Аманда Хокинг - Ascend

They had very few trackers here when the attack started, but they hadn’t lasted long. Kenna saw a tracker go up against a hobgoblin, and the hobgoblin snapped him in half. The hobgoblins retreated pretty quickly after the Markis and Marksinna started defending themselves.

In the Oslinna palace, a small ballroom had been turned into a makeshift care unit. Some of the more injured Trylle had left to go to nearby hospitals, but most of them would rather die than be treated by humans.

It was horrifying to see. Cots were set up all over for survivors, and most of them were bloody and battered. Mänsklig children with broken arms and dirty faces were crying as their host parents held them.

Aurora immediately went to work without any prompting from me, which was nice. Willa and I went around talking to the people and giving them water, helping them if we could.

Kenna took Tove, Duncan, Loki, and Matt outside to show them where the most work needed to be done, and I wanted to go out with them. I would be much more useful lifting heavy objects than Matt or Duncan, because I could move them with my mind.

But I felt like I needed to be inside with the people, at least for a little while. Most of them I couldn’t help, other than handing out bottled water, but I think some of them just wanted to talk, to know that somebody cared.

Their stories were heart-breaking. Wives had lost their husbands, children had lost their parents, and most trackers had lost everything. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. It felt wrong and selfish. I needed to be calm and assure them that we would fix this, that I would make everything better.

I stayed long enough to talk to every person in the room, but then I had to move on. I could be of more help to them outside than I could in here. Willa went with me for the same reasons, leaving Aurora alone to heal them as much as she could.

As we were leaving, Willa was tearing up. She had a small, dirty teddy bear clutched in her hands, and she wiped at her eyes.

“That was pretty rough in there,” I said, holding back my own tears.

“This little tracker boy gave me this.” She held up the bear. “His whole family died. His parents, his sister, even his dog. And he gave me this because I sang him a song.” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to take it. But he said it was his sister’s, and she’d want another girl to have it.”

I put my arm around her, giving her a half-hug as we walked down the hall toward the palace door.

“We have to do more for these people,” Willa said. “That little boy isn’t hurt, but if he was, Aurora wouldn’t heal him. She wouldn’t want to waste her energy on him.”

“I know,” I sighed. “It’s insane.”

“That’s got to change.” Willa stopped and pointed back to the ballroom. “Every one of those people in there has been through hell, and they all deserve help just as equally.”

“I know, and I’m trying to make it better,” I said. “When I’m going to all those meetings, this is what I’m trying do and why I want you to help me with them. I will change this, and I will make it better.

But I need help.”

“Good.” She sniffled and played with the teddy bear. “I will start going to the meetings. I want to be a part of what it is you’re doing.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling some small bit of relief in that. “But right now, the best way to help these people is to get this place cleaned up so they can go back to their homes.”

Willa nodded and walked with me again. Outside, I could see some improvement. Half of a roof had been on the lawn of the palace, but it was gone now, as well as the uprooted oak by the cars. I could hear the boys a few houses down arguing about what to do with the debris.

Matt suggested they make a pile in the road for now, and they could worry about moving it later. Loki started to argue against it, but Tove told him to just do it. They didn’t have time to waste arguing.

Willa and I joined them, and we all went to work. Loki, Tove, and I did most of the lifting, while Matt, Duncan, and Willa tried to clean things and straighten up the houses. Just moving the garbage out of the way wouldn’t solve their problems, but it was the first step in being able to go back and fix it up.

As the day wore on, I started to feel exhausted, but I pushed through it. Loki had to physically move everything, so despite the chill, he ended up warm and sweaty. He took off his shirt, and the ordinarily pleasing sight pained me. The marks on his back looked better than they had before, but they were still there. Reminders of what he’d gone through, for me.

“What happened to him?” Willa asked me while we cleaned out one of the houses. A tree had gone through the window. I got it out, and she cleaned up the glass and branches.

“What?” I asked, but I saw her staring out the open window at Loki as he tossed a destroyed couch on the garbage pile in the road.

“Loki’s back,” she said. “Is that what the King did to him?

That’s why he has amnesty?”

“Yeah, it is.”

Wind came up around me, blowing my hair in my eyes, as Willa created a small tornado in the middle of the living room. It circled around, blowing all the glass and little bits of tree into the funnel, so Willa could send it out to the garbage.

“So what’s going on with you and him?” Willa asked.

“Who?” I said. I tried to pick up one of the couches that had been tipped over, and Willa came over to help me.

“You and Loki.” She helped me flip the couch back on its feet.

“Don’t play dumb. There’s something major there.”

“There’s nothing anywhere.” I shook my head.

“Whatever you say.” She rolled her eyes. “But I’ve been meaning to ask you, how’s the marriage going?”

“The past three days have been fantastic,” I said dryly.

“What about the wedding night?” Willa asked with a smile.

“Willa! This isn’t the time to be talking about that.”

“Of course it is! We need to lighten the mood,” she insisted.

“And I haven’t had a chance to talk to you about any of this yet.

Your life has been all drama since the wedding.”

“You’re telling me,” I muttered.

“Take five minutes.” Willa sat down on the couch and patted the spot next to her. “You’re visibly exhausted. You need a break.

So take five and talk to me.”

“Fine,” I said, mostly because my head was beginning to throb from all the objects I’d moved. That last tree had been hard to get going. I sat down next to her, and a bit of dirt billowed up from the couch. “This is never going to be clean.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Willa said. “We’ll get this place picked up, and then we can send out our maids to help them clean or something. We’ll get it all taken care of.”

“I hope so.”

“But Wendy, how was your wedding night?” Willa asked.

“You really wanna talk about this?” I groaned and leaned my head on the back of the couch.

“Right now, there’s nothing else I’d like to talk to about.”

“You’re in for a real disappointment,” I said. “Because there’s nothing to tell.”

“It was that bland?” she asked.

“No, it was nothing,” I said. “And I mean literally nothing. We didn’t do anything.”

“Wait.” She leaned back on the couch, as if to look at me better. “You mean that you’re married and still a virgin?”

“That is what I mean.”

“Wendy!” Willa gasped.

“What? Our marriage is weird. Really weird. You know that.”

“I know.” She looked disappointed. “I was hoping you could have a happily ever after is all.”

“Well, it’s not ever after yet,” I pointed out.