The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 26: Chapter 25 — The Gate of Crows, Part II: Rushed Night

Read chapter 26 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Chapter 25 — The Gate of Crows, Part II: Rushed Night The battlefield stank of iron and shit and smoke. Yara walked among the bodies as the sun bled red through ash. Most were simply dead eyes glazed, mouths slack, cooling into the mud. But some still moved. A hand twitching. A chest rising in shallow, desperate pulls. The sounds they made were small and animal. The Gem stirred under her ribs. Still warm. Still usable. "I know," Yara muttered. Eliza followed a few paces behind, ledger open, charcoal ready. "How many?" Yara counted. "Three. Maybe four if we're fast." "And the rest?" "Strip them. Armor, weapons, anything we can use." Yara looked at the thirty-some bodies littering the approach. "They came to kill us. Now they'll arm us instead." The Gem purred. Efficient. Around them, survivors picked through the wreckage. Children carried helms too big for their heads. Women sorted swords by length. The Horror dragged a body toward the pile Eliza had designated "usable." No one looked at the dying men. No one wanted to see what Yara was about to do. She found the first one twenty paces from the gate. Rolen The archer lay on his back, arrow buried in his chest just below the collarbone. Each breath was a wet, rattling thing, blood in his lungs, drowning from the inside. He couldn't have been more than twenty. His bow lay beside him in the mud, one end of the string snapped. When Yara's shadow fell across him, his eyes rolled toward her. "Please," he gasped. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth. "Help... I have a family—" "I will help you," Yara said. She knelt and picked up his bow. The wood was old, worn smooth where his hands had gripped it for years. She could feel the memory in it, countless hours of practice, the draw and release, the satisfaction of arrows finding their mark. His anchor. The thing he'd rather die holding than abandon. "What... what are you doing?" Rolen's voice was thin with fear. "Saving you," Yara said. Not quite a lie. She pressed the bow to his chest, over the arrow wound. The Gem surged through her palm, hungry and eager. Heat bloomed where wood met flesh. The bow began to glow, not hot, but bright, like metal remembering the forge. Then it started to dissolve. Not burning away, but melting , flowing into his body like water into sand. Rolen screamed as the wood threaded through his chest, wrapping around bone, weaving through muscle. The arrow was pushed out, expelled like a splinter. The wound sealed behind it, skin knitting over the hole. The transformation lasted maybe thirty seconds. To Rolen, it probably felt like hours. When it ended, he lay gasping, whole. The arrow wound was gone. His breathing came clear and strong. Slowly, he sat up, hands patting his chest where the hole had been. "You... you saved me." Wonder filled his voice. Then his expression changed. His eyes widened. "Thank you. My Lady. Thank you, my Lady." The words came automatically, compulsively. His mouth kept moving, repeating them like a prayer he couldn't stop. "What—" He tried to stop. Couldn't. "What did you do to me?" Yara stood. "You're mine now. Get up." He tried to resist. His body stood anyway, moving on its own. Horror dawned in his eyes at the realization that he was a passenger in his own flesh. "No. No, I don't—I can't—" His protests died as the bond tightened. His jaw clenched. When he spoke again, his voice was flat, empty. "What are your orders, my Lady?" The Gem thrummed with satisfaction. Good. He understands. Yara picked up what remained of his bow, just the grip now, the rest absorbed into his body. She pressed it into his hands. "You're the Eyes. You watch. You warn. You never miss." His fingers closed around the grip automatically. The wood felt right in his hands like it had always belonged there. Because it did. It was in him now, threaded through his bones. "Yes, my Lady." The words came smooth as oil. He looked at the grip. At a broken bow lying nearby in the rubble—one of the dead defenders'. Wi