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I blinked. “Are you capable of that?”
He turned, dark, serious eyes penetrating me. “I’m a warrior.”
“And?”
“Do you think we have many healers, if any at all, standing by when our army fights orc tribes? When we defend villages from giants? Or when we—”
“I get it,” I interrupted. “You can pull glass out of my hand.”
“Of course I bleeding well can.” He turned back around and removed several instruments from the drawer and sprayed a clean cloth with a solution that smelled of vinegar. When he faced me once more, the prince nodded. “Your hands.”
I offered them, and he wiped the damp rag across my palms. I sucked in a breath as the glass shifted but said nothing. He was trying to be gentle, and I would not complain.
Once he cleaned as much of the blood off as possible, Prince Vale began to extract the glass shards. I hadn’t been aware of just how many had cut into me, but it seemed like I’d absorbed all the glass from both goblets that had shattered. The prince’s calloused fingers had to have pulled at least a dozen from each palm and placed each in a shallow metal bowl. With each extraction, I bled anew, and he needed to wipe up the blood to continue.
Finally, neither of us saw any more glass in my hands. He stood and grabbed a new towel as a young healer rushed over.
“Prince Vale?” the short, hairy brownie asked. “What are you doing?”
The prince squared his shoulders. “The Master Healer on duty wouldn’t help Lady Neve, so I did.”
The brownie paled. “I’m sure she didn’t mean—”
“It doesn’t matter what she meant. I took care of it.” He waved his hand to dismiss the healer. “Carry on with what you were doing. When you can spare someone, show them here. Actually, if there is only one Master Healer here at present, go get more. My family pays four of them, do they not? And it seems as though you could use the help.” He looked at me and sighed. “And Lady Neve has a twisted ankle, and that needs to be set properly by a master, not with a soldier’s splint.”
“Very well, my prince.” The brownie bowed before running off.
I let out a soft exhale. “He’s going to be worried for the rest of the day about the state of his job.”
“They’re doing their jobs, though, it’s truly not good enough. I’ll be speaking to Father about it later. Time to move on to your legs.” He paused, as if only realizing what this meant, and cleared his throat. “Could you . . . lift your skirt?”
If I had not seen his cheeks turn red, I wouldn’t have believed that Prince Vale ever blushed. I stared at him until he cleared his throat again, more loudly the second time.
“Oh, yes. Sorry.” I blinked myself back to reality and pulled my skirt up to bare my shins, not at all shy about it. After all, I’d grown up bathing in common bathhouses, often where male guards checked on us. I did not flaunt my body around males, but I wasn’t unaccustomed to others seeing it. Plus, I merely showed my shins. Of all my body parts, they did not rate as one of the most alluring.
“Very good.” He didn’t meet my eyes as he got to work, pulling out shards. Ping after ping of glass into the bowl, told me at least a dozen more shards had launched themselves into my shins.
“What happened to your wings?” Prince Vale asked.
The question took me by surprise. “Nothing. No arrow hit them.”
“Not today, but in the past. They’re scarred, just like your hands and arms.”
At that, my fingers curled into soft fists that I brought to my sides.
He noticed the movements, his eyes flicking up and back away. “I apologize if it’s a sensitive subject. But I’m a soldier and notice such things. Something happened.” He kept working as he spoke, making conversation. A weird topic, though perhaps not for a warrior. I supposed they compared scars often.
“As a youngling, I fell into a patch of brambles.”
“Hmm, the markings don’t really look like that. And the ones on your wings look newer.”
“I misspoke. The brambles only hurt my hands and arms. My wings were . . . attacked by orcs.” My voice lowered as I did my best to sound pitiable.
It seemed to work. He stopped extracting glass and his dark brown eyes met mine. “I’m sorry. Your village was attacked?”
“My father and I were attacked while traveling,” I corrected, sticking to the tale Roar and I had spun across the Western territory of Winter’s Realm. “He died saving me.”
“I’m so sorry, my lady.”
