Ward Against Destruction

by Melanie Card

  He seized it, hungry. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until this moment. His stomach twisted with starvation, but instead of absorbing it into his body, he forced the magic back down the blade into Declan’s skin, trying to ease the pain. It wasn’t a perfect anesthetic, but it had seemed to work during the surgery to birth a baby back in Dulthyne, and it was all he had.

  Slow and steady. Ease Declan’s pain. Nothing else.

  He drew an incision about a foot long. Blood spilled over Declan’s skin and Ward’s hands. More magic snapped and crackled. Sweat beaded in his hairline, along his neck, and down his back that flash-froze on his skin from the sangsal.

  Concentrate. The surgery text said he needed to get a look at the spleen. See how damaged it was. If it wasn’t too badly damaged, the organ could be saved, but there was just so much blood. Thick black clots and a sea of red. Ward couldn’t see anything. And the magic—Goddess—there was so much magic. Red and writhing.

  Declan groaned but didn’t wake. Tension rippled through Nazarius’s and Celia’s auras, and fear flared from Jared’s. Ward ground his teeth. Clear the blood. Touch the magic and clear the damned blood. Don’t. Take. Any.

  He forced his hand into the incision and scooped out the clots as fast and steady as he could. There was so much. Declan had lost so much. Ward grabbed a bandage and pressed it into the incision, trying to sop up the blood. Anything to get a clear view of the organ. It would be up under the rib cage. It had a sac of its own.

  There. He could see the spleen—

  It was a mess. Completely ruptured. Blood oozed from it with every beat of Declan’s heart. Through the veins, into the spleen, and out into his body. Ward had to tie off the veins, remove the organ, and pray the removal didn’t kill Declan.

  “Thread. Short.” Keep it together. Don’t give in to the temptation.

  Celia handed him a short length of thread, her hands trembling.

  His breath burned, and his jaw ached from clenching it. Ward tied off the largest artery.

  Declan’s pulse fluttered, paused, fluttered again. It was so weak against Ward’s fingers. He’d lost too much blood. They hadn’t gotten to him fast enough. Ward should have done something sooner. But he couldn’t have done anything without medical supplies.

  Declan’s pulse paused again.

  “What’s happening?” Nazarius asked, his voice low.

  Declan was dying. That’s what was happening. He needed blood, but they didn’t have any to give him, and a transfusion was more likely to fail than succeed. All they had was the magic his soul was bleeding.

  Panic flashed through Nazarius’s aura. “I can’t feel his pulse.”

  Neither could Ward.

  Light shimmered at the corner of his eye. The veil rippled above Declan. The Goddess was calling him to Her eternal embrace. Ward was failing.

  Except he couldn’t fail. Failure would mean everything he’d fought for and suffered had been for nothing. What was the point of everything if Ward couldn’t save lives and make a difference?

  Ward snatched at the magic around him with his mind. It roared, an inferno, through him. Just consume it. He’d be stronger, faster, more powerful—

  He shoved it through his hands into Declan’s body. The youth needed his soul magic back. He needed his soul to stay. Ward had to prove he was still a physician, no matter how much he now embodied death.

  He wrenched the magic into a net and wrapped it around Declan. It wasn’t permanent—Ward wouldn’t turn the youth into a monster like him—but if he could keep his soul around long enough for his body to heal, Declan might survive.

  Declan’s heart stuttered.

  The veil flickered.

  Ward poured more magic into him.

  The veil flickered again.

  Ward forced every scrap of magic he could gather into every pore, every nerve, knitting the damage back together. The inferno threatened to consume and then freeze him. Lightning stabbed his stomach, but he clung to his focus.

  The veil faded. Declan’s pulse beat stronger.

  Nazarius leaned forward. “What the—?”

  The spleen started healing, flesh sealing itself shut as Ward watched.

  “You’re healing him,” Celia said, her voice breathy with surprise.

  “No.” He still had to remove the spleen. “Necromancy can’t heal. It’s temporary.”

  “But—” Nazarius said.

  “When the magic fades, the organ will still be damaged. The injury was too great for his body to heal. All I can do is hope the magic can stave off his pain and keep him together long enough for his body to naturally heal itself after I remove his spleen and stitch him back together.”

  He forced more magic into Declan. Everything he could grasp pooling around them, everything from the rocks, and even the insects scurrying at the corners of the cave. He needed to move fast, finish the surgery, finish before his will gave in and he sucked the magic into himself.

  He tied off the veins and cut out Declan’s spleen. The magic Ward had shoved into the organ vanished. The rupture suddenly reappeared. Blood rushed over Ward’s hands. Burning. Goddess. It burned.

  Just a little more, then the surgery would be done. He checked his work to ensure Declan wasn’t bleeding anywhere else. It looked good. Ward drew in a slow breath and slid his senses into the youth’s body. Magic roared around him. Declan’s pulse beat steady and sure, but only because of Ward’s magic. His ribs were cracked and his nose was broken. There were three shallow gashes on his left arm that didn’t require stitches. Blood still clotted in his chest, but not enough to cause trouble. Everything that could be done was done.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ward staggered toward the cove, burning blood still coating his hands and arms. Goddess above, he had no idea how he’d managed to remove Declan’s spleen and stitch him back up without giving in to the hunger roaring through him.

  Water lapped against the rocky shore, dancing with magic. Beyond the overhang and the veil of vines and hanging bushes, sunlight sparkled with bright specks against the lake, but it wasn’t as mesmerizing at the powerful magic he’d just left behind or in the blood covering him. Goddess, it even burned through his shirt, up his neck, and down his thighs.

  He’d known the spleen held a lot of blood, and it had been bleeding into Declan’s body for as long as it had taken them to get to the cove and then for Celia to return to the village and get supplies. It was a miracle the youth was alive.

  It was magic he still lived. Goddess above, the boy was being held together with thread and magic that would fade who knew when. The only thing Ward could pray was that whatever he’d done had been enough to hold off death until Declan’s body could recover.

  Red sparked over his arms. The heat of the magic flared—even his face burned.

  He was so damned hungry. He stared at his palms. Just a lick. That was all he needed.

  But it wasn’t. One lick wouldn’t be enough. He needed more than a few drops to sustain him. This was his new reality. He was a monster. No matter how much that surgery might have made him look like the same man he’d been before he’d died, he was now a vesperitti.

  Another spark. It snapped across his chest.

  Just a—

  He thrust his hand away, but the magic was still on his clothes and skin. He yanked his shirt off and shoved it into the water.

  All he’d wanted was to save lives. How could he do that now if every time he looked at a patient he wanted to bleed him dry?

  Goddess, he didn’t know what he was going to do. If Celia and he somehow got out of this mess, could he carry on? And carry on as what?

  There was no guarantee he’d be able to get through another surgery without succumbing to his vesperitti nature, so he’d never be able to practice medicine again. His very existence went against everything he believed in, everything that was good. He’d become the very thing he was raised to battle against.

  And yet, if asked, he wouldn’t do anyt
hing differently. If he’d known who and what Celia was when he’d first woken her from the dead, he still would have helped her, even if she hadn’t called on his physician’s oath. He would have gone to the same dark lengths he had to stop Macerio and save the people of Dulthyne. And he wouldn’t have hesitated to give Nazarius the locket.

  Magic shivered up his wrists, the blood on his shirt billowing around his hands.

  But where did that leave him? He was now a monster. He couldn’t return to life as a physician or a necromancer. If he was the same honorable Ward who’d started this journey, he’d find his grandfather when this was done and let himself be guided into the Goddess’s final embrace.

  A footstep crunched on the gravel, and Celia appeared, holding a blanket.

  And yet he wasn’t the same.

  Her hair had fallen out of its braid, and black wisps curled around her delicate face. Her eyes, so pale, were just a little too wide.

  She knew he’d wanted to kill Declan instead of save him. But he hadn’t. Perhaps he wouldn’t succumb to the hunger.

  The magic on his arms snapped. He’d stopped cleaning again. He tore his attention from her and rubbed his shirt against the rocks under the water.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to seeing you do that.” Her footsteps crunched closer. She was making noise on purpose. She could move across this rocky shore without making much of a sound, but she wanted to let him know she was moving—or maybe it was his new, too-sensitive hearing.

  She crouched beside him and held out the blanket. “I figure you’d want to wrap yourself in something while you washed your clothes.”

  Heat radiated from her body. Heat radiated through the soul chain.

  “You should go back and keep an eye on Declan.” Please, just leave him alone.

  “Ward.”

  “Someone needs to keep watch on him. Right now is the most precarious time for him.”

  “Maura is watching him. Nazarius will come if Declan needs you.” She dipped her fingers in the water then ran them across his cheek. Lightning zinged at her touch.

  “Please, don’t.” He didn’t have it in him to resist whatever it was that drew him to her.

  She didn’t move, her fingers poised to touch his face again. “You used magic during the surgery. You used it to heal him.”

  “My magic is necromancy. It can’t heal.” No matter how desperately he wanted it to. Magic couldn’t make a person love another, either.

  “But you used it. Declan looks better.”

  He shoved his shirt aside and rubbed at the blood on his hands. “It’s only temporary, and I probably did too much. There’s a fine balance with a necromantic patch.” Except what he’d done hadn’t felt like just a necromantic patch. “I needed to do enough so he lived, but not so much that his body doesn’t know to heal itself. I also don’t know how long it will last if I get too far away.”

  “So why use magic at all?”

  “Because I—” Goddess, it burned.

  Celia grabbed his hands. “Why?”

  “Because I couldn’t help myself.” Goddess above, he couldn’t, and if he couldn’t help from using useless magic during Declan’s surgery, it meant there was a weakness in his self-control. It meant he would succumb to the hunger.

  “When this is done, you have to end—” The magic snapped. “You have to cut the soul chain and end the spell.” There was no carrying on after this, no hope of any kind of future. He couldn’t risk it.

  “No.” Celia tensed. Ice shot through his chest.

  “You have to. I’m dangerous.”

  “You just saved Declan’s life.”

  “I just about killed him.”

  She dropped the blanket, pressed her palms to his cheeks, and forced him to look at her. Her pale gaze captured him, consuming, soothing. He could stay there forever.

  “You. Saved. Him.”

  “Celia. I—”

  “You. Ward de’Ath. Physician.”

  “Vesperitti.”

  “Surgeon.”

  “Monster.”

  “Man,” she said.

  He had to fight for the end. Even she could see his life wasn’t natural. “You have to let me go.”

  “No.”

  He jerked out of her grip, falling back onto the stony shore. “Why?”

  “Because I can’t lose you. You can’t die. You can’t—” A flurry of emotions burned through the soul chain. “You have to stay alive.”

  “I’m already dead.”

  “I don’t care. I’ll take you alive or undead.”

  “Why?” Just end the torture.

  “Because I love you, you idiot.”

  His heart froze. His whole body froze: breath and soul and mind stuttered. She couldn’t love him. She’d rejected his advances at the temple. She hadn’t said she’d loved him back in Dulthyne. “No, you don’t.”

  She grabbed his pant leg and yanked him close. She leaned forward until only a breath lay between them. “Oh, now you’re telling me how I feel?”

  “But the temple at Macerio’s mansion—you didn’t want to…you know.” The urge to grab her, show her how he felt about her, trembled through him.

  “I thought that was the spell you cast on me talking. It makes you worship your creator.”

  His heart pounded. Heat seeped through the soul chain. “It does?”

  “But you told me how you felt before I cast my spell.” Her breath brushed his cheek, soothing the burn of the blood magic.

  “I did.” Everything but Celia drifted away. The hunger, the compulsion to worship her. He felt like he’d felt the moment he’d first seen her. Awed, mesmerized. This was the wild, vivacious woman he’d fallen in love with.

  “And I never gave you an answer in Dulthyne.” Her pale gaze captured his.

  His heart stuttered. She was so close. “No, you didn’t.”

  She brushed her lips against his, soft, teasing, sending a shiver racing over him. “And you heard what I said.”

  “That I’m an idiot.”

  She laughed, a glorious sound that sent more shivers through him. “You are that, and kind and generous and brave, and I love you.”

  She brushed her lips against his again then withdrew. Heat beat through the soul chain. Pure affection. Respect. Love. He slid his hands into her hair, capturing her head, and drew her mouth back to his.

  He needed to show her how he felt. This was the truth about him. It didn’t matter that she had a tainted past. His past was now doused in blood, too. When tested, truly tested by insurmountable odds, her soul knew what was right. In a way, it was like the Goddess needed to mold her into a warrior for the trials they’d faced. He wouldn’t have survived any of it without her. And above it all, she made him a better man. She challenged and encouraged him. She had his back when it mattered, and he needed to prove to her he belonged to her, body and soul. Not because he was a vesperitti and she was his master, but because she’d stolen his heart. She didn’t need his strength or protection. He wasn’t the kind of man who could offer that, but she wanted his love and a partnership of equals, and that he could give her.

  He deepened the kiss and slid a hand along her neck and across her back, drawing her closer. She moaned and dug her hands into his hair, raking her fingers against his skull. Her kiss turned hungry. Her body pressed tight against his, a perfect fit, as if they belonged together. Her heart pounded hard against his chest. Or was that his heart pounding? He couldn’t tell. The soul chain blurred the edge where he ended and she began, and yet he had to get closer, had to show her how much he loved her.

  “I already know,” she said, her breath caressing his face. “Now are you going to keep thinking about it or do something?”

  Passion snapped through the soul chain. Desire. Want.

  A challenge.

  She sat back and reached for the buttons on his pants.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” He batted her hands away, grabbed her, and rolled her to her back.

>   “You think you can overpower me?”

  “I think you’ll let me.” He caught her mouth in his again, kissing her until they were both breathless, then trailed kisses down her neck to the V of her shirt. She groaned. Her head tilted back, and heat sizzled through the soul chain. He brought his lips back up her exposed throat to her mouth, sliding his hands under her shirt, drawing another groan.

  He brushed the curve of her breast, and the heat in the soul chain swelled with need. He wanted more of that, wanted her to feel all his love, all his desire, like he could feel hers.

  He opened the blanket onto a soft mossy patch at the edge of the cove, picked her up, and laid her on top. She wrapped her arms around him, drawing him close, letting her desire fill him.

  It was clear she hadn’t brought him back from the dead because she owed him. She, like he, couldn’t live without the other. The Dark Son might have brought them together as a cruel joke in an unlikely partnership, but the Goddess sealed their bond with an incredible love. There was no other woman for Ward. There would be no other woman. He loved her. He’d loved her before she’d brought him back to life. He’d loved her from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

  “I love you, too,” she said, and her love poured through the soul chain.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Celia pressed her palm to Ward’s chest, feeling his heartbeat, steady and sure. He sighed in his sleep but didn’t wake. They’d dozed off afterward, drifting on warmth and love and complete comfort. From the amount of golden daylight shimmering on the lake beyond the vines and tree branches, she’d slept late into the afternoon. In a way, though, it felt like she’d been asleep all her life. She’d never felt so…so…

  She had no words to express how she felt. Ward was the tender and passionate lover she’d always known he’d be from the moment they’d shared that first kiss back in Brawenal City. She felt boneless, and tingly, and still on fire with a passion born of her desire for him.

  Goddess, if asked a fortnight ago, she’d have said she was always meant to be alone, that there wasn’t a man alive who understood who she really was or who had ever seen her true self.