Vilem frowned. “Is she drugged?”
My eyebrows threaded together. “No.”
“Drunk?”
“No.”
“Why is she asleep?”
I felt myself stiffen. “I assume because she lost a substantial amount of blood.”
Vilem glanced back at me. “This wound is a few days old. This tissue would be swollen, had she been injured earlier today.”
Biting back a surge of dizziness, I stepped into his side to peer down at Maren’s hip. A pale pink membrane fused the clean edges of her skin together. I blinked at it, waiting for logic to weave its way into what lay before my eyes. I’d dressed more field wounds than I could count. Patched, staunched, stitched, and tourniquetted. I’d watched hundred of wounds heal over the course of days, weeks, months.
I’d never seen one close within hours.
Vilem tracked my hand as I pulled the wrappings away from Maren’s back. Smooth skin met my gaze, the edges of the long strip Kriska had flayed hidden somewhere within the hollow between her shoulder blades. Invisible. My fingers trailed across her back in bewildered wonder, my own knuckles cracked and bruised, and I felt the doctor’s eyes hover, watching me askance.
“She was hit in the back of the head,” I said, separating the long strands at Maren’s crown to show him her scalp. But under the leagues of crusted blood, I could only find smooth skin and a perfectly rounded skull.
“She wasn’t injured today,” Vilem said slowly. “But you were. Your left pupil is blown.”
“I’m fine,” I said, grasping the edge of the blanket and lifting it over Maren. And even as the sight of mended flesh soothed the sharp worry in my gut, something squirmed around the slowly sinking reprieve. An intuition in my bones that belied fact.
She’s a witch.
“What do I owe you?” I asked, my fingertips following the length of her arm through the quilt as I straightened.
“For examining a naked woman?” He chuckled softly, though his smile faded at the withering gaze I sent him. “Nothing. Nothing, friend. Havel will take enough. You should be sitting. Maybe even lying down.”
I shook my head, waving his suggestions away, though my stomach threatened to disagree. The doctor eyed me warily. “Regardless of when it happened, I see enough blood loss on these wrappings to cause for some concern. How deep did the knife go?”
“All the way in.”
His mouth quirked humorlessly. “Do you have it?” I fished the blade out of my belt, holding it out for Vilem to see. “Hmm,” he sighed, studying the length of the steel before glancing to the crimson-colored wrappings. “I’d recommend three weeks of rest, perhaps two and half with the way her injury looks now. And at least a day or two from you.”
Stowing the knife away, I gave a stiff nod, watching the doctor pack up his bag of unused medical supplies. Three weeks. It would be almostSaginnusby the time we’d be ready to travel again. I’d been nervous enough about crossing the mountains this close to winter. Waiting three more weeks—I wasn’t sure if we would survive the climb.
Vilem paused at the door. “You’re planning to board a ship back to Calder?”
Fuck. Lie. Say yes.
Was the mountain pass even still an option?Say no.
My head pounded. I shook it vaguely, unable to conjure a clever story. “Yes.”
“Good,” he said, turning the knob and pushing the door open. “I thought you might have said you’d planned to climb through the mountains. The passes are closed due to an avalanche that fell a week ago, and the Rivean Army is working to dig the road back out. But even if they were open” —he jutted his chin in Maren’s direction— “I wouldn’t recommend bringing her through them. Oh—don’t let yourself sleep for more than an hour.”
I scoffed as he snicked the door shut, his feet receding down the hall. The room became quiet but for Maren’s soft breathing and the distant roar of the ocean outside the open window. My eyes lifted toward the sound. The surge of waves against rock that we’d left behind had found us again in this little coastal village surrounded by trees. A tiny harbor waited under the gray horizon, its ships small in stature compared to the merchant vessels we’d seen in Vranna, but my gaze lingered on one in particular. A little two-mast structure with a familiar flag. An orange sun, a blue mountain.
I wondered how long it would stay before returning south.
The door opened to Havel’s face, cheeks once more round as he chewed on a fresh honey cake. Fucking perfect. Let’s get this over with. I forced him to take a step back as I strode into the hall, closing the door behind me. “Let’s see what I have to pay you in my saddlebags,” I ground out. “Then I want a fucking key.”
He followed me outside under a wall-less shelter, the straw floor embedded with hitching posts. Someone, perhaps Havel, had tied up our horses. I thrust my hand into Sero’s bags, feeling around for the presence of my coin purse, and my fingers closed around something else.
Cold, fragile shock drifted around me , snowflakes in the dead of winter. I drew the little thing out, my mouth parting as surprise leeched my thoughts.
