Free Breaking Stars (Book 2) by Jenna Van Vleet Page A

Aisling,” he said gruffly, his voice tired. She stood before him, and he looked up for a second, revealing red-rimmed eyes. Aisling’s heart caught in her chest.
    She pressed a hand against her lips and willed the tears to stay back. “What happened?”
    Calsifer sniffed. “Lightning struck her.”
    “Where is she? Did you leave her in the City?”
    He raised his eyes, confused. “I—I would never….” Like a great gray wing, he lifted the blanket draped around his shoulders, and revealed a small, broken body nestled between his folded legs.
    Robyn lay tucked in tightly to Calsifer’s protective frame. One arm wrapped around her shoulders keeping her from moving. She was asleep or unconscious. Her chin against her chest rose slowly and fluttered as she took slow gasps. Her clothes were singed, and the left sleeve burned off to the shoulder. It was impossible to not notice the bloody bandage wrapped around her arm, and Aisling measured it too short.
    Cordis was the first to kneel before the Princess, reaching a hand out to brush back a lock of her brown hair that looked so unnatural against her pale skin. “You grew up, little one.”
    Aisling took to her knees and smoothed her skirts. Swallowing, she knit her hands together and pulled free the probe-pattern, sinking it into Robyn’s petite frame.
    She felt the shortened arm first, feeling the absence of a hand and wrist. There were also multiple fractures and burns. The lightning had traveled from her hand, down to the underside of her left thigh, where it exited. She felt a branching abrasion tracing down her side, around her hip, and over her thigh which she had never felt before. Other than the severe wounds to her arm, the rest of her was undamaged. Aisling breathed a sigh of relief. The lighting had not gotten to her brain, a land uncharted.
    Cordis was already unwinding the bandage when Aisling finished the probe. “Someone bring me water,” he commanded an on-looking Shalabane. The man ran off and returned a minute later with a large skin. Cordis uncorked it and poured a goodly amount into his hand, catching it with a blue Water pattern. He tossed the skin back to the man and telling him to shake the rest to create energy. As Aisling unwrapped the bandage, he heated the water until it bubbled ever so slightly in his hand. He was a strong Mage, but even he could not bring the water to a full boil.
    Twirling a finger, he drew the water from his hand and wrapped around Robyn’s arm like a coiling snake. As it moved and pulsed, it sloughed off dirt, blood, and burned skin. Aisling pulled the rest of the bandage, and she thinned her lips angrily. The strike had taken off the hand an inch below the wrist at a sharp angle, leaving a pointed burned bone around a mass of charred flesh. Calsifer did not seem to be affected, but he clenched her a little tighter.
    “I can fix this,” Aisling nodded, beginning at the shoulder. Calsifer’s eyes lightened.
    “How much of it?”
    “I—I can heal the burns and the…the stump, but I cannot make her a new hand.” She had never been strong enough to manage more than mending bone and skin. It was terribly difficult to make new skin. She could stretch it around the bone and create a bit of new skin where needed, but she was tired and still had a way to go before reaching Castle Jaden. Head Mage Casimir could help her more.
    She mended as Cordis cleaned the wounds. He kept his face pinched unknowingly as he worked, and after a while, she put a hand on his shoulder to motion him to stop. He lowered the pattern and looked away, heavy with emotion. He shared a relationship with her that Aisling would never be privilege to.
    Robyn’s rule would be all the more difficult now that she was left crippled. People would look at her as un-whole, and it would take her more time to gain their respect. There was always a chance they could hide it for a while, but people would learn eventually.
    Aisling fixed the fractures and