I pour water from the barrel over my head. Coldrunning down my chest. Pooling at my feet.
Not enough.
Is that what she is? A decision?Tovar's voice. Still in my skull.
She's twenty-two. Kestria's age. I watched her wrap a bear's leg with hands that didn't shake. I watched her meet my eye across a cooking fire and not look away.
My fist hits the wall. Wood cracks. Splinters in my knuckles.
The barrel didn't touch it. I need running water. Cold enough to hurt.
The stream is the farthest point from the cooking fire.
Out. Cold air. Trees. I push the thought of her down with every step and it keeps surfacing—her hands on Tarek's bandages, her voice across the fire, her bright blue eyes meeting mine like I'm just a man.
Fuck, she's here.
Crouched at the bank, sleeves past her elbows, scrubbing a bundle in the current. White hair half-fallen from whatever knot she tied this morning, the pink stain at the ends catching wet. That pink chicken roosting on a rock beside her.
I could turn around. She hasn't heard me. Human ears.
Her heartbeat. Steady. Unhurried. The warm honey scent carried by the water.
I don't leave. I can’t.
She looks up when my shadow crosses the bank. Sets down the bundle. Doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away.
"Did you need something?"
Every prepared sentence dissolves.
Hella.
The wrapping.
I hadwords.
She holds up her hands. "If this is about the cooking, I asked Axan about the grain."
"Not the cooking."
"The supply bench?"
"No."
"The shelf? The bandages? The tallow?"
"Bren's wrap."
She pushes wet hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. "Wha—oh right. What about it?" Her head tilts.
"You told him the technique was dangerous. In front of people."
"Well, itwasdangerous."
"Hella wrapped that arm. She's been wrapping wounds here for six years."
Her chin comes up. Eyes steady.
