Pax was the first to catch sight of Talpa stretching up the trunk of one of the taller trees in the area, the lowest branch just out of reach. He and his friends arrived out of breath, a moment later, and got to work.

“We got this buddy,” Pax said, out of breath as he peered up through the scraggly branches. He sucked in a breath when he caught sight of unmoving mottled brown and white feathers. “I see her.”

Bryn was already beside him, her hands clasped for Tyrodon to step in for a boost. He was the lightest of them.

Pax spooled up the tiniest bit of mana he’d regenerated, ready to add a Bulwark if needed to ease the extraction. Pounding footsteps heralded Rin’s arrival a moment before she Levitated up into the tree.

She came to an abrupt stop next to Eris’ limp body. Pax watched through the branches as she pulled out a healing potion and poured it over Eris’ injuries before trickling slow drops into her beak.

Rin pulled out a flat shield and hurriedly propped it in the branches next to her. Then she carefully extricated her friend, doing her best not to jar her body at all. Moments later, she floated to the ground, the limp body of Eris carefully placed onto the shield in her hands.

“Pax.” That’s all she could get out, her eyes full of raw misery and pleading as she reached him.

“We’ll save her,” he said, hoping he wasn’t lying to her as he held out his hands and took the edge of the shield to help lower it to the ground.

He didn’t hesitate, laying careful fingers along Eris’ muscular but slender body and doing a quick visual inspection. Her feathers were surprisingly soft and warm. Thankfully, her chest still moved, her breathing coming in small, slow puffs.

He didn’t see any obvious injuries except for some missing and broken feathers along her chest. Pax thought it was a good sign that she didn’t have an obvious arrow sticking out of her, because she might have bled out by now. But a magic injury that left her unconscious this long couldn’t be good either.

He summoned a careful thread of air and light mana, pushing through the pain of his overused system, and dove in. It was much easier than anything he did with a wild beast. He’d helped with Eris’ Taming, so her internals were familiar.

Pax shut down all his outside senses, letting the voices around him fade away as he trusted his crew to protect them both. Ignoring his aching head, Pax triggered his Heal Others with the thinnest thread of mana he could manage. If he could keep the thread of mana feeding the spell smaller than his recovery rate boosted by Dahni, he might just manage this.

He sent a quick plea to Vitur that his Heal Others spell would work on Eris. Then he dove into the mana that spread out in front of him, highlighting the inner workings of her body in a way he’d never expected.

He was very familiar with the mana patterns of beasts from all his Taming experience. But the Heal Others showed him a completely different picture. Instead of highlighting mana lines and patterns, the mana in the spell highlighted the physical structures of her body. Surprise, plus a fascinated interest, flared as he saw the anatomy that made Eris such an amazing beast.

Many things were similar to the insides of a person, but others were very foreign. Eris had bones, lots of them, but they were structured differently. Pax realized they must be a lot lighter than his bones, which would be crucial to getting airborne. As he sent his mana searching for them, he found two with hairline fractures and left bubbles of spell energy to encourage the power of the healing potion to finish healing them.

Nothing seemed amiss in her brain or head. The lack of swelling or obvious injury reassured Pax. Hopefully, her unconscious state was simply a reaction to severe injury as her body fought to recover.

She had a heart much like his, just smaller. It was the speed it pumped that surprised him, flickering so fast he couldn’t count the beats. But it didn’t seem to be injured or stressed, so he moved on.

The lungs baffled him. Unlike his own that swelled and shrank like a blacksmith’s bellows, hers were rigid, not moving at all. Inside were a bunch of tiny, rigid channels with air rushing through, instead of the soft spongy insides of his own lungs. She also had a collection of small sacs scattered around the inside of her body, somehow feeding air in and out of the rigid lung structure.

Pax didn’t have time to figure it all out. He pushed his spell to highlight anything wrong with the internal organs. Nothing stood out. Pax let out a relieved sigh that Eris’ vitals were functioning well. That boded well for her continued survival. Peripheral injuries were a lot less dangerous and he could heal them much easier than an essential organ.

Feeling reassured, he pulsed his spell to the bulky collection of muscles along her chest, the area beneath the damaged feathers he’d noticed. The muscles were the largest in her body, which made sense, since they did most of the work moving her wings. And there he finally saw the problem.

Unlike a simple stabbing injury that would have been obvious from the outside, Pax saw a network of thin lacerations that spread through her powerful muscles like a spiderweb of damage. They spread through all the layers, to some extent. The muscles quivered in reaction, swelling everywhere as blood leaked from the extensive injuries.

It looked like the damage one of Tyrodon’s handbombs caused to the ground upon impact. Some kind of air or earth spell had caught her directly in the chest. Thankfully, it seemed just the edge of an area of effect spell had hit her. If more of it had hit her, it could have obliterated her center and killed her.

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Pax saw the energy from the healing potion struggling to knit the small tears back together. Determined to get Eris healed and conscious as quickly as possible for Rin’s sake, Pax dove in. He was glad the injuries were ones that took more skill to fix instead of large amounts of mana.

Time stretched out as Pax ignored everything but his work. He sent his awareness flitting through the network of damage to Eris’ overlapping chest muscles, finding the largest injuries to address first. He teased the torn edges, lining them up based on matching patterns and encouraging them to knit together, one by one.

When he found torn ligaments attaching her muscles to her skeletal structure, Pax understood another reason Eris had fallen from the sky. Even if she’d been able to fight through the pain, the torn connections wouldn’t allow her to control her wings.

Leaning hard into his Heal Others skill, Pax took the time to examine the way the muscles should connect to the bones. He did his best to visualize what they should look like before letting his healing energy get to work.

An unknown time later, he thought he’d fixed it all. Doing one last scan through the area, he saw nothing left to fix. The healing tears still felt fragile, but as long as Eris rested, he thought she’d recover with no lasting ill effects.

A heavy weight lifted from Pax. He hadn’t realized how much he’d dreaded giving Rin bad news. From a strategist point of view, it would be a crippling blow to lose their aerial scout. But for Rin to lose her companion? He couldn’t imagine how he’d feel losing Talpa or Whisk.

Whisk had said something about companions coming back after dying, but without their levels. None of them had wanted to test the veracity of that. But now that there were more Tamed companions, Pax made a mental note to investigate what exactly happened when something killed a companion. The more beasts they helped Tame, the more likely someone would lose one and they would know for sure.

Pax shook his head. That could all wait for later. He was letting his weariness distract him. He blew out a slow breath, sat back and opened his eyes. Rin was sitting next to him, one hand on Eris’ wing, with impatient and worried eyes glued to him.

“Well?” She looked hopeful, seeing his expression, but still scared.

He smiled and gave her a quick nod. “She's going to be alright.”

A sobbing gasp slipped out, and without warning, she wrapped her arms around Pax with a powerful hug.

Surprised, it took him a moment to respond. Something deep inside him shook. His brother had just hugged him and now Rin? Dismissing his strange reaction, he quickly wrapped his arms around her. He felt a trembling reaction shuddering through her body.

As fast as she’d hugged him, she pushed back and focused back on Eris before looking back at him, worried. “Is it alright to move her? To pick her up?”

He nodded. “Just be careful. Everything’s healing. And whatever you do, make sure she doesn’t try to fly when she wakes up. She needs to give her flight muscles and the connections time to finish knitting together.”

Rin bobbed her head, noting the instructions before reaching down. With gentle hands, she tucked Eris’ large wings in and around her body. Then Rin slipped her hands under Eris and carefully lifted her to her chest.

Pax stood with her, as Rin flexed her legs and lifted Eris, ready to offer help if needed. When he saw Eris in her arms, looking almost as big as an unconscious person, Pax realized again that he wasn’t the only one progressing quickly.

“I’ll keep my Sanctuary and Neptid’s Embrace going to speed up her recovery,” Dahni said, moving in next to Rin.

She gave him a grateful smile as she turned to head back to the battlefield. The rest of their crew fell into their formation around her, looking relieved at the outcome while still keeping alert for dangers.

“Thanks, everyone,” Rin said, her voice strong and certain again. “Especially you, Talpa. You skipped out on the entire battle to keep looking for her. Thank you.”

He gave the most adorable wriggle, his tentacles stretching out to stroke Eris’ wing with care. His happiness was obvious to everyone.

“Did you just Heal a beast?”

Pax looked up to see Titus and two of his crew standing a few yards away, eyes wide with surprise and interest.

Bryn and Tasar stepped aside as Titus walked closer, staring at the still unconscious figure of Eris draped in Rin’s arms.

“She’s a Tamed companion, not a beast. It makes a difference.” Pax shook his head, still off balance by everything that had happened. How long would it take for him to get used to the idea of his brother not only being alive, but right there, available to see and talk to whenever he wanted?

“I know.” Titus’ expression softened. “I never thought this day would happen.”

Pax blinked back emotion and cleared his throat. “Let’s talk later. We need to get her back to base. And how long have you all been standing there?”

“Long enough to figure out my little brother has even more secret powers I didn’t know about.” Titus let out a disbelieving laugh. “Crissim was already planning on quizzing you and your friends about all the crazy magic you used in that battle, and now I just watched you Heal a Tamed beast. What exactly have you been doing at the mage academy?”

“How about I explain once we get everyone back safely?” Pax still couldn’t relax with Eris’ condition, not to mention the job of escorting powerful prisoners who might not cooperate back to base. “I’m too exhausted to think straight right now.”

“Of course.” Titus ducked his head and looked embarrassed. “That’s what I told Crissim just a few minutes ago. Let’s get everyone back.” He stopped and glanced back the way they came, suddenly looking worried.

Pax’s adrenaline suddenly spiked as he realized if Titus was here with them, he wasn’t back watching the prisoners.

Titus picked up on his flare of panic immediately as he and his two friends easily stepped into their formation. He took the side position Rin usually held while his friends brought up the rear. “Don’t worry. Crissim is babysitting the empire flicks we captured. And some of my other guys are scouting around to make sure nothing surprises them. I’m just hoping they tracked down the kids or that they made it safely back to base.”

Pax let out a relieved breath as they got moving, but found his curiosity piqued. He couldn’t very well ask, though, especially after just telling Titus to wait.

His brother noticed, though, and a broad smile spread across his face. “Guess what? I have another surprise for you . . . but only after we’re safely back at base.”

Pax groaned. If he’d had more energy, he would have smacked his brother. Both Amil and Dahni seemed to enjoy the interaction, smiling and chuckling. Pax just hoped Titus didn’t still enjoy practical jokes as much as he used to.

As they marched back to the battle, moving across small hills and through gullies, they moved quickly while staying alert. Pax had just caught sight of the destruction they’d left behind when a faint voice he’d almost forgotten to expect filled his mind.

Pax? Rin? Can any of you hear me? Give me a location.

His shoulders relaxed further. Mage Eldan was in range and hopefully had reinforcements with her.