A lock of hair fell into my eye and I clawed it back, fingers snagging in the ash-dusted knots. His helm followed the motionand he rolled his shoulders, working his neck until the joints cracked.
I braced myself, preparing for the edict of penance. A flaying, perhaps, or a scoring of razors. I deserved it—after all, Thromarrians had been punished for far less.
“I did it to help,” he said at last.
“Help?” I scoffed, the heat bubbling within me enough to rival Ovidus’ core. “Help? You reopened it!” I thrust my hand towards him, holding it between us. The wound was cleaner than before, undeniably so, and the pain…
“It needed cleansing,” he replied, words slow and over-pronounced, patient in the way one speaks to a dolt. “Otherwise, it would fester.”
I stared at it, awaiting the sting to return. “In my enclave, we use herbs,” I said, mirroring his cadence, trying to ignore how the slash no longer burned. “We do not go around licking each other like alley cats.”
A deep, knowing breath—one that suggested I was not long for this realm—whooshed from under his veil.
“Cats clean their wounds to stave infection, Seamstress,” he said. “And to ease the pain. Does it feel better?”
“The tongue of a druid and the tongue of a cat are not the same…though both seem to lick places they shouldn’t.” Flexing my fingers, I sought out the ache that had plagued me only moments before, but it was gone. In its place lingered a blessed kind of numbness, and beneath that, a faint, almost pleasant, tingle. Like the tickling upon the dais.
His helm tilted, just slightly. “Better?”
“Better,” I admitted, voice faltering. Clearing my throat, I let my hand rest upturned in my lap. “But foul beyond measure. Do not do such a thing again.”
He leaned forward, fingers indenting the mattress near my left thigh. “You are in no position to tell me what I am and what Iam not to do. Have you forgotten that it is you who is chained to a bed, injured and under inquisition by order of the High Druid of Dendra. Do you talk to all druids this way? ‘Tis a wonder your body is in my bed at all and not strung up in a piazza somewhere, left to age like dried meat long before your offering. The druid of your enclave must be forgiving indeed, to tolerate such transgressions.”
I bit my lip, tasting ash again. “I do not speak to druids this way.” If I had, Capriche would have made it his crusade to see little bits of me pinned to every Door of Judgement in Dendra, a limb for every chappellum.
“Then make not a habit of it,” he replied, fingers relinquishing their hold to brush out a crease on the undersheet. “Others will not be so tolerant. Speak to Falstaff that way, and spared by the Blood God or not, an acolyte’s belt would be the least of your concerns.”
“But I did,” I breathed, stomach jolting with the memory of my heresies upon the Blood Tree’s dais.
I pray for the end of all things.
When your time comes, I hope it is a torment.
To the fucking pits with you, the Blood God as well.
He leaned a fraction closer, and I fought the urge to shrink back from the sharpened knives of his helm. “You know who I am, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And what they call me? Andwhy?”
“The Butcher.”
He eased back. “A butcher cares not for what lies on the block, only that the cut is clean. Falstaff will not touch you while you are under my charge, especially not if you give me your truths.” He uncorked the glass bottle, its pop making me jolt. Soaking a strip of linen with its contents, he reached for me. “Your hand.”
I drew it closer to my chest. “Are you…” I began, cheeks ripening to tomatoes, “are you going to lick it again?”
“No. Since I find your whining intolerable, I shall clean it as they do in your enclave. Now, your hand, Seamstress.” His fingers curled, beckoning.
“Why?” I asked. “Why bother?”
His hand flexed, ready to take rather than wait. “You must stay alive for what comes next. No more questions.”
“What comes next?”
An exasperated breath rasped beneath his veil. “Are you so eager for the kiss of a belt?”
I pressed my lips together, sealing the swarm of questions buzzing on my tongue—most, if not all, about Demetri. Relenting, I offered my hand, turning my face to the wall. Dark stone loomed beside the bed, its rugged grooves and crevices dancing with the shadows of firelight. I traced every dip and crevice as he worked, the cloth moving in slow, careful dabs. There was no pain, only a mild, tentative pressure.
