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“What are you suggesting?”

“I don’t know. You’re the healer. Do you have anything that might make her feel better or counteract whatever poison was on the arrow?”

Poison?

Of course. That made sense. The arrow had to be tipped with something to make me feel this way.

Why were my thoughts so scrambled?

“I do,” Orion said. The ground crunched somewhere behind me.

“Can poison even harm her?” Ace asked.

“She’s a bonded galeon. Usually, I would say no and suggest we wait this out. But it depends on the poison. If it’s made with the same magic that courses through her veins…”

“Galeon magic?”

Orion nodded. “That’s right. If it’s the same, her body will acclimatize and absorb it.”

“And if not?”

“It’s most likely her system will burn it off, and she’ll bounce back.”

“But?”

“But someone managed to kill Dita, and Emi has never taken this long to stabilize. She’s getting progressively worse. I don’t want to assume this is harmless. I don’t want to risk it.”

I sagged more in Ace’s hold, my limbs growing heavier by the second. He tightened his arms around me.

“I’ll stay with her,” Ace said.

Orion grunted, the ground crunched some more. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“I’ll keep her safe,” Ace said. “I’m going to carry her to the clearing by the forest’s edge. I don’t like the idea of waiting by all these dead bodies.”

“I’ll look for you there,” Orion said.

Ace nodded, his chin brushing the top of my head.

A breeze flowed over my skin and branches snapped in the distance as Orion made his way home. I’d look, but I was now the equivalent of a puddle of mud and couldn’t feel my legs.

“Hang in there, Mouse.” Ace’s voice rumbled. “I’m going to take care of you.”

With movement too fast for my addled brain to track, Ace bent and hoisted me over his shoulder. I flopped against his back helplessly, my world spinning.

Ace bent again to pick up something else before he marched through the forest toward the field.

My whole body spasmed in pain and I whimpered. Gray fur flashed in the periphery of my vision. Nala had returned to trot beside us.

“We’re almost there,” Ace said.

He sat me down a few minutes later, propping me up in a sitting position against a large fallen tree. Nala instantly darted in and sniffed me aggressively. She punted my upper body with her snout until she reached my injured arm. A low growl vibrated her body and her hackles stood up. She sniffed harder and faster while her gaze moved from side to side.

“I’ll be okay,” I told her.

Her hackles lowered and she stopped growling. With a few more snuffles and glares at my wound, she moved to my side and curled up beside me, her warm body heating my legs. I rested my uninjured arm over her and played with her fur.

While this was going on, Ace had moved around the small clearing near the forest line that faced the field and started a fire. The night held a chill, and the cold had already started to seep into my bones despite having a wolf heater by my side.