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“So you saved me from the shipwreck just to abandon me here?” Sorasa muttered as Dom opened his mouth to protest. “I don’t blame you. Time is of the essence now. A wounded mortal will only slow you down.”
She expected him to bluster and lie. Instead, his brow furrowed, lines creasing between his still vivid eyes. The light off the ocean suited him.
“Are you? Wounded?” he asked gently, his gaze raking over her. His focus snagged on her temple, and the gash there. “Anywhere else, I mean?”
For the first time since she woke, Sorasa tried to still herself. Her breath slowed as she assessed herself, feeling her own body from toes to scalp. As her awareness traveled, she noted every blooming bruise and cut, every dull ache and shooting pain.
Bruised ribs. A sprained wrist.
Her tongue flicked in her mouth. Scowling, she spit out a broken tooth.
“No, I’m not wounded,” she said aloud.
Dom’s desperate smile broke wide. He went slack against the sand for an instant, falling back on his elbows to tip his face to the sky. His eyes fluttered shut only for a moment.
Sorasa knew his gods were too far. He said so himself. The gods of Glorian could not hear their children in this realm.
Even so, Sorasa saw it on his face. Dom prayed anyway. In gratitude or anger, she did not know.
“Good,” he finally said, sitting back up.
The wind stirred in his loose hair and Sorasa assessed him for the first time since her memory failed. Since the deck of the Tyri ship caught fire, and someone seized her around the middle, plunging them both into the dark waves.
She did not need to guess to know who.
Dom’s clothing was torn but long dry. He still wore the leather jerkin with the undershirt, but his borrowed cloak had been left to feed sea serpents. The rest of him looked intact. He had only a few fresh cuts across the backs of his hands, like terrible rope burn.Scales, Sorasa knew. The sea serpent coiled in her head, bigger than the mast, its scales flashing a dark rainbow.
Her breath caught when she realized he wore no sword belt, nor sheath. Nor sword.
“Dom,” she bit out, reaching out between them. Only her instincts caught her, her hand freezing inches above his hip.
His brow furrowed again, carving a line of concern.
“Your sword.”
The line deepened, and Sorasa understood. She mourned her owndagger, earned so many decades ago, now lost to a burning palace. She could not imagine what Dom felt for a blade centuries old.
“It is done,” he finally said, fishing into his shirt.
The collar pulled, showing a line of white flesh, the planes of hard muscle rippling beneath. Sorasa dropped her eyes, letting him fuss.
Only when something soft touched her temple did she look up again.
Her heart thumped.
Dom did not meet her gaze, focused on his work, cleaning her wound with a length of cloth.
It was the fabric that made her breath catch.
Little more than a scrap of gray green. Thin but finely made by master hands. Embroidered with silver antlers.
It was a piece of Dom’s old cloak, the last remnant of Iona. It survived a kraken, an undead army, a dragon, and the dungeons of a mad queen.
But it would not survive Sorasa Sarn.
She let him work, her skin aflame beneath his fingers. Until the last bits of blood were gone, and the last piece of his home tossed away.
“Thank you,” she finally said to no reply.
