Cursing, he tore a strip of fabric from his shirt and wrapped it around his arm to stop the bleeding before he passed out.
Asher looked up at him from the ground where he was applying pressure to a wound that one of Emrys’s men had taken. “I’m looking at that when we get back to the camp.”
Casrian nodded and looked down at the bloody fingerprints on his thigh. The witch had gouged right through the fabric of his breeches and pierced the skin.
Emrys came up. “I have one man dead. Three injured, one seriously.”
Casrian looked around him, noting Daris, Lew, the brothers. “All of mine are still standing. We should move back to the camp. Even with the witch gone, it will take a while to clean up this mess.”
“We’ll need to hunt down any of the remaining familiars,” Emrys said. “There was another patrol a day or two behind us. They needed to wait for supplies. I say we leave the job to them.”
Casrian nodded. He had no intention of lingering here any longer than was necessary. He needed to get back to Rowan, needed to see for himself that she was all right.
38
Rowan didn’t remember how she’d come to be in this room. She frowned up at the high stone ceiling. She had some vague recollection of seeing the design that was carved there by candlelight, but she didn’t know when. This morning, the sun was bright through the open window. A cool late autumn breeze circled the room, lifting the edge of the curtain. When she turned her head, she could see out the window to a tree. The sky was a bright, clear blue dotted by blindingly white clouds that for some reason reminded her of the sleeves of Casrian’s shirts. The blue, the blue of his eyes.
She’d hit her head. She remembered that. It was probably why she was being so ridiculous.
Was she dead?
Maybe she was dead.
There’d been the witch. That awful cell. Her aching head. She’d burned the witch. She remembered the smell of scorched flesh, her own. So much pain. She could still feel the burn of it. Wait. No. She flexed her hand and hissed at the sting. Shewashurt. Surely if she were dead, she wouldn’t still feel that.
She remembered running from the burning witch. The familiar lunging at her. And from there, everything was hazy. Images came to her. Casrian. Her mother. That bastard Emrys. She thought they’d drugged her. Or maybe she’d had a fever.
With a groan, she forced herself to lift her head and take a longer look around the room. It was enormous. She definitely wasn’t in Toam. Likely not Sulen either. The bed alone could easily have slept a family of five. The linens were heavy, weighing down her limbs, making it hard to move.
She ached everywhere.
Her stomach turned nauseatingly when she tried to prop herself up on her arm. Her bandaged hand brushed against the mattress and a jolt of pain lanced up her arm. She closed her eyes until it faded to a dull pulse. There wasn’t anyone in the room, but there was an empty chair drawn close to the bed. Beside it was a table full of healing supplies. A bowl and pitcher, fresh bandages.
Maybe she was in a hospital, though it was a very fine room for a hospital. The walls were pale stone. The floors were warm and golden, polished smooth with years of wax. There was a large woolen rug in golds and greens.
A rich person’s home. That was clear from her surroundings. Her memory didn’t provide her any more information.
She remembered the dreams. A well of darkness. A cajoling voice.
She shivered. No…No, she wouldn’t think about that. They weren’t real. Only dreams. She was alive. Whole. Here. Wherever the hell here was.
A door opened, and she turned her head. Asher. Curly brown hair and warm hazel eyes. All cleaned up and smiling when he saw that she was awake.
“Rowan!” He quickly crossed the room. “You’re up. I thought you’d sleep through the day again.”
He moved around her, pushing a pillow behind her shoulders and gently easing her back. He touched her forehead to check for fever and then bent to peer searchingly into her eyes.
“You’re all right,” she whispered, relief flooding through her. They’d both made it out then. “The witch?”
“Dead.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “Dead a week now.”
“A week?”
He winced and nodded toward her hand. “The burn was bad and there was the head wound. That wasn’t pretty either. If we hadn’t had to move you, we probably wouldn’t have drugged you. But we had to get you out of the woods, and there was no good way to do that. We waited until you woke up that night in the woods. Do you remember that?”
She lifted her hand to rub her face, but whacked herself with her bandaged hand. It throbbed and she lowered it to the bed. “I think so? I don’t remember seeing you. Someone…” Dark hair. “Wait…It was Emrys’s medic, wasn’t it? I remember him from when they captured me.”
Asher nodded. “I had to go help the captain. We were worried the witch was going to try to escape into the Black Woods.”
