Page 24 of Forge the Blade

“I’m tired, master,” Rei whispered.

“Let me check his pupils before he sleeps,” Lisa said.

Sevastyan held Rei while Lisa checked Rei’s eyes and touched his hands. “Still cold but signs of shock are leaving. Rest and warmth. Food and liquids in twenty or thirty minutes.”

Sevastyan nodded to Lisa and stood, lifting Rei with him. Rei dropped his head to Sevastyan’s shoulders.

As Sevastyan arranged them both under the covers in the bed, Rei opened his eyes. Ellisandre was still standing by the bed. They were a question, a towering, striking unknown. The person who had touched Sevastyan before him. The one who had not been there for ten years.

“Sleep,” Lisa said, stepping into Rei’s view, blocking Ellisandre out. “Ellisandre and I will be outside. Your master has you.”

Rei lifted his hand towards Lisa’s face. He hadn’t checked to see if Lisa was okay. He had looked so shaken. But now there was a hard edge in his friend’s eyes.

“I’m okay.” Lisa pressed his fingers to the back of Rei’s palm. “Master Sevastyan needs to rest. Help him rest.”

Rei’s eyes were already growing heavy. A different kind of stillness, this one cradled against the solid weight of Sevastyan’s chest and hips against his own was pulling him under. He pulled his hand towards his chest, gripping Sevastyan’s arm where it was wrapped around him.

Ellisandre

Ellisandre shadowed Lisa into the kitchen. The taller slave went through the cabinets, not speaking, finding a pan and filling it with drinking water from the fridge. He played with the knobs on the stove until the gas caught, and swirled the water in the pan above the flames before setting it down to heat.

Ellisandre folded their arms and leaned against the archway leading into the kitchen space. “Has Rei done that before?”

“Not that I’ve seen.” Lisa spoke without turning around.

“But you’ve seen it before.”

“Yes.”

“When you were a medic?”

“No.” Lisa started opening cabinets, not selecting anything but taking stock of resources. “After.”

“Will it happen again?”

Lisa closed the last cabinet and gripped the counter, back still to them. “Are you concerned for him, or concerned that he won’t be able to play his part? Because he could play his part right now. The Merchari aren’t the problem. You are. You’re the variable.”

Variable. Ellisandre let that viewpoint settle inside and turned it over. “Explain.”

Lisa turned around, keeping a grip on the counter behind him. “You don’t understand. Just talking to you . . .” He lifted one hand and held it out, flat. It was trembling. “Just talking to you is making me want to run.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not Merchari. Because you know what I am.” Lisa’s jaw flexed. The muscles in his forearms stood out in clear lines, moving in and out of sharp definition as he rocked against the cabinet, holding himself in place with his fingers wrapped around the edge of the counter. “I can travel. I got strong enough to travel, to pass. If I slip through, doing the bare minimum to interact, they won’t see what I am.”

“Who won’t see?”

“Everyone who is not Merchari. Civilians. Normal people.” Lisa waved vaguely to the world beyond the flat. “The world that pretends to be sane.”

He looked away, breathing fast. “And then there’s you. Not Merchari. Not civilian. Dangerous. Without rules. Changing everything.”

“Why does it matter that I know?” Ellisandre said.

Lisa turned towards them. His eyes were red rimmed and brimming with tears that they knew wouldn’t fall. “You think we’re not ashamed? We remember. We remember everything, even when we forget. You’ve killed criminals. You’ve destroyed blight. But we . . .” Lisa lifted one of his hands, fingers curling inward like claws, “We destroyed ourselves. We know what we should be. And we know what we’ve become. You can’t tell me I’m still a man. I’m something else. Something I would have avoided, dropped my eyes not to see, found words not to name. But it didn’t matter. And now you make it matter.”

Ellisandre opened their lips to say something. Anything. To deny that it mattered. And then closed them. Because it did matter.

“Rei is ashamed to belong to Sevastyan?”