Page 99 of Tending the Ache

They have reached the end of the quiet street, where the western wall rises above the rooftops and the wildflowers grow thick in the cracks between the stones. Morgan stops walking and turns to face Indrie, and the lightness of the tree story has faded from his face. What is left is direct and serious.

"I need to ask something of you," he says.

"Anything."

"Look after Eskil while I'm gone."

Indrie opens his mouth to say of course, but Morgan is not finished.

"He is terrible at taking care of himself. You already know this." Morgan's mouth twitches. "He will not rest when he should rest. He will not eat when he should eat. He will stand in his study for eight hours reading reports and forget that his body requires maintenance, and if anyone suggests he sit down he will take it as a personal insult." He pauses. "You may be the only person stubborn enough to make him actually listen."

"I am not stubborn," Indrie says.

Morgan gives him a look. The look is so thoroughly and completely disbelieving that Indrie cannot keep a straight face.

"All right," Indrie concedes. "Perhaps a little."

"You threatened to strap a soldier bodily to your examination table."

"He was going to tear his stitches."

"You told Bohdi to leave the king's bedroom."

"Bohdi was getting in the way."

"You walked into the king's study and argued with him about a prisoner."

"That was—" Indrie falters, the memory surfacing with its sharp edges. The way he had stood in Eskil's study with his healer's conviction blazing and his hands steady at his sides. The way the conviction had crumbled at a single command. The way he had said yes, your majesty in a voice that did not sound like his own.

"That was different," he finishes, quietly.

Morgan watches him. Then nods. "I know it was. And I know what it cost you." A pause. "But you did it. You stood in front of a man twice your size who has killed without flinching, and you challenged him. Because you believed you were right."

"I was right."

"You usually are." Morgan smiles. "That's why I'm asking you to look after him. Because you're one of the only people in this kingdom who will tell him the truth whether he wants to hear it or not."

Indrie's throat tightens. He nods. "I promise."

Morgan embraces him before he can prepare for it.

Morgan's arms are surprisingly strong for someone built from books and ink, and Indrie can feel the fine tremor running through him, the thing Morgan has not let anyone see, the fear he has been folding smaller and smaller and tucking behind his composure.

Indrie holds him back. He wraps both arms around the prince's larger frame and holds on and says, into the wool of Morgan's coat, "Be safe."

Morgan pulls back. He smiles.

It doesn't quite reach his eyes.

***

That evening, Indrie goes to Eskil's chambers.

The room is warm. The flames throw moving shadows across the stone walls and catch the gold in the tapestries and make the room feel close and sheltered, like the inside of a lantern.

Eskil is on the couch with documents spread across the low table, because he has no concept of rest despite the healing wound stitched into his side. He is leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his brow furrowed and his hair is loose, unbraided, falling around his face in waves of pale gold, and he looks up when Indrie enters and something in his expression eases. It is subtle. The furrow smooths by a degree. The set of his shoulders drops by an inch. His mouth, which had been pressed into a hard line, softens at its corners. If Indrie were not looking for it, he would miss it.

He is always looking for it.