Page 44 of Tending the Ache

"Indrie."

The sound of his name in Eskil's voice does something to him every single time. He swallows around it and steps into the room.

"Are you busy?" Indrie asks. His Rengaran is smoother now than it was even a week ago, the sounds rounder in his mouth, the grammar less halting. Morgan's tutoring and his own relentless studying are bearing fruit, even if complex ideas still tangle on his tongue.

Eskil sets the quill down and leans back in his chair. "Nothing that won't keep. Come in."

Indrie comes in. He does not sit. He stands on the other side of the desk with his hands at his sides and his spine straight and tries to order his thoughts in a language that is not his own.

"I heard about the prisoner," he says.

Eskil's expression guards. Not dramatically. To someone who did not know him the change would be imperceptible. But Indrie has spent a month learning the topography of this man's face, and he sees the jaw tighten a fraction, sees the gaze steady into something more deliberate. The openness that was there a moment ago retreats behind stone.

"What have you heard?" Eskil asks, carefully.

"That he is Jakadi. That he was embedded in the city. That he was documenting our defenses." Indrie pauses. The word our came out without him planning it, and he notices, distantly, that it felt natural. "That you have been interrogating him."

Eskil watches him. He is waiting for the question.

Indrie gives it to him.

"I want to see him. I want to tend to him."

The silence that follows is not comfortable. It has weight and edges. Eskil does not move. His fingers are still resting on the desk beside the quill, and Indrie watches one of them tap, once, twice, against the wood.

"No," Eskil says.

The word is flat. Not angry, not yet. But final, in the way that kings' words are final. Indrie has heard this tone before. Standing in Armond's room, while Eskil addressed Erlan like he'd overstepped. There's a line being drawn.

Indrie crosses it.

"He needs medical attention. Whatever his crimes, he is still a man, and he is injured, and I—"

"The man is dangerous," Eskil cuts in. He has not raised his voice, but there is an edge to it now, a blade sliding from its sheath. "He was embedded in our city for weeks, evaluating our defenses for an attack on civilians. He had documents on the clinic's location." His eyes hold Indrie's. "On your location. In his possession."

Indrie absorbs this. The knowledge settles into him with a cold weight, the understanding that the spy had not merely been watching the city but watching him. That somewhere in those documents there was a note about the healer's clinic, about where Indrie worked and when, about how to find him. It makes his skin prickle with something that is not quite fear but lives close to it.

It does not change what he knows to be true.

"He is in a cell," Indrie says. "Chained. He is no threat to anyone right now. And he needs—"

"He is exactly where he should be."

"He needs care, Eskil." Indrie's voice firms. The conviction rises in him from a place deeper than opinion, deeper than argument, from the bedrock of everything he has been taught and everything he believes. "I took a vow. I swore to tend anyone in need, regardless of who they are or what they have done. I cannot stand by and let someone suffer."

Eskil's jaw works. The muscle in his temple tightens and releases. He is quiet for a long moment, and Indrie can see him choosing his words, can see the effort it takes to keep the edge filed down.

"I understand your vow," Eskil says. "And I respect it. But I will not send you into a cell with a man who would kill you the moment he had the opportunity."

"Then chain him more securely. Post a guard inside the door. I am not asking to be alone with him. I am asking to do my work."

"Your work does not include tending enemy combatants in underground cells."

"My work includes tending anyone who is injured and in pain." Indrie's voice is steady, but something is building in him. A pressure. A rising tide. He has spent his entire life bending. Bending to Armond, to the advisors, to every person who told him to be smaller and quieter and less. He is learning, has been learning since the day he stepped off that ship, that he does not have to bend anymore. But the learning is hard and the straightening is harder and sometimes, like now, standing tall feels like standing in a gale.

He speaks before he can stop himself.

"I was on that ship," he says.