Emrys was just about to start griping to himself about how long Luca was taking to gather the herbs, when he heard someone screaming. He was out the kitchen door and hobbling through the courtyard toward the nearest gate immediately.

Malachai beat him to the screaming male and was trying to calm him.

"Luca, take a deep breath," Emrys's mate was saying. "That's right, take a breath. Now try again. What's wrong?"

"Witches!" Luca gasped. "There are witches in the woods! They've already killed a male- oh gods, they're going to eat him!" Luca wailed. "They're probably eating him right now!"

"Where?!" Malachai's tone was unusually harsh and he shook the younger male. Emrys touched his mate's shoulder gently.

"Up river, not very far," Luca sobbed.

Malachai deposited the crying child into Emrys's arms and called a troop of soldiers after him. Emrys guided Luca back to the kitchen, casting a worried glance over his shoulder and a quick prayer to whatever gods might listen to protect his mate. Witches were nearly unheard of in these areas, but legend had it that at times they were even harder to take down than even full-blooded fae.

After a few cups of tea, Luca had settled down considerably, although both of them were tense every minute they waited to hear word from Malachai and his soldiers. Seconds became hours and Emrys was running out of things to clean. The dishes were all washed and dried, the tables wiped off, the floors swept. He was just reaching for the broom to sweep again, just to be doing something when he heard a commotion from the barracks and somebody started calling for a healer.

Heart in his throat and Luca at his heels, Emrys flew out the door and across the courtyard faster than he thought his old frame was still capable of.

Soldiers were crowded around one of the rooms, keeping a wide berth due to the iron-teeth witch guarding the door. Her hair was a flash of gold and her snarl was something wild. She wore a variety of weapons and a worn set of witch-leathers. Emrys stopped, eyeing the creature carefully and reaching for Luca behind him.

As the young male slipped his hand into Emrys's, the old kitchen master scanned the crowd frantically for his mate. When he didn't see him, he inched his way forward.

"Are you the healer?" the witch growled at him, dark eyes flashing dangerously.

"No," Emrys started carefully, trying to decide if she was escaping capture, if she'd come into the fort willingly, or if she was an ally. "But I'm-"

"Emrys!" Malachai called from inside the barrack room. "Emrys, in here!"

The witch eyed him and stepped to the side, allowing him entrance. Emrys tried to nod politely, still treading around the creature with extreme caution. Luca stared at the witch with a gaping mouth as Emrys gripped his hand, pulling him into the room behind him. He wasn't letting the child out of his sight until he knew what in Hellas's name was happening.

As he allowed his attention to leave the witch briefly, he found his mate bending over a massive demi-fae male in one of the empty barrack beds. Malachai's second in command was at the foot of the bed looking useless and a small human girl dressed in witch-leathers was murmuring something to Malachai from the other side of the bed.

"Malachai-?" Emrys asked but stopped when he recognized the injured male. No wonder half the fort was gathering outside the barracks trying to get a look. It was Lorcan Slavaterre, bloodsworn to Queen Maeve. (Unless rumors were correct and she'd dishonored him and broken the bond. But Emrys never believed a rumor until he'd heard it from many different reliable sources.)

"Emrys, when will Tyre return to the fort?" his mate asked, checking Salvaterre's pulse.

"Not until next week at the very earliest. A baby's being born out in Yinwen village," Emrys said. "What is it? Is it something I can help with?"

As kitchenmaster, he ended up setting many bones, making salves, and stitching wounds when needed. He didn't have healing magic, but then again, neither did Tyre. There hadn't been a demi-fae with healing magic in Mistward in a full generation.

"He's running a fever and his pulse is unsteady," Malachai said as Emrys moved in beside him, letting go of Luca's hand with one last withering glance at the witch standing guard. He rolled his sleeves up.

"Does he have any infected wounds?" Emrys asked the young woman who stood vigil on the other side of the bed. She analyzed him with wary dark eyes and bit her lip. She seemed to make up her mind after a moment's hesitation and reached forward to lift the hem of Salvaterre's shirt.

Malachai let out a soft train of curses at the sight of the unnatural wound and for once Emrys didn't correct him. Heart pounding, he reached for the shirt and asked the human,

"May I see the rest of the wound?"

She nodded again, dark eyes at once calm and afraid. Emrys tore the shirt in half up the center, exposing the wound to the air. The stench of rotting flesh permeated the barrack quarters and Luca bolted out the door to retch. Malachai's second turned green and Malachai himself kept cursing.

Emrys undid the make-shift bandages (a torn up cloak of some kind which hadn't been re-dressed in days). A deep gash sliced itself across Salvaterre's abdomen, slick with a black discharge and blood. A malignant infection stained all the veins across his belly and chest like ink. It reached down to just above the hip and slithered all the way up to his collarbone.

"It keeps getting bigger," the woman murmured.

Emrys steeled his stomach against the stench and reached for a cloth. Malachai dipped one in a basin of cold water and handed it to him silently.

"How long has he been wounded?" Emrys asked the human quietly.

"Several weeks," she replied, clenching and unclenching her fists protectively. "He hasn't woken much in the past three days."

"Is it valg?" Malachai asked her.

She nodded once.

"Were you attacked near Mistward?" he asked, ever assessing the threats to the fort.

The woman shook her head and bit her lip again, obviously wary of sharing too much.

"I need to know as much as I can about this if I'm going to be of any help," Emrys said gently. He wasn't sure he was going to be any help anyway, but he couldn't work blind.

"He was injured back in Erilea," she said quietly. "By Maeve." Everyone in the room took in a deep breath.

"Maeve injured him with a valg infection?" Emrys frowned. Apparently the rumor of his disgrace was very much true.

"He said he thinks she tethered him to a valg creature of some kind," the woman said quietly, reaching for the male's hand. "He said he could feel it feeding off him."

Emrys had never heard of someone who was not valg using valg-magic, but then again Maeve could do all sorts of things most thought impossible.

"He also said he thought it would be fatal." The human glanced up at Emrys.

The Kitchenmaster pursed his lips and pressed the cloth into the wound. He briefly glanced over the warrior's thinned-out frame, and took his pulse at the wrist. He was a ghost of the warrior who'd brought the cadre to Mistward only last spring.

"We will do everything we can," he promised the woman, but the pain that flickered in her dark eyes said she knew what he meant. Salvaterre was right. Emrys didn't think anyone could survive this.

"I need my kit," Emrys informed Malachai's second in command. The male gratefully stumbled out of the stench still an unnerving shade of pale green.

"I'm going to try to drain the wound," Emrys informed the woman. "If he wakes up it may be very painful. Would you prefer to stay here or wait elsewhere?"

"I'm staying," she said and Emrys caught her scent on the air. Ah. He nodded in understanding to Salveterre's mate.

"Emrys," the soldier stood in the door and handed his kit through the frame instead of coming all the way into the room again. The witch standing guard rolled her eyes at the soldier's weak stomach and took the satchel from him to hand to Malachai.

"Malachai will you sterilize the scalpels?" Emrys asked. When he turned to look, Malachai was already kneeling by the fireplace to do just that.

.

.

"Malachai, Emrys?" a young voice called from the door to the barrack room that evening. "I brought dinner?"

Elide gripped Lorcan's hand tightly.

"Come on in, Luca," Malachai, the taller male called from where he sat next to the window. Emrys, the shorter male who'd drained Lorcan's wound, was concentrating on finishing up the last two stitches.

Lorcan was shivering with pain, his eyes locked on a ceiling beam like they had been for the past hour. Asterin sat next to Malachai, both worn out from pinning Lorcan down as Emrys worked. It had been no easy task. Emrys had been right, it had been extremely painful. His cries still echoed through her skull.

The door creaked open and Lorcan flinched, still wound tightly. Elide squeezed his hand.

"I-I brought dinner," the boy stuttered, still openly staring at Asterin and her overtly witch-like features.

"Thank you, Luca," Emrys murmured, clipping the thread once he'd finished the last stitch. Lorcan's wound still looked awful and he couldn't stop shaking. He blinked once but otherwise ignored them all.

"And the rest of the fort?" Emrys asked as he began to clean up the blood and valg stained rags. Sweeping them into a pile he deposited them into the fire, not even trying to wash them first.

"Yeah, I got dinner out," the apprentice tried dragging his eyes away from Asterin unsuccessfully.

"Well, give me mine I'm hungry," Malachai said, eyes tired but dancing in a quiet mirth. Luca set his tray down and offered Malachai and Asterin their bowls. He brought one to Emrys, after the older male had washed his hands meticulously, and one to Elide. She accepted it politely and immediately put it on the small table next to the bed without letting go of Lorcan's hand.

"Luca," Malachai said, raising one grey brow above the other. "Why did you tell me they were eating him?"

Luca turned an interesting shade of pink and exclaimed, "I thought witches ate people!"

"We have been known to," Asterin said, flashing a wicked smirk. Elide frowned at her but she was having too much fun watching the male go from pink to grey to notice.

Malachai didn't seem to appreciate Asterin's input and decidedly ignored her as he chided, "Luca, you must learn to keep your wits about you, even in the face of danger. Especially in the face of danger. A single second of awareness would have informed you that one of them was his mate."

Lorcan took in a sharp breath and Elide blinked. His what?

"I'm glad you came straight back to us," Malachai was continuing. "But there could have been injuries on account of misinformation. The witches were carrying him. Not eating him."

One of them was his what?

"Well, I thought they were going to!" Luca's voice squeaked and he flushed with embarrassment and indignation.

Mate?

"I know," Malachai nodded. "But-"

"Malachai," Emrys said softly and Elide noticed that the kitchen master was watching her closely. "This is a conversation for another time."

Malachai frowned and stopped mid sentence shooting a confused look at his mate.

His mate.

The older males seemed to be exchanging a silent conversation with their eyes and Elide slowly brought her gaze down to ask Lorcan what they meant. He'd screwed his eyes shut, still shaking and bathed with a cold sweat. Elide held her questions back. This was a conversation for another time.

"I'll get you fresh linens and bandages," Emrys was telling her quietly. "Will you both be staying in here? This is an overflow barrack so it is unoccupied this time of year. You won't be disturbed but for my mate and myself."

"This is fine," Asterin said for her, the witch's eyes boring into the side of Elide's face. Elide avoided her friend's gaze. Another time. "We'll all stay here. Together."

Elide felt like crying. Why did she feel like crying? She hadn't cried since they'd lost Aelin. It made no sense to cry now.

"When I come back I'll help you clean him up," Emrys said, still in that soft voice that made Elide's stomach tie itself in knots.

Slowly the three other demi-fae made their way out of the room leaving it in silence. Lorcan squeezed her hand, on purpose or by accident she couldn't tell, without opening his eyes.

There were so many things happening and Elide was still fighting against the irrational impulse to cry. She gripped his hand tighter and didn't say anything.

.

.

Reviews feed this author's soul :)