“Almost there, almost there.” There was desperation in his voice. “Hold on.”
Everything went black.
And then she could feel it. Could feel life flowing into her, coating her skin, filling her lungs. Her eyes fluttered open, revealing mist flooding down from above, the air thick with it.
Her heart steadied, and in the moonlight filtering through the grate she watched a loose lock of her hair change slowly from white to black.
Killian’s breathing was ragged. He was on his knees, one arm under her legs and the other around her shoulders, his grip hard enough to bruise. Slowly turning, she looked up at him. “Where are we?”
“As close as I could get to one of the shelters.” His face was concealed by shadows. “There are hundreds of people above us.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I can feel them.”
“On the battlefield,” he said, “when a healer does too much, we drag them out among the healthy and uninjured men and it usually brings them back from the edge.”
From the edge of death. Lydia pulled her ring out from beneath her shirt, gripping it tight and trying not to think of how close she’d come to losing her everything.
“Are you feeling stronger?”
She nodded, then wished she hadn’t when he eased her onto the dry side of the tunnel, the comfort she’d felt in his arms falling away, leaving her cold.
“What were you doing in the sewers?”
She swallowed, her throat dry. “I followed you, and after … When I was finding my way out, I came across a sick boy and his friends. I … I couldn’t leave them like that.”
Killian shifted his weight, the moonlight falling across his jaw and cheek, and Lydia felt the urge to reach up and touch him, to feel his skin beneath her fingers. To—
“You put both of us at risk,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “By now, all the hundreds of children down here will know there was a healer here tonight.” The muscles in his jaw clenched. “You aren’t trained, Lydia. You don’t know how much healing a particular injury will take out of you, and if Finn hadn’t recognized you and run to find me, you might have—”
“And you aren’t taking a risk every time you bring food to them?” She sat up straight. “Those deimos are watching for you. They’re hunting you.”
He shrugged. “The children don’t have anyone looking out for them. What does it matter if I’m risking my life if it will save hundreds? It’s what I’m for.”
She frowned. “You’re marked to fight. For war.”
“No, I’m marked to protect. The rest is just a consequence.”
“To protect Malahi.”
“It’s not that simple.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “At least, it isn’t for me. It’s like a compulsion.… I can’t not do it.”
A deep understand of exactly what he meant filled her. The desire to help those suffering around her had been growing and growing, the sick children finally overwhelming her fear of using her mark. The fear of the consequences of using her mark.
“If you get caught,” Killian said, “you won’t get back to Celendor to set things right. Your father, Teriana, the rest of the Maarin? Is risking them worth saving a handful of lives?”
It felt like she was being torn in two. Like there was no choice that wouldn’t cost her. “My father … my father is likely already dead.” Saying the words made her chest tight, like she could scarcely breathe. “And Teriana will never forgive me if she learns that I could’ve saved the lives of children but didn’t for fear of risking her.”
“If it was just her life, I’d agree. But the stakes are much larger than that. You need to get back.”
He was right. She knew he was right. But she didn’t think she could live with herself if she stood by and did nothing. Nearly all her life she’d hidden alone in the library while the world passed by, doing nothing to right the wrongs she saw but chose to ignore. She refused to go back to being that girl. She refused to go down without a fight. “Why can’t I do both? Why can’t I help those who need it right up until the moment I board the ship to Serlania? It would give them a fighting chance of surviving.”
“Because you risk being caught. You risk dying if you make a mistake.”
“I’m not worried about being caught. Or of dying.” She grinned, feeling the rightness of the moment. “Because I’ll have you to watch my