Aurelie couldn't see over the heads of all the people that stood in front of the room that Leila was being treated in. Her hands were shaking. She tightened her fingers into fists and stood behind the crowd, unmoving.
The excited murmurâor at least Aurelie thought looked and sounded excited to have something new to talk aboutâof the people made it hard to hear what was happening inside, but Aurelie's mind was too used up from past events to have been able to properly register what was happening on the other side of them anyway.
Aurelie could not even remember when or how she walked up the stairs, but she must have since here she stood.
"Excuse me," Aurelie said after a moment, struggling to hear her own voice, and pushed past a man with her arm extended. No one moved an inch. He just gave her a dirty look before turning back to the doorway and rising on his toes to get a glimpse.
His reaction infuriated her. Leila's life wasn't entertainment. She was hurt and she needed Aurelie by her side. Perhaps she didn't need Aurelie, but Aurelie needed to be there for her. If she died . . . Her hands heated and the room changed color.
"Let me pass," she said louder.
She felt fingers gently curl around her wrist and turned to see who it was. Kirin stood beside her. His eyes widened slightly at the sight of the fire in hers. When he looked toward the book, something dark began to rise in a straight line toward her. The darkness thickened and began to expand into human shapes, mimicking the people next to them, and forcing them apart from each other.
Once they have fully formed, the shadows exploded in a puff of dark particles and fell away. Seeing Kirin, the crowd did not come together again but began to depart. He extended a hand and waited for her to pass before following.
Leila's eyes were closed and her body wet with blood and sweat. Two arrows had already been removed and were laying by Sasha's side on a piece of cloth. Aurelie took one glance at Leila's wounds, and averted her eyes, her hand jumping to cover her mouth.
Spit gathered in her throat, and her stomach hollowed as if after a punch. Sasha already stitched one of the holes and prepared the thread for the other.
A bottle of clear liquid stood by her side. She picked it up and poured it on Leila's leg. Once the wound was clean, she began to thread the thick needle.
Aurelie looked down at the wrong moment and saw Leila's skin rise up, and sink with the pressure of the needle.
"Did you use a sleeping spell?" Aurelie asked. She knew the answer but she would rather have heard that Leila had woken again, rather than knowing that she had still been out from the pain. Out or dead.
"No," Sasha replied.
Another woman, a plump brunette, with short stumpy fingers began to remove the last arrow from Leila. Her flesh tore. Aurelie swore she felt the sound it made reverberate through her bone.
Sasha picked a bloody rag up off the bed and pressed it against the wound.
The brunette pushed her hand against the rag and Sasha let go, returning to the stitching.
Blood dripped down from the arrowhead. The room looked like a murder scene. Just about everywhere Aurelie looked, she found a stain of Leila's blood. At that moment, she felt herself merely exist without feeling, as if she had traveled out of her body and left her emotions behind within it.
"Aurelie, would you mind passing me the red pot on your right?"
Aurelie picked up the pot and handed it to Sasha. All three wounds were covered.
Sasha bit down on the thread and nibbled until it tore.
Aurelie sat by Leila's side and stroked her hair. "Will she be alright?" her voice sounded far away.
She felt an emptiness behind her and knew that Kirin had left.
"She has lost a lot of blood," Sasha began. "If we are lucky and the rumors that rumors about her kind are true, she will heal quickly. If not, she'll not survive the night," she said and opened the red pot.
Inside were dry pieces of herb and yellow and orange petals. Sasha rubbed the herbs around all three of the wounds.
"These will help her heal. They should also help with the fever. The rest, I'm afraid, depends on her body. Shifters are supposed to be able to withstand an immense amount of injury and pain. At least, that is what we have heard from legends that come out of the Icelands. There is no one here to tell us otherwise. So, the only thing we can do now is hope. Although, if she were one of us, she'd be dead already," she said, picking up the blood-stained cloth and arrows and rose from the floor.
Aurelie already knew what Leila was, there was no denying what she had seen on that field, but having Sasha speak about rumors, and shifters made her toes curl. She thought she'd be more shocked to find out that her friend had lied to her all those years, but instead she was just concerned. The shock, she imagined, would strike later.
"I just got her back," she said, tears heating her eyes.
"You're not allowed to think like that." Sasha put a hand on Aurelie's shoulder. "Family and friends aren't supposed to believe in death. I just wanted you to know the truth, in case. . ."
Daerious crossed her path as she walked out. He stepped inside, and placed warm water, a clean cloth and some clothes on the floor.
"Is it alright if I spend the night here?" Aurelie asked as Sasha walked past Daerious toward the door.
"That's a good idea. She'll need someone here if she's going to wake up."
She didn't sound very convincing.
"I'm very sorry about, your friend," he said when Sasha left. "Sasha is the best healer we have. If anyone is able to make her better, you can trust it to be her."
She said nothing to this. Her eyes couldn't leave Leila's pale and frail body.
When Aurelie turned to see where he was, the door was swinging shut behind him.
You better live. When you wake up we're having a serious talk about this shifter business. She dipped the cloth into the water, and washed Leila's face, then cleaned the blood, and dirt from her hands and legs, avoiding the areas covered in herb.
Was it her eyes in the woods? The vision she had in The Dream Realm crossed her mind, but she chased it away. Speculations would not help here. She needed to hear it straight from Leila.
Aurelie kissed her lightly on her cheek. Be okay. She walked over to the candle that stood on the bedside table, which was pulled away from the bed, and inhaled to blow it out. She stopped and focused on the fire.
"Stop," she whispered to it.
Nothing happened, and Aurelie tried again, this time saying the word out loud. Leila turned and moaned in pain.
"Stop," she whispered for the third time, but the fire was not obedient to her commands. She closed her eyes tightly, and held her hand over the flame, feeling it tickle her skin.
Aurelie pushed the energy to flow through her hands. The tips of her toes warmed, the magic spread, flowing into her arm and through her hands. She opened her eyes and stared at the candle. She extended her hand and willed the flame into her palm. It fluttered as if scattered by a breath, and lifted from the candle.
Aurelie sat up, and straightened her back, pulling the fire further. The flame abandoned the candle and floated towards her in a swirling ball.
It danced around recklessly, flickering and sputtering. Aurelie slowed the pace, the flame dropped down, but she stopped it in time. There was a definite connection between the two of them; the flame was an extension of her. She could almost feel the air that was scattering it.
The flame climbed onto her fingers, spreading an orange glow, and rested in the palm of her hand. Aurelie smirked.
Her heart fluttered with pleasure. The magic exploded through every muscle and every bone in her body. Everything was on fire. It had been unlike any other time when she had the fire under her command, other times it exploded out of her, clumsy and out of control.
She played with it, blowing as harshly as she could, trying to cause the flame to die down. At the same time, she concentrated on keeping it alive in her palm.
Aurelie closed her hand, her fingers glowing orange, and willed the fire to merge with her. The glow dropped, but the body of the fire still shone in Aurelie's eyes. She lay her head down on the pile of clothes and shut her eyes, a smile still beaming on her face.