Leaning down, I held out my hand to the fallen soldier. A much bigger man than I was, regrettably, I did not have the power to raise him up from the mud.
Struggling to find his own feet, he reached out and held onto my horse’s bridle to steady himself. One of his hands clutched at the arrow that had buried itself in his neck: a death wound. No matter the pressure his fingers put on the jagged rip, there was no medicine to fix that severed vein.
Dying, the brave stormsguard looked up at me.
And his face shifted a little, like magic obscured the truth. I could feel the falsehood sludge against the magic of the axe. Confused, I gasped, trying to understand what I saw.
When the injured guard spoke, he mumbled while he looked directly in my eyes, “You are a lady, Briarthorns. You always will be.”
He said those words. And I struggled to grasp how a stormsguard from the See could know my name. My true name.
The guard fell over, eyes rolling up in his head, his skin chalky white.
“M-marcus?” Like a child, I stumbled across his name. Impossible.
“Marcus!”
Chapter Eight
Treasure Worth the Dying
And that is how the world changed.
Everything I knew hung in the balance of that one moment. Marcus Dewbern, Kingsman, scoundrel, thief, friend, fell in front of me. His hand slid down the leather of my horse’s harness as his knees failed him and blood ran through the pressure his fingers placed around the arrow in his neck.
Yet, he wasn’t afraid.
White as a ghost, he smiled up at me. Clearly, he knew a secret I did not. No doubt he knew many secrets, far beyond my poor understanding. But, I had never seen a dying man smile.
“How did you come to me?” I whispered. “How are you here? Why did you save me? Risking your own life for a servant girl?”
Marcus shook his head, the tiniest bit, denying my words.
“Help me,” I begged the other stormguard. “Help him.. I cannot reach him and...,” the axe hummed loudly in my hands. “There is a spell,” my trembling lips spoke the words before I myself knew the truth. “There is a spell to save him.”
“Quickly, I can save him!” I shouted, “Bring him to me, lift him up, place him here in the saddle of my brave horse.”
But the other guard would not obey my command.
He refused to leave his post. Without turning from his guardian position, he spoke frankly, his caution slicing through my desperation.
“Pardon me, lady, but I must protect you both. If I fall, you are lost. You must go to him and figure out what to do. I will stand guard. I can do no more. More enemies swarm the land.”
Above us, the eye of the storm began to shift a little as the axe gathered the weather inward. From the sky a funnel appeared, dancing down to the shining blade. Like the weapon made a tornado, somehow, the magic held command of the raging winds and waves at its own core.
“This is gonna hurt,” I said drily. Stating the obvious made my sense of futility seem less awful. What’s pain but a reminder of my keen desire to live? Cautiously, I replaced the axe into the holster fashioned out of leather on my back. The storms focused on its metal even though I had released its handle.
Taking the reins of my horse, I held onto its braided mane with one hand and slipped over the edge of the finely-wrought leather saddle. Clumsily, I launched myself off the safety of my war horse and onto the sodden ground.
The ruined, muddy dirt rose up to meet me as I fell beside Marcus. Immediately, the pain in my thigh overwhelmed any attempt to focus. Screaming with the staggering pain, I refused to bend to its beckoning call. Oblivion would be a far easier fate. But only Marcus filled my field of vision.
Regardless of the lies, I could not let a good man die.
Drawing the axe from my back was a struggle. I cried bitter tears of frustration trying to work the metal free from the wet leather. Eventually, I wiggled and pulled enough to rip it free.
With shaking hands, I held the silver weapon aloft.
It took all of my concentration to focus on just that humming. The center of the axe’s power, the control of its magic. I knew no words to command the lightning, to leash the storm. I only knew that both of us would bleed to death within a few minutes if I didn’t find some answer.
“Zephyr,” I whispered.
It was really the only word I knew. My memories of so many of the fairytales had long since faded. Dead like my childhood. I could only recall bits and pieces, enough to make an ill prepared sorceress, easily destroyed, quickly killed. Untamed power helped no one at all.
Above us, the sky crackled and thunder rolled. The axe took both of my hands to hold. We waited as Marcus’ life spilled out of his neck.
Magic. Do you hear me? I sent my thoughts to the yellow humming that centered in the silver weapon. Heal. Not destroy. Heal him.
How do I call a power? How does a human being control wild lightning?
Could it be done without killing us both?
Did it even matter?
We were both dead anyway.
“Zephyr, Axe of Stormjen. Send me the power over life.” That was general and probably useless. I knew that.
Out of the storm-filled sky, a lightning bolt fell. The power of the gods channeled down to earth. Its touch was the kiss of angels and the death of every memory. I felt light and charged, energy surrounded my hands and lit my mind from within.
Suddenly, every fairytale my mother ever told me replayed in my mind. Like a key turned in a lock inside my dreams, I remembered it all.
“Sozo!” That was the word I needed.
And as soon as I uttered the word, the magic zinged through me.
Pushing out the arrow from my thigh, knitting together the broken skin and the cut muscles. I felt light-headed, filled by both magic, exhaustion, and exhilaration all at the same moment. So much of the lightning spun with in my mind, dancing on my fingertips.
I lowered the axe, setting it down by my side. With gentle, glowing hands, I reached over to Marcus, and touched the arrow stuck deep in his neck.
His pale skin sizzled where my fingertips contacted the wound. His eyes flew open as the magic pulled Marcus back from his long walk with death. Captured lightning spun in my hands as I pulled the arrow free without a pause. Touching the fountain of crimson red river that ran down his neck, I felt a surge between us both as the magic sealed the wound shut.
I leaned down and lightly kissed his still, blue lips.
Healing him felt exactly like searing an open wound with a live coal.
Marcus was injured, dying. The next minute, he was healed—weak, trembling, but alive.
I tested the strength of my leg a few times and then when I could stand, I hobbled over to the saddle bag on my war horse and grabbed a canteen. And a bit of food.
We were by no means safe. By every measure, we were still very much in danger. But I refused to worry about any of that.
Pouring some water on a bit of roll, I gently stoppered life, and pushed it back into Marcus.
A life for a life. No matter the past. I thought. As brave a man as Marcus could not perish. I had to try everything possible.
Touching my hand to the blood-slicked mail that covered his chest, I released a bit of the lightning spiralling like a dust devil in my own body. A wave of searing heat sparked through the fallen man.
And then, he turned his face from the grip of death and smiled at me again.
That same way he had a few times on our odd journey. Marcus smiled at me as if he adored me far beyond words.
“Marcus,” I spoke in starts and stops. Words were slow to come to my command as freely as the wild magic did. I was the mistress of the ancient fairytales, the owner of the truth magic, the beacon of the weather instrument, but in front of Marcus, I was just a bashful girl, uncertain of what I should say next.