Traps, Tricks, and Beasts [Book 2 Complete][Fantasy, Adventure, Underdog]

The pain made Squirt’s knees buckle, an audible gasp escaping her control. Before she could even land on the ground, the bruised and beaten Qzi had caught her, panicked rage in his bloodred eyes.

Huh. She’d never noticed before, but he had a dash of barely-there freckles on his cheeks. His hair was so dark it was almost black, but in the daylight, the strands were a deep red, giving him a red halo as she stared up at him that brought out the freckles on his cheeks.

His eyes were filled with pain and anguish as he cried out, “Why? Why? I told them to keep you away—” His hand covered over her shoulder wound. He bared his sharp teeth in a grimace as she vaguely realized he was keeping her from bleeding out.

Even while he was in so much pain. Even when his cap was so pale in her hands, it was pink, he was using what magic he had to heal her.

She smiled up at him, cutting him off mid-rant, his one good eye wide in shock. She reached out with one small hand, and he leaned in, wondering if she was going to kiss him. Instead, she tapped his miraculously unbroken nose, the gesture and her smile teasing as she said, “Stupid.”

Zhadin appeared in front of them, silently handing out a potion. Qzi didn’t hesitate as he held it to her lips. Zhadin helped, their tendrils creating gaps under her clothing between the wounds and fabric.

Her wounds closed. Her blood replenished. The dizziness faded.

Still, she lay in his arms as she let the potion work, admiring those barely there freckles on the madman who spent the only bit of his magic on her.

She couldn’t hate it.

Had his lashes always been that long?

The air suddenly chilled, and Squirt knew Lord Everwinter had arrived, feeling his tense aura even from here. Pulled out of her daydreams, Squirt sat up in Qzi’s arms, glancing at Zhadin and taking the second healing potion Zhadin held out with a knowing gleam in their eyes.

She paused. Turned back to consider Zhadin.

Thought about every strangely supportive move they had made in the last hour alone.

About how they happened to have two healing potions because they knew she would insist on making sure Qzi was healed. About how they never, not once, asked anything of her. Simply existed in her space and provided her support.

It was strangely… one sided.

Shifting to her knees, she held the healing potion in her hands, tilting it back carefully to make sure none of it spilled through Qzi’s split lip as she thought it over. She didn’t like owing, and the scales were too heavily weighted in her favor. She also didn’t have anything to give—nothing that would absolve the difference immediately, only vague promises of boons.

Even with how much she trusted them, the very thought of offering a boon made her stomach twist into knots.

Instead, once she was certain Qzi had finished the potion, she turned towards the fell, reaching up to gently pat the tendrils of their hair.

The fell froze.

Squirt hesitated, annoyed that her cheeks were heating as she wondered if she’d done something wrong.

But no. Zhadin’s eyes simply widened, their cheeks darkening—the color black instead of the usual red of blood—and their lips just slightly parted with clear mild awe.

It was, for lack of a better word… cute?

Deciding abruptly that was more than enough emotion for one day, she pulled her hand back, standing after confirming Qzi was healing, her blood still burning and causing spasms of pain all over her body.

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As she’d known already, fire ant contamination was a bit too much for the potion to resolve on its own. Only time and fluids would purge it from her bloodstream, and until then, she and every other victim of this mess would suffer.

Damnit.

Switching her attention to the ring of hats, she scowled down at their shriveled states. “… Zhadin, can—”

Before she even finished, the hats were temporarily cloaked in darkness, reappearing cleaned of all detritus. A moment later, a wave of Zhadin’s magic cleansed both herself and Qzi.

She sighed, stretching with a wince, her body feverish from the pain.

Then the aura of a furious fey washed over the scene, and a hundred and twenty years of instincts had her drop into a full kowtow, her forehead pressed into the dirt. Despite it being a hot fall day, the temperature plummeted, her breath visibly ghosting as frost coalesced on the blades of grass still clinging to life under her palms.

Lord Everwinter.

His aura washed over the area as he approached, the ambient noise of the masses falling silent as everyone, Qzi and Zhadin included, kneeled to the lord of the territory. The air weighed heavily, the sheer density of it not crushing them all only because it was dispersed through the title magic that bound it to the land.

She didn’t need to see his face when she could feel the fury freezing the sweat on her skin.

Lord Everwinter’s voice was a deep rumble of barely suppressed shifter rage. “Explain these circumstances.”

Squirt kept her head down. It didn’t matter how much she trusted him, he was a fey, and fey could turn on a dime. “A sanctioned duel, my lord. I have witnesses.”

“And eleven casualties. Seven bystanders and four guards are now injured and in need of healing.”

She winced. “Forgive me, my lord—I have taken my opponent’s head, so only I can atone for his crimes.”

He exhaled sharply, the edge of his wolf easing. “Yes, that I can see.” He turned to the lingering crowd. “Everwinter Guard, collect all witness statements. This fallout belongs to the Wyveln Family for their member failing to adhere to duel etiquette. I intend to collect.”

He then turned his attention back to the three in front of him. “You three, to my office. Now.”

Squirt stood slowly, the pain from the toxins dizzying in strength. Before she’d taken her second step, a cool film passed over her skin, the sounds of the surrounding chaos suddenly silent. The lord’s magic. Gone was the oppressive and terrifying aura, replaced with one of a gentler, almost assessing nature. The density remained, only now it caressed instead of crushed, the temperature pleasantly cool instead of freezing.

He murmured, “The potion was not enough?”

He… knew of the potion?

Also, damnit, was it that obvious?

A grimace of pain pinched her brows even as she kept her head lowered in deference. “Blazing ant powder in blood. Doubt I’m the only one.”

He nodded. Shoulders straightening back up to his full height, he shifted, every inch of him a commander once more. He turned his attention to Zhadin. “Use Jezalin’s beacon.”

Shit, damnit, fuck, no, not—

They didn’t hesitate, reaching into shadow and pulling out her beacon, crushing it under their foot.

Squirt stared at the shards under Zhadin’s foot, numb realization coming over herself.

Jezalin was one of the Queen’s nominated advisors.

Jezalin was a damn good healer with incredible control and vast reserves.

Jezalin was called across multiple territories to heal her and those around her, a service that did nothing for the Queen. Not really.

Except that Lord Prince Ranin had called her a national treasure after the Riverlands incident, which would make her life suddenly and weirdly relevant to the royals.

Now the lord was having something akin to a minor natural disaster to his fey, and he was calling her, from multiple territories away, to attend to it.

Attend to her.

Gods damnit. She was the gods damned Chief Royal Physician, wasn’t she?

Exhausted and weighed down by the pain, she stayed like that for long enough that the beam of light appeared, forming into the fallen right in front of Squirt. Dazed as she stared up at the woman, she had the distant thought that she was glad she didn’t have any lunch, or else she might have hurled it all over the woman’s perfect white outfit.

And having already humiliated herself once in front of the gorgeous woman, she’d rather not do it again.

Jezalin frowned, dropping down and putting a hand across Squirt’s forehead, murmuring a scan spell. Squirt found herself leaning into the oddly cool hand.

***

All four of the others around her paled in alarm. A moment later, the scan spell finished, and Squirt passed out as the fallen scooped her, glaring accusingly at Bartos and hissing out, “Has it even been a week?”

Bartos lifted his eyes to the sky, silently praying for patience. “… technically, yes.”

Jezalin glared at him briefly before turning her attention back to the patient in her arms. Burning out the toxin in her blood was going to take some time and much concentration. “I will take her to the Keep—”

“She is not your only patient.”

Forcing herself to center, she took a few deep breaths. “Who else?”

Bartos seemed to consider something for a moment before he said, “Go. I will send them to you at the Keep. Have the healers wing prepare for incoming patients suffering similar ailments.”

She nodded, cradling the small woman in her arms before quickstepping away. He turned and began assessing which patients needed to be seen to first, directing the Guard to carry the weakest—the redcaps—by stretcher.

Unknowingly playing into a new rumor sparked that day about his partner preferences.

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