Page 141 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy
Hedgewitches.
Hedgewitch and Dreor disappeared to who knew where. The Hedgewitches came back. The Dreor didn’t.
Tristane, cackling, ripped her way through the remaining Dreor in a whirl of black and offal. Aurienne’s last sight, as she lost consciousness, was the faint shape, above Tristane’s shoulders, of black wings stretching towards the sky.
When Aurienne regained consciousness, shefound Prendergast’s concerned face above her. Familiar voices sounded around her—Élodie’s and the other Haelan who had been stuck at Tintagel Castle. The metallic stomp of the boots of dozens of Wardens rang over blood-wet flagstones.
Prendergast pressed his tacn to Aurienne’s clavicle.
“Not me,” she said, pushing him away. “Him.”
Osric lay beside her. His face was drawn and grey. Was he dead?
Cath, groaning, propped herself onto an elbow, supported by a sobbing Élodie. “You must help him. He saved us.”
Prendergast pushed his tacn to Osric’s collarbone. “Who is this? He’s alive. But his eyes—”
“Is that Aurienne?” came Xanthe’s voice, febrile and cracked with worry.
“She’s here,” called Élodie.
Xanthe bustled past Prendergast. “Aurienne, you’re all right. Oh—your hands. Cath—look at you.Fria, you’ve gone through it.”
“Mordaunt—heal him, Xanthe, please,” said Aurienne. “His eyes—his Cost—”
Xanthe knelt next to Osric. “Onion Boy, what have you done to yourself?”
She pressed her tacn to Osric’s temple. She called orders to passing Wardens freshly arrived from Tintagel Castle. “Get this one into the operating theatre. And get these two Haelan into beds. Ward them into place if you have to; neither of them gets up until I say so.”
Aurienne and Cath objected but hadn’t the strength to struggle as they were brought into Swanstone on stretchers, Élodie sobbing between them, clutching their hands.
Aurienne awoke again in award in the small hours of the morning. She was fuzzy-headed from whatever pain relief her colleagues had dosed her with. The sheets were crisp. She was clean. Her hands were stiff and sore. She raised them to her face. They were covered in fine silver scars. Haelan seith and skill had saved them.
To her left lay Cath, healed of the horrific wounds that had covered her a few hours prior. Élodie was curled at the foot of her bed. Both were sound asleep.
And to her right—Aurienne concentrated upon the achy labour of turning her head—to her right—to her right, a shadow.
“Tristane?” whispered Aurienne through chapped lips.
How had she got in?
It was difficult to tell where Tristane ended and the shadows began. “Hello, little Haelan.”
“You saved us,” said Aurienne.
“The situation was dire,” said Tristane. “Bordering on pathetic.”
“Thank you for your help.”
“Help? Don’t be silly,” said Tristane. “It wasn’t charity. I was paid.”
“Paid?” repeated Aurienne. “By who?”
“Don’t tell me you’re too stupid to work it out. What I’d like to know”—here Tristane approached the bed, and Aurienne retreated into her pillow like a petrified rabbit—“is what witchery you cast upon my favourite Fyren.”
“I—I don’t know what you mean.”
“Mordaunt. Why did he bankrupt himself to have me come here? Why did he almost get himself killed for your Order?”
