Taro was nowhere to be found.
Bastion continued to answer questions while Ulla stopped the bleeding at his side.His eyes kept drifting back to her and the blood staining her front.A deepening frown spread across Lyanthis’s face, but he listened without interruption.Bastion’s responses came slower and slower, until finally, Lawrence intervened.
“That’s enough for now,” he said, shooing the council members away.“Bastion is wounded.There will be time for more questions later.”
He slung Bastion’s arm over his shoulders.Bastion pinched his eyes shut with a grimace, and Lawrence hauled him to his feet.His nerves sang, lighting up his exhausted muscles and darkening bruises.It took all his effort to stay upright, as fatigued as a thirsty plant on a hot day.
“Can you finish up here?”Lawrence asked Kyrith.The commander nodded.“I’ll see Bastion to his room.”
Bastion looked at Ulla.He couldn’t decipher her expression, and regret made him reluctant to leave.He was desperate to tell her everything he couldn’t say, but she turned away.The bond was silent, like an abandoned room in his heart.
A flash of triumph on Lyanthis’s face was the last thing Bastion saw before Lawrence shepherded him away.
Somehow, they made it back up to the university and across the Rainbow.
Bastion replayed the heartbreak, the battle, every stupid moment again and again.He couldn’t stop the raw feelings slicing through him.
Minato met them at the bottom of the grand staircase.He gave Lawrence an astonished look, but took Bastion’s other arm and slung it over his head.By the time they reached his room, sweat had soaked his whole body.
“Leave me,” he croaked as they lowered him onto his bed.
The pair glanced at each other.Without a word, Lawrence turned and left.Minato remained, watching Bastion with a measure of disdain.
“I said leave,” Bastion said.
“No.”
He scowled at the Yvri.
“I’m not in the mood to be chastised.”
“Your wound needs to be tended.You need food.And fresh clothes,” Minato said.“Where are your things?”
Bastions waved vaguely at a chair by the fireplace, then dropped his face into his palm.
The sound of rummaging came to him, and a moment later, a clean shirt landed beside him.Water poured from a pitcher, an everyday sound that helped remind him he was alive.
“Takethisoff,” Minato ordered, waving a finger at his torn and bloody top.He had a swollen sponge in his other hand, and a basin of water now occupied the side table.Bastion glared at him, but obeyed.
The laces of his doublet came undone slowly, like roots clinging to the earth.He struggled, grimacing as he peeled it off.Something fell to the floor with a wetsmack!
His Account.
Bastion stared at it like it might explode.
He would have thrown the damn thing across the room if he could reach it.Instead, he turned away and began to wrestle with his shirt, too.
The garment clung to him, damp and gritty and stinking.Bastion clenched his teeth.His side throbbed, and the smell made his stomach buck, taking him right back to the hot springs.
When he finally shed it, he threw it on the ground and flopped onto his back.
Minato sighed.“Nammu help me.”
The Yvri didn’t say anything else.He simply moved Bastion’s arm and began to minister to him.
The cold sponge wiped away the evidence of the fight.Goosebumps prickled every inch of exposed skin, pinpointing every stinging scrape and bruise.Ulla might have closed up the wound in his side, but it stillhurt.
All of that paled in comparison to the look in her eyes that haunted Bastion.The hope he’d extinguished with only a few words.He’d vowed to protect her, so why did it feel like he’d cut out her heart just to see what it looked like?
