinked, trying to focus. “There are still men who need me,” I argued, although the room kept swaying in a way that made it hard to count how many actually remained.
“You saved enough for tonight,” he answered. “I will not watch you collapse on top of a cot.”
He did not give me time to object.
In one smooth movement, he turned me toward him and bent down. His arms slid beneath my knees and shoulders, and he lifted me off the ground as if I weighed nothing at all. A murmur rippled through the infirmary, boots scuffing as soldiers and healers shifted aside.
“The Consort will rest,” Cassian announced. “She is not to be disturbed until she has recovered. Anyone who
ignores this order will answer to me.”
Almost immediately, Grace stepped in front of us, looking ready to protest on principle, but one look at my face made her shoulders lower. She pressed her hand to her chest and bowed her head instead. “We will handle the rest, Your Lordship,” she said. “You have my word.”
Cassian gave a short nod and carried me out of the room.
The corridor outside felt strangely quiet after the noise of the infirmary. I could still hear distant shouts and the clink of metal, but they were muffled by stone walls and closed doors. My head leaned against his shoulder of its own accord. I hated how heavy it felt.
“You should not have walked this long,” he muttered. “You barely slept last night.”
“I am not the one who collapsed in the courtyard,” I said, the words slipping out before I could stop them.
His arms tightened just slightly. “I would prefer if that remained true.”
We reached the outer doors. Someone must have seen us coming because the moment Cassian approached, guards moved to swing them open. Cold air hit my face as he stepped into the courtyard where the worst stains had already been covered with fresh snow.
A carriage waited near the steps.
I was not surprised when he did not set me down to climb in.
Instead, Cassian stepped straight into the carriage with me still in his arms and sat, keeping me on his lap as if the idea of letting me go did not cross his mind at all. The vehicle rocked once as the driver adjusted the reins.
“You can put me down now,” I murmured, though my body had already relaxed against him. “There is enough space.”
“There is enough space for both of us exactly where you are,” he answered. His hand settled at my waist, holding me in place.
The wheels began to move. The gentle sway of the carriage, combined with the warmth of his body and the lingering hum of power in my veins, made my eyelids heavy.
Guilt poked through the fog. “I did not save enough,” I said, the words dragged from somewhere deep in my chest. “There were too many. If I were stronger, if I could push more, if I—”
“You saved more men than any healer has in one night,” he cut in. “The ones you did not reach were already gone.”
“That does not change the fact that they died,” I whispered. “I keep thinking that if I knew how to control this better, if I were faster, if I could carry more at once-”
His hand slid from my waist to the back of my neck, fingers pressing gently into the tense muscles there. “If you break yourself,” he said, “I gain nothing. I do not intend to bury you next to them just so you can call it
service.”
A faint sound left my throat, something between a laugh and a sigh. “You make it sound like I am being dramatic.”
“You are being reckless,” he replied. “I already endure that from my soldiers. I do not need it from my wife.”
Wife…
The word still made my pulse jump, even after everything that happened between us.
I wanted to tell him about Celeste then. I wanted to describe the way her eyes shook in the corridor, the way she stared at the blood, the way she looked at my healed palm like it was an accusation. I wanted to lay out every plan that had formed in the back of my mind since she walked into that greenhouse.
I wanted to tell him that whatever game she thought she brought here, I did not intend to play it by her rules.
“Yes, I was reckless,” I muttered instead, my voice already slurring a little with sleep. “I will try to be less so next time.”
He made a low sound, something that might have been amusement or annoyance. “You will rest when I tell you to,” he said. “That would already be a start.”
I would have argued with that on any other day.
Yet, my head nudged closer to his chest. His heartbeat thudded steadily under my ear, as if the corrupted stone had never touched him.
I tried to keep my eyes open, tried to count the turns of the carriage so I would at least know how long it took to reach the mansion, tried to hold onto one clear thought about Celeste.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up.
Warmth surrounded me. Soft fabric brushed my skin. The scent of smoke and herbs lingered, but it was faint, mixed with the subtle smell of clean linen. Light filtered through the curtains, not too bright, but enough to tell me it was not the dead of night anymore.
I jolted upright.
My head spun once before settling. I pressed a hand to my chest and realized I was no longer wearing the gown I had chosen for the meeting with Lady Kenneth and Celeste. Instead, a sleep shift hung loosely around me, sleeves tied at my wrists, neckline modest but not the one I put on this morning.
Someone had changed my clothes.
Heat climbed up my neck as the realization sank in. I tried to remember when, but the last clear memory 1 had involved Cassian’s lap and the steady sway of the carriage. Everything after that blurred into darkness.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood carefully. My body felt heavy and clean at the same time, as if someone had wiped away every trace of blood and sweat while I did nothing but breathe.
“I hope you do not mind,” A familiar voice echoed.
I immediately froze.
Cassian sat near the balcony, one leg stretched out, the other bent, a small table beside him. Papers lay spread across the surface, held in place by his hand. The doors behind him stood open, letting in a ribbon of cold air that barely reached the bed. His gaze lifted from whatever he had been reading and met mine.
I blinked. “Mind what?”
He watched me for a heartbeat, then shifted his attention briefly to the change of clothes, his gaze dipping before he forced it back up to my face. “Everyone was busy,” he said. “Grace was still in the infirmary, the maids were either cleaning or asleep on their feet, and I refused to leave you lying in used fabric. I changed your clothes.”
The words tangled in my ears for a second.
He said them like a man offering an apology for stepping on someone’s boots. How could he even apologize for something like that?
“It’s fine…” I said, looking away. Then my mouth moved before I could even think. “Not at all.”
