Legacy of Brick & Bone (Tainted Dominion Book 2) by Krystle Matar

Author:Krystle Matar [Matar, Krystle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Imburleigh Book Company
Published: 2023-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

“I hesitated,” Kazrani said again. And again and again, like she was punishing herself with each repetition. Her voice was thin and strained—pain, anger, frustration, fear. Fear for Ozra. “I’ve never hesitated in my fucking life, but I saw that badge—that fucking badge—and for a second, I thought—my brother. I could have shot him in the back and put an end to it, but the badge—and now Ozra—”

“I hesitated, too.” Stella’s voice wasn’t any stronger. “He was so young. I couldn’t—he would have killed us if it weren’t for Rhodrishi. I’m out here to protect my daughter, but I hesitated anyway because he was just a boy.”

“Brothers, I think,” Kazrani said. “Yours and mine. They’ll go to the Keeper of the Keys together, at least.”

Flashes of white and brown and black in the forest. Ozra’s horse—lathered in sweat, reins trailing, the leggy paint stood over Ozra’s prone form as he lay in the brush. They wouldn’t have found him otherwise. His big coat blended into the grey-brown tones of leaf litter and winter-bare branches. He could have been part of the fallen log he was resting against.

Stella reached him first, dropping to her knees in the tangle of brush, branches tearing at her clothes, at her hands. Didn’t matter. She didn’t have time for her own pain. Blood—she couldn’t see how bad it was with all the undergrowth around him, half-hiding him, the forest floor soaking up the evidence. But his side was soaked with it, leaving her hands sticky and stained when she touched him. He was breathing. At least he was breathing.

Stella looked around for Rhodrishi, but he’d stayed behind in the cave with Ceridwen.

“Ozra!” Stella reached for her Talent even as she called his name. “Ozra Sgèin, can you hear me?”

Her awareness sank into Ozra’s body in an instant, like it was waiting to be called on. The wound was mean and angry through his shoulder but it wasn’t bad enough to render him unconscious like this.

But his Talent was swirling, too. That’s why he wasn’t responding to her. He couldn’t. He was the whole forest, every tree, every leaf, every beating heart of every living creature. She fought hard against the current of it, but it was pulling her down, down. She was losing the shape of her identity, losing the edges of who she was, melting into Ozra’s incredible strength.

The wound, she told herself. She didn’t know if she was speaking out loud or thinking. Focus on the wound!

The hole in his muscle—the bullet had hit arm below the shoulder, and there was a tiny hairline fracture in the bone below the ball of the joint. And the bleeding. He was luckier than the boy—the bullet had found him from a long range, giving it time to lose velocity before it hit him instead of blowing the joint right off him.

“Help me,” Stella said. “Help me get him up. We’ll bring him to the cave at least—I can’t close his wound until I get the bullet out.

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