Howling Winds: The Fear

There was blood on him. And for the most part, it wasn’t his. He swallowed the painful, helpless, enraging fact that her assailant’s hatred-fulled fixation might have been the only thing that enabled him to intercede at the moment the foul blade had carved into his… his Anasira and refocused on the most immediate concern: cauterizing the wound.

“It hurts so much…” Aelin gasped; as her shaking fingers motioned towards the horrifying red gash spread open across a large portion of her chest, he swiftly knelt at her side, dropping his knee in the pool of her blood and enveloping that hand in the largesse of his own to keep it out of the way - he wouldn’t notice the crust of blood on the treads and toes of his boots until well after this - and perhaps as a form of comfort. Just as much for her sake as his own if he would let himself admit it. “I’m so tired.”

“I know.”

His jaw tried to work through the tension, reaching for a change in his hard, stability-preserving expression for her sake, but the heady mix of adrenaline, fear, and rage had only just ceased making his head swim. Later, he would wonder if it hadn’t in fact been the hands of the gods that enabled him to act in that singular moment. Seeing the way her body seemed to beg and fail to writhe in that touchless grasp had nearly put the paralyzing aspect of fear into him.

Børre looked at the hilt in his other hand - stolen, as he knew what it was and what it could do, another small blessing from his time with the daughter of Van-Derveld - and thumbed the switch, the violet blade coming alive in a characteristic snap-hiss, any small movement eliciting a stretching of the sound of its hum.

“Try,” he started, releasing her hand to grasp her opposite shoulder and pin her down as best he could manage, “to think of something else.”

Focused as he was on what needed to be done, the tears that pricked at her vision weren’t seen, but their faintly salted scent added to the metallic, oxidizing crimson. Carefully, cautiously, he placed the plasma-like blade against her wound, persisting in the task as her body began to shake, arch, and the scream of incomprehensible pain and terror roared out of her. Sizzling and steam issued in the blade’s wake as it forged flesh back together until she was knit into one seamed piece.

As soon as it was done, he lifted the blade away, eying his work for a moment or two, and relinquishing his grip. What it did to him to see her in any of the phases of this excruciating detour was obscured by sheer will. He would tear the foul prince into his constituent parts, given another opportunity. It would be enough to get her to safety. Extinguishing the bar of violet, he clipped it to himself, then shifted to loop his arms underneath her back and knees, and lifted her from the floor.

She whimpered at the motion, doubtless overwhelmed from the different kind of pain he had just introduced, but then any slight movement would pull at the angry wound.

“No… I can’t… I’m not going to make it.” Her breaths were shallow. “Go to the others and just let me die, you’re wasting time.”

What she was saying was incompatible with his present state of mind. He swallowed and tilted his chin down to look at her. The faint creasing of his brow, a starting crack in his steeled composure. He would replace the face of that white-haired saurr with a hole.

“Not a chance. You’re going to survive, because that’s what you do.”

There was no point in arguing. She had to know that by now. Had to believe it. Had to… He lifted his gaze, crossed the room, and pushed out the door with his shoulder. Cradling her, carrying her away from a scene of her assault for what was not the first time.

“You always have, you always will.”