The Emerald-Opal Heir - 14

The Warrior

If you don’t get up, you are going to die.

It was Coral’s voice whispering in his head, keeping him awake and reminding him that the pain in his gut was real. 

The explosion rang in his ears and he could feel blood dripping from his nose. 

Get up, Coral’s voice hissed again. Forrest, you are going to bleed out. 

Somewhere in his delirious brain, Forrest found the idea of bleeding out on Baelle’s cobblestones amusing. 

At least now he knew that taking on a dozen well trained royal guards at once wouldn’t work out well for him. He’d narrowly managed to avoid certain death, trading it instead for a deep wound to the stomach that threatened to spill out his guts with every second. 

“Forrest?” It took him a moment to register that it was Clara’s voice and not Coral’s. He didn’t let his disappointment surface. “Goddesses … that’s a lot of blood.” 

No kidding, he almost said, but his head gave a throb that cut off his reply.

He forced his eyes to open, though his vision was blurred because one of his eyes was swollen shut. Gentle hands grazed his arms pulling his fingers from his bleeding stomach. Clara let out a gasp as she took in the damage. “Forrest! You didn’t say it was this bad-” 

It hadn’t been - at least until Clara had shoved him to the ground and ripped open the wound even further. 

“My Blessing isn’t working,” Clara whispered hurriedly, her voice reedy with panic. “I think it’s the cuts on my arms - Beckett’s magic did something. I’m going to run and try to find Newt or one of the others - they should be at our meeting part. Don’t move, okay?” 

A terrible idea, Forrest almost said, but his vision darkened abruptly as Clara’s fingers dropped from his injury. He dropped into some state of half-awake. 

Somewhere from the corner of his blurry vision, he spotted a figure in white approaching. Heels clicked on the stones as skinny ankles approached. He could feel someone’s gaze drift over him. 

The person completely ignored Forrest’s prone form, instead leaning over Emmeline a few feet away. 

He saw pale fingers creeping forward and the only thought in his mind was that Death had come to claim another one of his friends. No. He wouldn’t let Dixral steal anyone else from him. 

Strength filled his limbs enough for him to push himself to his feet. His stomach burned with agony and every breath was like a hot poker stabbing into his flesh. 

He weakly grasped for his sword, fingers numb and unwieldy. 

“You’re a breath away from dying,” the figure bent over Emmeline mumbled. “Forrest, dear, do you really think you stand a chance against me?”

Forrest didn’t respond to Baelle. He gritted his teeth and pressed his free hand to his stomach in an attempt to stop the bleeding. She was right here and maybe if he stalled long enough Emmeline would wake up and kill her… 

“It’s amusing that you pretend that this is what you want,” Baelle commented drily. Through his good eye, Forrest could make out the goddess inspecting her nails, her expression bored. “Do you really want me dead, my little warrior? I talked to your father once - I know your ambitions, your hopes and dreams. The goddesses will fall - you can have your revenge on Racke.” 

Revenge. The word seemed to echo through his mind, as if Baelle had used some of her power to reinforce its meaning. 

He could avenge Coral, avenge himself and his Curse that he’d carried for so long. 

Baelle took a step closer to him, her smile sweet and endearing. The corners of her eyes crinkled just like Forrest’s mother’s used to before Forrest had been Cursed. 

“It doesn’t have to end here, Forrest. All I ask is that you prove your loyalty to me through a simple test-” 

Doesn’t this remind you of something, the tiny voice in his mind whispered. A memory flashed to life behind his eyes. An abandoned temple. The overwhelming feeling of rage, burning deep within his soul. Blue eyes flickering shut like a flame snuffed out. 

The goddesses weren’t good. It was true that Forrest hated all of them, that he wished they would fall, even. 

“The day I join you is the day the world ends,” Forrest rasped. 

Baelle nodded, as if she’d known from the beginning it would end this way. She waved her hand once, fingertips glittering with sorcery way darker than Calli’s. 

“Just in case you ever change your mind,” she offered, and a harsh pressure built in Forrest’s stomach. He dropped to the ground, clutching his wound, his insides twisted against Baelle’s magic. And then the pain lessened considerably, enough that he could breathe. He knew was still in danger - Baelle hadn’t healed him after all - only giving him the illusion of slightly less agony. 

“You don’t mind if I give your Reader a gift too, do you?” Baelle asked, turning towards Emmeline. 

Forrest’s adrenaline spiked. The magic in Baelle’s palms seemed suddenly sinister. 

You injured a goddess once, the voice reminded him, replaying the vision of his sword striking Racke’s cheek and drawing blood. You could do it again. Harness your rage… 

Forrest didn’t need to rely on his anger anymore. He was so much more than his Curse now. He let his strength pour into his grip on his sword as Baelle lowered her palms so they faced Emmeline. 

He attacked with more drive than he ever had before, aiming for her stomach.

It would’ve gone straight through a normal person - even a Blessed. But Baelle was a goddess. 

The sword pierced Baelle’s hip, immediately forming a bloodstain that looked like a rose on the white fabric of her dress. The goddess’s face darkened, her revenge on the Reader momentarily forgotten as she spun towards Forrest. 

For the first time ever, Baelle looked afraid. 

Her eyes widened as she took in Forrest’s stance, his missing sword. Her eyes dropped to the wound on her side, already healing. 

She found a bit of her confidence at last, pasting a dripping smile onto her face. 

Forrest didn’t buy her act, not when she summoned a cloud of fog to whisk her away. Not when her eyes were the last things to disappear. 

He only realized that Baelle was not bluffing her confidence when he noticed that his friends were approaching - and Brooke was not among them.

“Forrest, if you don’t keep your eyes open I will freeze them open,” Bethany chided. 

“It’s not my fault that you’re terrible at comforting me,” he wheezed, the pain almost making him black out. 

Bethany punched him in the shoulder and Forrest jerked awake with a curse. 

They’d managed to steal five horses from the stable with the help of Rae’s Blessing and the fact that horses were apparently easily persuaded. They had to ride with partners - except for Clara, who rode alone so she could easily heal anyone who needed it - which was pretty much everyone. 

In about an hour, their group had managed to make it to the edge of Ibeni. Newt told them to set up camp in a cave, obscured by trees and a rather loud creek while he scouted the area. Everyone else was too weak to argue. 

Forrest hated how confident he’d been about their plan. They’d so fully believed that Beckett’s letter was fake, so arrogantly thought that their plan to attack Baelle at the most obvious point of the ball would work that no one had thought to come up with an escape route. Baelle, on the other hand, had certainly known what she was doing. Emmeline and Calli - the group's strongest magic wielders - were both unconscious and who knew when they’d wake up or what was wrong. Forrest - the best swordsmen out of all of them - was trying not to bleed out. In one swoop, Baelle had crippled their team by hitting only three of them. 

“Forrest,” Bethany insisted again, louder this time with a slap to go with it. Forrest winced at the sting of her palm but was glad for it. 

If he passed out, he wasn’t sure that even Clara’s Blessing would be able to wake him back up. 

“I’m almost done,” Clara assured him from his other side, though her voice was wobbling. 

“You don’t have to heal me entirely-” Forrest protested as Clara’s fingers grazed across his bare stomach. 

“I’m not,” Clara said, finally pulling away. “This is the best I can do right now - I don’t want to exhaust my Blessing already.” She gently wrapped her arms around herself and moved away. Forrest couldn’t blame her. 

Although Clara’s Blessing had returned, she still couldn’t heal the burns on her arms. Other healings were weakened, and Clara was saving the majority of her power in case someone else needed it. She’d healed Forrest enough that he wasn’t on the brink of death, but his stomach still felt like it was on fire. 

“You did well. I barely feel anything,” he lied, and Clara gave him a look like she knew. Like she wanted to help but she couldn’t. “Get some rest, Clara. We’ll watch over Calli and Emmeline and let you know if anything changes.” 

She nodded once, closing her eyes as she leaned against the wall. Forrest knew she was faking sleep, her breathing never changed. 

“You should sleep too,” Bethany advised him. “All of us should. I can stay awake until Newt comes back from his scouting.” 

Scouting. More like some alone time. While Newt had taken the lead after their escape, there was something off about him. Forrest was pretty sure it had to do with Baelle and whatever had occurred with the others and the now missing Brooke - who everyone seemed determined to ignore. 

Forrest closed his eyes and listened to the breathing of those around him. His eyelids felt heavy but guilt tore through his stomach like a feral beast. He couldn’t help but feel like he should’ve pushed for a back-up plan - especially after everything that had happened with Coral. 

He heard soft snores from across the cave, probably Rae, Margo, and Morgan. Rae was understandably upset about Brooke’s disappearance though she never directly said so. The two were good friends, and Forrest knew that everyone’s reluctance to discuss the heavy topics was weighing heavily on Rae. Margo, Morgan, and Bethany all seemed indifferent, but he guessed that they were coping in their own way too. 

They were fighting a losing battle and every time they thought they were getting somewhere, they only ended up back further than where they’d started. 

He rested his against the wall but didn’t let exhaustion consume him. Who knew what nightmares waited patiently in the darkness. 

About an hour later, he heard soft footsteps pad into the cave. 

“You’re late,” he commented as Newt took a seat beside Emmeline. The fire was just embers at this point, but it warmed the cave nicely. Still, Newt draped a blanket around Emmeline’s shoulders and Forrest watched as he brushed a hair out of the girl’s face. 

Yet another thing he’d never gotten to try with Coral. 

Forrest pushed the thought aside with a pang of loss and forced himself to focus on the conversation. 

“No one chased after us,” Newt said, his voice monotone. “The castle is still smoking in the distance. I don’t know what you guys did, but you managed to take out a good chunk of one of the towers.” 

“It was Beckett,” Forrest said, recalling the prince’s soulful eyes as he plunged the knife into his leg to let Clara and Forrest escape. 

Newt pursed his lips at the name but said nothing. 

“He was trying to help us. Before I got to Clara, she managed to hold her own against him and he has two Blessings. I don’t think he would hurt her even if he wanted to.” 

Forrest had watched Beckett and Clara bond over the course of several months. There was a friendship there that reminded him of how he and Coral had once been. And then - to watch everything get torn apart but a single decision - it seemed almost symbolic to Forrest, a warning. There was still something there, yes, something that didn’t allow for harm to come between them. Forrest had watched from a distance as Beckett and Clara talked and fought. He knew that Beckett was rumored to have been seen with another girl his age, one that made him smile and laugh and blush. He knew that he had no business in the prince’s social life. 

But he also knew Beckett would come back to Clara one day because of the bond they shared, the kind that could never be broken. 

“I know,” Newt mumbled, reminding Forrest of the topic at hand. “I’m trying not to hold it against him. Emmeline keeps trying to understand why he left, but all I can think about is how he didn’t care. It feels wrong to be angry at him.” He clenched his fists. 

Forrest knew the feeling of not knowing who to blame. He could offer no advice because he still hadn’t figured out the difference between forgiving and forgetting yet. 

“I think it’s okay to be mad,” he said carefully even though there was no Curse that he could stir simply by talking about powerful emotions. “But I also think that we can’t hold on to our hatred. There’s still good inside of Beckett - I know there is.” 

“That’s what Emmeline keeps saying,” Newt sighed. “I’m trying to believe her, but…” 

“But?”

Newt gave a shrug. “I dunno. She’s been a bit … weird lately. Maybe it was the anticipation of the fight with Baelle, or maybe it was still recovering from the last attack. But she kept avoiding me and I don’t understand why.”

He was asking Forrest for relationship advice? Forrest - who could barely hold Coral’s hand without becoming awkward. The thought was laughable. 

“Did you make her mad?” Forrest asked, saying the first thing that came to mind. 

Newt didn’t answer at first. “I-I don’t know. She never really said anything about it.” 

Forrest wasn’t sure what to say. He’d never been given the chance to really experience his relationship with Coral - they’d been kidnapped and tortured and then she died. 

“I don’t think she’s mad,” he finally settled with. “If you took a step back and watched the way she looked at you, you wouldn’t be wondering about this at all. You two are close like the rest of us aren’t.” 

You’re everything that I wanted to have with Coral. 

Newt nodded, though he didn’t sound like he really was listening. Maybe he wasn’t - Forrest couldn’t blame him either. He was well acquainted with the worry of not being enough, of being too broken and too shattered. 

“What about you?” Newt asked at last, glancing up at Forrest with a renewed passion.

“What about me?” Forrest asked, already dreading where Newt was attempting to go with the conversation. 

“How are you holding up?” Newt revised with a pointed look at the sleeping forms of Bethany, Calli, Margo, and Rae. 

Forrest wanted to end the discussion right then and there, but he knew Newt was just trying to be nice, so he offered. “I guess I’m doing well. There hasn’t been a whole lot of time for me to devote to mourning, so I’m kind of ignoring the pain.” 

He knew it was bad to lie, especially when Newt was genuine in his questioning. But Forrest really didn’t want anyone to know that the grief festered inside his heart like an infected wound. His friends had lost far more than he, hadn’t they? Clara watched Titus die and Bones turn himself over for her freedom. Emmeline had found her brother only to nearly lose him again. And now Brooke was gone too. 

Forrest didn’t think he had any right to let his anguish run rampant when the others were holding together so well. 

Newt raised an eyebrow, like he didn’t believe a word of what Forrest was saying. 

“I’m coping,” Forrest added weakly. “It’s a process.”

“A process that you don’t have to go through alone,” Newt assured him. “Forrest, it’s okay to feel upset. By goddesses, I already don’t believe you’re human without the amount of emotion you’ve repressed. But Coral was important to you. None of us will blame you if you’re disconsolate for a little while.” 

“I know,” Forrest said. Another lie. “And I think when this is all over, I’d like to give her a proper goodbye.” 

Newt’s eyes were slipping shut now and Forrest couldn’t help but smile to himself, glad that his friend was finally getting some much needed rest. He would stand true to his word - one day he would give Coral the proper ceremony that she deserved. But until then, the sorrow and misery that dug its claws into his chest would remain deep inside him.

Author's Note

Sorry if this is under different tags or the file picture is wrong - my laptop broke so I might be updating differently until it is fixed. Happy Reading!