The Dream Keeper's Dragon

21. A Wounded Tiger

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 murmur—or at least Aurelie thought looked and sounded excited to have something new to talk about—of 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.