Page 17 of The Healer and the Warlord

Perhaps it was something else.

Kelvar spotted me, and with another click of his tongue, he brought Dileas to a halt. I picked my way out from the shade of the date palm closer to them.

“She’s doing well,” I remarked.

“Better than I ever could have hoped,” he agreed. His dark eyes shone in the light of the bright sun. “And… how are you doing?”

I cocked my head before answering honestly, “Well. I would have expected to feel worse after such a healing.”

“You’ve slept for the better part of two days, and you expected worse?”

“My gift is a double-edged sword,” I answered with a shrug of my shoulders. “It seems to have a mind of its own.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.” Kelvar looked away and scrubbed the back of his neck. The gesture was at odds with the confident, even cocky attitude I had come to expect from him.

“The desert gives and it takes.” The words spilled from my lips before I had a chance to think—a refrain so common among the clans that it could serve almost any purpose, from a greeting to a threat. This time though, the meaning hung true. The desert’s power was a weighty gift, and both of us had experienced its costs in the past days.

Dileas did not have patience for our reflection, interrupting by nudging her head into my chest with such force I stumbled back a step.

“You’re certainly energetic,” I commented, reaching up to pat her silky forelock.

“I still want her to rest, but she doesn’t seem particularly inclined to stay off her feet,” Kelvar huffed.

I turned and walked back toward the oasis, clucking at Dileas over my shoulder. “Come, let’s get you some water.” Perhaps a nice patch of shade would induce her to relax.

Back near the remnants of our fire from the night before, Kelvar sat on a flat rock at the edge of the clear pool, while Dileas drank her fill. As he did, he reached up to untie a length of cloth around his arm. He hissed as it pulled away from his skin.

I blinked in shock as three deep scratches came into view, cutting across the muscular bulge of his shoulder. I hadn’t noticed his injury in all the chaos since the caracals attacked, but my heart leaped into my throat. He had jumped between me and the predators without hesitation.

Edging toward him, I reached out. “Let me help.”

Kelvar pulled back, out of my reach, and shook his head. “You don’t need to.”

“But I—” I chewed my cheek. “I want to.”

Kelvar’s expression softened fractionally from the grimace of pain etched on it. “These scratches do far less harm than worrying about you lying unconscious for another two days.”

Warmth bloomed in my chest and trailed down to my stomach.

“There are ways to help that don’t involve magic, you know,” I started, still reaching out toward his injuries. “I don’t think making sure your cuts are properly cleaned and bandaged will knock me out.”

Kelvar hesitated for just a moment then nodded.

I quickly stood, heading to the packs and rifling around for spare cloth I could use. The first thing I found was the thin shift I had been wearing when Kelvar first took me. I mentally shrugged before carrying it over to the oasis and kneeling beside him.

He didn’t move, watching quietly as I tore the fabric into strips and soaked a few in the clear water of the oasis. It was cool on my hands, and rivulets dripped down my wrists as I raised the rags toward Kelvar’s injured arm. He had done a serviceable job cleaning them, but it must have been difficult to see what he was doing on his own shoulder.

Gently, I dabbed at the area with the cool cloth. Kelvar sucked in a breath through his teeth.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “Does that hurt?”

He just shook his head. His gaze remained determinedly focused on my hands as I worked.

I leaned closer to get a better view. My knees pressed against his thigh, and the warmth rolling off his skin seeped through my light linen pants. Despite the constant heat shimmering in the air, it wasn’t unpleasant.

As the first rag was stained pink from removing the blood crusted on his skin, I reached for a second one. Now, I began cleaning the wounds themselves. While the skin was torn by the rake of the caracal’s lethal claws, they didn’t seem deep enough to have reached the muscles.

If they had, I might have tried to use just a touch of magic to aid their healing without Kelvar noticing—a task that might have been made difficult by the power dancing and sparking off his skin, leaking into the air around him as if his body wasn’t quite large enough to contain it all. The moment I started pulling on threads of power, he would surely sense it.