Winged (Aetharian Narratives) (33 page)

“There she is,” I said breathlessly. “I found her.”

Dresden looked from where he was standing and nodded. He moved to me and quickly picked up the pace moving the wood. We were joined by Oak and Yuri. Everyone else stood back to wait. Within a matter of minutes we removed most everything that had fallen on top of her. All that was left was the heavy wood of the table.

From what I guessed, Arie missed the ride out of the cabin and took cover under the table. It protected her enough to keep her whole, but it was blasted to pieces. Once we cleared it I looked away from the sight of her. Her body was in much the same state that Dresden’s had been in when he had come face to face with the same blast. If I hadn’t known she was Winged and would be able to repair herself, I would have thought she was dead.

Oak took off his coat and draped it over her body. He bent over and lifted her out of the remainder of the pile.

“She’ll be fine,” he said. “We need to get her to a hospital; it doesn’t look like she’s breathing. Some things probably need to be set back in place before she can start healing.”

I watched him step out of the devastated remains of the cabin.

“She’s going to be okay,” said Dresden, holding his hand out to me. “She’s in for a hellish couple of weeks.”

I took his hand and we made our way out of the mess. We climbed out and walked to the others standing by. Oak kept Arie wrapped up in his arms and took her to the lady that had teleported us out of the cabin. Without a word she stepped forward with outstretched arms.

“I’ll get her to the hospital,” she said.

Oak nodded and lowered Arie’s feet to the ground letting the lady support the upper half of her body. There was a flash of light and they disappeared.

All of us stood where we were, not knowing what to do or say next.

Oak stepped forward. “I don’t know what it’s worth at this point, but we are truly sorry for everything that’s happened here. All of that was a back-up plan that some of us thought we’d never resort to.”

My father now took a step forward. I held my breath not having a clue what he would say. The anger on his face still lingered.

“The thought that you would come up with a plan to hurt us that badly,” he said as he pointed to the destroyed cabin, “makes me angry in a way I hoped I’d never be.”

I tried to take a step forward and say something, but Dresden put his hand on my shoulder and held me back.

“Give him a moment.”

I stood still and let him.

“We knew none of you would die—” Yuri said, but my father cut him off.

“Did you see her?” he said, pointing to the spot Arie had disappeared from. “Over the next weeks Arabella is going to have to endure pain you cannot imagine. And to think, you wished that on all of us.”

“We didn’t
wish
it on you,” Kaia said. “Oak keeps trying to tell you that some of us didn’t—”

“Oh,” Father cuts in again, “
some
of you didn’t want to hurt us that badly. You know, that doesn’t make me feel much better.”

He glared around at the group. No one said anything so he continued.

“Weren’t you just ranting about how much better you think your Council is compared to our government? I believed the point of the Council was to come to a group consensus. So if that is not true, this plan had to have been developed behind the backs of some of you. Which doesn’t make me feel better about the situation.”

Oak looked like he was about to say something just as the lady who took off with Arie reappeared.

“I got her to the hospital,” she said with a smile on her face. “The doctor said that it looks like she needs quite a bit of work in getting her body set back in place but it’s nothing they can’t handle.”

A wave of relief washed over the group at this news. From the way the tension in my body lightened at the update, I figured a lot of the anxiety among everyone was due to not knowing Arie’s fate.

A number of us exhaled breaths we hadn’t known we were holding.

“We realize and understand how upset you are about what happened here,” Oak said, taking advantage of the relieved silence. “It was our mistake. Obviously there are still a few kinks to work out before we can be a fully functional country.”

My father listened.

“We hope everything can still be worked out between us,” Oak said. “We’re working hard to create a country our people can be happy with, but without a little more of your help I fear it will take a lot longer, if at all. We know by now your faith in us is hanging by thread, but we will do what we can to gain that trust back.”

I could see the regret on everyone’s faces. Father looked around, too, and saw the same thing I did. The expression on his face softened.

“We’re not going to run into any more surprises?”

The members of the Council shook their heads.

“Okay, then,” Father said. “I see no reason why we can’t move past this.”

It took all my power not to run to him and give him the biggest hug I could manage. I looked at Dresden. He smiled at me. I was starting to forget that not too long ago he hadn’t smiled every time he looked at me. I settled for squeezing his hand in mine.

XIII

A conclusion

My heart hammered inside my chest. The gates to the campsite came into view. Dresden noticed my distress and put an arm around my shoulders.

“It’ll be fine,” he said.

I nodded and took a deep breath. I could not bring myself to imagine the state that Viper might be in at that very moment. The gates were pulled open to let us into the site. My eyes did a quick sweep over the area. I didn’t see him. I breathed.

“See?” Dresden said.

We put our horses away, slung our packs over our backs, and walked to our tents. The whole time Viper was nowhere to be found.

“He’s probably visiting Arabella. It’s just as I predicted.”

I noticed that Dresden was rambling. It made me uncomfortable.

“He’s probably not angry at all…”

I heard his voice trail away and looked at him. He was looking straight forward. My eyes followed his gaze. Viper was leaning against one of the poles of my tent.

I gulped and took a few more steps forward. “Viper—”

He put a hand up to stop me. I saw the furnace in his eyes and my heart sank. I could only obey his unspoken demand.

“Her first trip and participation in something important to her future rule,” he said, “and she ends up going to the hospital in a state that most people believe should have killed her.”

I tried to speak again, “I know—”

Once again he stopped me.

“Could you not bring yourself to look out for her and try to prevent something like this from happening?”

My eyes began to water. “I did try,” the words rushed out of my mouth. “Things happened so fast—”

“So fast that you couldn’t make sure
everyone
got out safely?” he was yelling now.

I felt the tears run down my cheeks and couldn’t find my voice.

Dresden picked up my slack and took a step forward. “We couldn’t help it that things went wrong the way they did.”

He glared at Viper, ignoring the hand that shut me up so easily.

“It’s not like we left her in there on purpose. Part of her job was to stay alert and take necessary action.”

“Oh, so it was all her fault?” Viper said.

People around us were discretely watching the yelling match while they pretended to go about their business.

“It most certainly wasn’t anyone else’s,” Dresden said.

I could tell that Viper was racking his brain for a response but could not find one.

“If she’s smart,” Dresden said, “and I know she is, she’ll learn from this. She’ll learn to sharpen her reaction time and not let fear paralyze her, which I’m sure is exactly what happened back there.”

Viper opened his mouth to say something, but this time it was Dresden that held up his hand to silence him.

“You weren’t there and have no idea what we went through,” he said. “What you probably don’t realize is that it was Emma that noticed Arabella was missing and did so only seconds after we got out. It was Emma that was at the head of the group when we ran back to get her. Emma was the one that found her in the wreckage. Emma held her fretful hand through the meeting so that our future queen could start building her image of refinement and poise. Don’t you dare say that she abandoned Arabella or didn’t look after her. The truth is that the explosion was regrettably the one time she took her eyes off her.”

Viper looked back at me. I saw the anger leave his eyes and pain fill them. He turned from us and walked away.

“Viper,” I called after him.

He kept walking.

I took a step forward to follow after him, but Dresden put his hand on my shoulder to stop me.

“Give him some time,” he said. “He’ll come around when he’s ready.”

I nodded and turn back to my tent.

* * *

“Emma?” a voice seeped through the canvas of my tent.

I looked at Dresden. He gave me a knowing look and we got up from where we had been sitting in front of my fire. I walked to the entrance of the tent and opened it. Viper was standing there.

“I’ll go look for some tea,” Dresden said.

He moved around us and exited the tent.

I looked at Viper. I could tell that he was tossing around things to say in his head. I turned away, leaving the entrance open, and sat back down in front of the fire. I looked up at the stars speckling the sky. A few silent minutes passed by.

“Emma,” Viper said again, “I know you did what you could to help Arie.”

“I’m glad,” I said, looking at the flames in front of me.

I heard him walk into the tent and sit next to me. I looked at him again.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Yesterday, I was so angry and needed someone to blame—”

“There’s no one to blame here, Viper,” I said. “The meeting went horribly wrong and things transpired that shouldn’t have.”

“I know,” he said. “I know it wasn’t any of your faults. It’s hard for me to deal with the fact that I wasn’t there to protect her.”

“You’re not going to be there all the time,” I said to him. “Arie is strong and capable and she needs to consider the position she’ll be taking in the coming years.”

“I know,” he said again. “I was just angry.”

I watched him. “Are you still?”

“No,” he said. “Now I’m worried and frustrated.”

I looked at the entrance and saw Dresden peeking into the tent with a steaming pot and cups in hand. He looked away when I made eye contact and pretended to be fascinated with something else.

I glanced at Viper’s eyes. They still made my heart feel like it has been put into a vice, but the vice’s grip had lessened substantially. I smiled at him.

“Don’t worry about her too much,” I said. “The doctors will make sure everything’s in place for her to heal correctly and she’ll be fine.”

* * *

I walked down the halls of the unfamiliar hospital. After spending so much time in the Southern hospital and getting to know its layout, it was unsettling walking around a hospital that had such a different feel to it. The Southern hospital was sunlit by its many windows. The Northern hospital was in Northern territory so sunlight was insufficient. Plus everything was made of stone, much like the castle. For some reason it didn’t seem as comfortable as the hospital I had spent so many weeks in.

I tried to let my mind wander to anything other than what Arie was going to look like when I saw her. Viper put an arm around my shoulders. I was sure all the things going through my head were plastered on my face.

“She won’t be mad at you,” he said. “She’s mostly mad at herself for letting all of this happen to her.”

“She couldn’t control it,” I said. “None of us saw it coming.”

“And she knows that. She knows it wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was an unfortunate incident that you guys got caught in.”

I sighed. “I’m not so much worried about her being angry with me as having to see her in the condition I allowed her to end up in.”

“You didn’t condemn her to this,” Viper said. “And she doesn’t look too bad. With each passing day she looks better than the day before. Mind you, healing skin doesn’t look very good; it’s all discolored and blotchy. But that’s how you know it’s healing.”

I smiled, knowing he was probably repeating what the doctors kept telling him.

“It’s just that I had to go through what she’s going through,” I said, “and it’s not a pleasant memory.”

“I heard about that. What were you thinking doing what you did for Dresden? I know you didn’t know it was him, but you saw the wings. You had to have known that the fall wouldn’t have killed him.”

“Everyone said that I was crazy to do what I did,” I said, “but you guys don’t understand the feelings that rush through your body and mind when you see someone falling out of the sky and plummeting to the ground a hundred feet below them. Everything I did was on impulse.”

“I think you just wanted attention,” he said, giving me a look. “That was your plan, wasn’t it? Save his life and get him to fall in love with you.”

I snort, “I wish I were that brilliant.”

We approached a door with a red tag on it. There was something very unsettling about seeing that tag. Red was never a good color in a hospital. Viper stepped forward and knocked on the door. After a couple of seconds nothing happened so he pulled the door open. He motioned for me to go in and followed after me.

There was not an inch of stone in the room. The stone was plastered over and painted in a nice, bright lilac. There was one bed, a few chairs, and a washroom. I walked toward the bed and saw that it at least looked more comfortable than the bed I’d had to lie in for a month. It did, however, have the familiar straps to make sure the person occupying the bed didn’t move an inch.

“Hey, Emma,” Arie said, looking over at me from her pillow.

A sharp pain shot me in the stomach when I got closer to her and could see her more clearly.

“Hi, Arie,” I managed to say.

It took all of my effort, but I was able to hold back the tears I wanted to cry after looking at her. At the cabin I knew that she looked worse than Dresden had looked when he had come head to head with that blast. I figured it was because of the difference in distance. Arie was much closer to the source of the blast than he had been and it showed.