“Vlad. He said stop being stubborn, open that door, and get in the room. Ristan is coming to talk to you now.”
Sure enough, Ristan materialized in front of us, covered from head to toe in blood. I couldn’t tell how much of it was his. I swallowed the cry that tried to tear from my throat as his eyes met mine with worry filling them. “Ristan,” I whispered brokenly as I rushed toward him.
“Syn, I need you to come with me now.”
“Ryder?” I asked, shaking my head.
“It’s bad, really bad. I need you to do what you did last time; save him for us. Please, I need you to help us. I don’t think Eliran can do it, and, frankly, I’m not willing to wait to see if he can when I know you can do it. I need you to save him. Fuck! You have to do it. I’m begging you, Synthia. Please.”
Chapter Thirty Five
We sifted to the room that Ryder was being treated in; the atmosphere was one of grim apprehension. Most of Ryder’s guards, including Dristan and Zahruk, had taken up positions around his bed. They refused to leave his side, even with the severity of the wounds many of them had. I couldn’t see Ryder, because Eliran had a sheet drawn up around him. Healers were running in and out of the room. I flinched as someone dropped a metal container on the hard floor, the sound echoing over the sound of the machine beeping. The machinery always struck me as odd around such a mythical being, but Eliran had told me when he was treating me before that the machines humans had for monitoring patients were very useful to him.
“What happened?” I whispered as Ristan pulled me closer to Ryder, as a helper sped by to get something for Eliran who was standing on the other side of the bed from me. Ryder looked lifeless, he wasn’t moving, and he wasn’t breathing. I knew he was Fae, mentally, but it wasn’t clicking as I stared at his ashen, motionless body.
“Iron; they shot at us with fucking iron bullets, as if they knew we were coming tonight. We got most of them, but I didn’t see the bullets. I should have. Fuck! I only saw that we stopped them from killing another group of Fae.” His voice was hollow as he spoke. “I’m not meant to see everything, but why Danu did not want me to see this, is beyond me. I’m meant to protect him.”
I reached down and held his hand; it felt as if my heart was being ripped out. Ristan was in need of comfort as much as I was, and I was in need of something to hold as I stood there staring at Ryder’s inert body. A feeling of absolute wrongness stole over me—this wasn’t right. Ryder did the damage—he wasn’t supposed to be lying here like this.
Eliran shouted at the helpers rushing into the room. Everything was moving fast around us as if time stood still for Ristan and I alone. I was seeing everything in slow motion, as if it was a nightmare. My brain knew they were moving as quickly as their feet would take them, but my eyes remained glued to Ryder.
He couldn’t die. Last time he’d made it through with only a few scratches. I mean, come on, he was freaking Ryder. He didn’t get hurt; he did the hurting! This was something else entirely, though. Iron killed Fae, and, from the smell of the blood coming from Ryder, he’d taken the brunt of the damage.
Iron bullets. I closed my eyes and sent my senses seeking the damage; inside of him were multiple bullets, and they seemed to be everywhere, starting from his shoulders and all the way down his legs. Tissue had been damaged, and cartilage was torn, unable to heal because of the iron lodged deeply within his body. I pushed with everything inside of me—everything I had—into the room, and into his body. The roar of blood rushing through my own body filled my ears as I fought to empty Ryder’s body of the iron that was killing him.