Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
My first thought is that someone knows about the scepter.
My second is they're looking for anything to condemn Jordi as a renegade.
Either way, I'm rattled. More rattled than I already was, which shouldn't be possible.
I force myself to breathe, to push everything aside as I wash my hands and gather my supplies.
"Take off your tunic."
He raises an eyebrow, then flinches as he shifts toward me.
"Take off your tunic," I repeat. “And keep your infuriating comments to yourself."
Something dark flickers in his eyes. It hits me somewhere deep, somewhere I refuse to acknowledge right now. I force myself to look away. He starts to pull the tunic over his head, and I lunge forward when I see the fabric catch on the wound.
"Stop!"
He freezes, arms half-raised. "What now?"
"I need to cut it away from the wound. Just …" I scan the apartment until my eyes land on my brother's open doorway. "Let's do this on the bed."
He huffs a laugh. "Menace, if you wanted to get me into bed, you could have just—"
"Finish that sentence and I'll use the scissors on something other than fabric."
He laughs, the sound cut short by a hiss of pain. "Such excellent bedside manner."
"Be quiet and move."
I brush past him and pause in the doorway to Jordi's room.
The bed is made. Everything in place. Neater than my brother ever kept it. And it doesn't smell like him anymore—his particular blend of ink and the herbs he kept dried in his pockets. Now it smells like Malachi. Cedar and rain. I didn't expect that small detail to hurt as much as it does.
I swallow hard and focus on what needs to be done. I spread a towel across the mattress. Malachi lowers himself onto it without comment, watching as I cut the ruined fabric away from his wound. When I'm finished, he sits up just enough to toss the remnants aside.
When I look up, he's watching me, gauging my reaction to his scarred torso. The marks crisscross his chest and arms, pale lines against golden skin, too many to count. I keep my expression neutral.
We all carry scars. Mine don't speak of war, but they have their own stories. Some of which I don't even remember.
The dagger rests beside him on the mattress, its blade gleaming white in the lamplight.
"What is that made of?" I ask as I clean the wound.
He lifts it, turns it in his hand. "I'm not certain. Ivory, perhaps. Or bone." His jaw tightens. "Whatever it is, it incapacitated me instantly."
My hands still. "He called it a Rook killer."
"He did."
I raise an eyebrow and hold his gaze as I dab alcohol into the wound.
He hisses through his teeth. "Remind me to hire you if I ever need someone interrogated."
"You're a warrior."
"You already knew that."
"I did." I lighten my touch on the wound. "Are you a Rook?"
"Yes."
The word settles into me with unexpected weight. "But Rooks are bound to raffins. Or they were."
His eyes crinkle at the corners. "We are."
I turn that over in my mind as I begin stitching the wound.
Freida used to tell us stories about the Rooks, Lugal's chosen warriors, bound to their raffins through blood and magic.
"They're barely leashed until the furia takes hold," she'd said once, her voice dropping low.
"And then they're ruthless. Unstoppable. "
I glance at Malachi's face. Calm. Patient. Waiting. I try to reconcile that image with the man bleeding beneath my hands.
"I thought you said you had wings."
"I did."
"Then why would you need a raffin?"
"Raffins fly higher than any winged being can reach. And they carry their own gifts." He's quiet for a moment. "More importantly, the raffin chooses its rider. Mine chose me. I accepted."
I nod slowly, turning those two words over. Chose. Accepted. A bond built on mutual consent, not force or transaction. Unlike everything else in this godsforsaken city.
"I'm done," I murmur, tying off the final stitch.
He sets the dagger aside and sits up slowly. The movement brings his face close to mine, close enough that I can see the flecks of amber and gold in his eyes.
"I need one more favor."
My pulse kicks. "What?"
"My back." His voice drops. "It doesn't usually bother me. But since I arrived here, it's been ..."
He doesn't finish.
I bite back a smile. "And you're too stubborn to ask for help, even after I offered."
His eyes darken. Something low in my stomach tightens in response. We're so close that if I leaned forward even slightly, my lips would meet his. I don't lean forward. I force myself to stand instead, creating distance neither of us asked for.
"Let me see."
He shifts on the bed, turning his back to me. I have to press my hand to my mouth to keep from making a sound. I don't know what I was expecting, but this wasn't it. Never this.
I've assisted Lenora twice when she's had to amputate alatus wings. Both times left a mark on me that took months to fade. But those were clean procedures, done with care and precision. This is something else entirely.
The scars stretch across his shoulder blades in ragged arcs, as if someone took a blade to his back and carved out the wings in pieces. The skin is puckered and angry, healed wrong. Stitched carelessly.
"That bad?" His voice is light, but I hear the strain beneath it.
"Mal." My voice comes out rough. "What happened to you?"
I reach out, and the moment my finger touches the unmarred skin beside the scars, he hisses and arches away from me.
"I haven't even touched them yet."
His laugh is bitter, hollow. "I know."
"How can this possibly hurt more than the stab wound?" I reach for the balm, trying to keep my voice steady. "How long ago did this happen?"
"A few Reckonings."
"Is it always this bad?"
A pause. "I don't think so."
"I can give you something for the pain. The same compound I used for the stitches—"
"No."
The sharpness in his voice makes me stop. "Mal—"
"No." He doesn't look at me. "Numbing these scars will only make the pain worse later. It's part of the bargain."
I stare at the ruined landscape of his back. "What bargain demands that?" The implication hits me slowly. Then all at once. My eyes widen. "You bargained away your wings."
"Yes."
I try to wrap my mind around it. A god who would accept wings as payment. Who would strip someone of flight and then forbid them from numbing the memory of what they lost.
"And you call her fair."
"I said she was fair." His voice is quiet. "I never said she wasn't cruel."
I don't have an answer for that. I begin applying the balm instead, working it carefully into the edges of the scars. The muscles beneath my fingers twitch, but he holds himself still.
"Wings are supposed to be a divine gift. Given to bloodlines the gods deemed worthy." I keep my touch as gentle as I can manage. "A goddess can't just take back a gift."
"She didn't take them. I offered them."
"So you made a bargain. Lost your wings. Lost even the mercy of numbing the pain." I shake my head. "And you still ended up trapped in Noktemore."
"That was a different bargain." His voice carries an edge of frustration. "And the cost of a debt is always steeper than the gain."
The words settle into me with an uncomfortable weight. I think of my own bargain. What I asked for. What I might still owe. A goddess saved my brother's life. In exchange, I'm supposed to help save an entire kingdom. The scales don't balance. They never have.
"Was it worth it?" I ask softly. "Whatever you bargained your wings for?"
He's quiet for a long moment. "I hope so."
"Will lifting the curse bring them back?"
"Lifting the curse won't bring back any of the lives lost." His voice is flat. Final. "I doubt it will restore what I gave up."
The words carve something hollow in my chest. In Lunaris, we speak of the curse in abstractions. The Shroud. The outsiders who flee here seeking safety. The rotting soil in distant Tenebris.
We never discuss what it means to live under that curse. What it costs the people who couldn't escape. The Council and Sages frame it as charity: they take in refugees from a broken kingdom. But we never hear from those kingdoms directly. We only know what we're told.
"Why are you still an apprentice?" The question cuts through my thoughts.
I huff a surprised laugh. "Have you been asking about me?"
"Yes." He glances over his shoulder, eyes gleaming. "Imagine my surprise when everyone described you as level-headed. Patient. A few students mentioned you were a harsh grader, easily annoyed, but otherwise—"
"The students are obnoxious."
"They also said you were the most attractive professor in Lunaris."
I snort, adding more balm to his shoulder. "At least I have that going for me."
"No one could tell me why you're still an apprentice."
"That's because no one knows."
"No one?" His gaze sharpens. "Not even your friends? Your brother?"
"No one."
"Why?"
I'm quiet for a moment, choosing my words carefully. "In Lunaris, information is currency. And sharing certain things carries consequences I'd rather not invite."
He's quiet for a moment. "Will you tell me?"
I pull my hands away and meet his eyes. "If I tell you, you have to agree to wait until I'm finished before you unleash your wrathful judgment."
He raises an eyebrow. "Wrathful judgment sounds a bit harsh."
"Have you forgotten how you react every time the memory trade comes up?"
His eyes narrow. "I'll listen."
I give a nod and focus on the balm. "Do you have alatuses in northern Tenebris?"
"No. The surrounding kingdoms have similar creatures, but they call them pegasi."
"Pegasi are different." I shake my head. "Alatuses stand twenty-four to twenty-eight hands. Much larger. And they have venomous canines capable of killing a man in minutes."
"I guess you'll have to add animals to the list of things you have to teach me about," he says with a hint of amusement in his tone.