Chapter 4 #2
I watched a muscle in her jaw flicker. “It was a nip. So save the dramatics. My hand is perfectly fine.”
“I guess we’ll find out.” I lit a lantern for an extra bit of light, then patted the exam table. “Hop on up.”
Vaela’s gaze dropped to the table, lip curling back like it had personally offended her. I patted it again, more firmly this time. With a roll of her eyes, she turned and sat down.
Something thunked when she did. Something metallic. I glanced down to see if I’d dropped a piece of equipment, but there was nothing there.
Nothing but Vaela’s boots, dangling against the table leg.
Hmm. I put the thought from my mind, reaching out. “Hand.”
Vaela hesitated, those gray eyes studying me. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle to life, like someone had run a finger over my bare skin. But she hadn’t even touched me.
Not yet.
“Hand,” I repeated, the word thick in my throat. I didn’t know why she unnerved me so much, but I certainly wasn’t going to let her know that she did. “Don’t make me ask again.”
“Or what?” she said, finally holding her hand out.
“Or I’ll squeeze extra hard when I replace the bandage.”
“That’s not very nice of you.”
“That’s what patients get for deliberately making my job difficult.” My eyes flicked up to meet hers briefly. “And I never said I was nice.”
She made a sound of discontent, but I ignored her, focusing on my exam once again.
Immediately, I could tell the bandage had been clumsily retied.
In fact, it was barely covering the wound at all.
My mind screamed the word infection. I could imagine it now: the red-hot itch.
The swelling. The fever. The white pus that would ooze from the bite before the necrotic tissue ate away at her.
“Why do you look like you just stepped in dragon dung?” Vaela said.
“Because you clearly didn’t listen to a word I said yesterday about wound care.” I uncorked the bottle I’d retrieved from the apothecary. “Are you trying to lose your whole hand? This looks like it was wrapped by a child.”
“I’ll let Dalton know he has no future as a healer,” Vaela snarked.
“I have no idea who Dalton is.”
“He maintains the nesting shed. And he’s only eighteen, so practically still a child.”
“I suppose I’ll let him off then.” I carefully unwrapped the bandage and set it aside to discard.
“But not me?”
“You’re old enough to know better,” I said.
“And how old do you think I am?”
She shifted her hand, flexing. I latched onto her wrist, holding it in place. “At least as old as me.”
“And how old is that?”
“A lady never tells.” The corner of her mouth curled upward. It was the tiniest smirk I’d ever seen in my life. “Twenty-four,” I told her. “How’d the bandage come off in the first place?”
“I ride a dragon for a living,” she grunted. “It’s not that complicated.”
I paused and hummed, hand on her wrist. I could feel her pulse flutter. “I suppose you’re right.”
She barked an unexpected laugh. It was deeper than I would have imagined. “Excuse me? Did you just say I was right?”
I plowed on before she could start gloating. “I only mean that I’ll have to allow for that. Usually, I send my patients home with orders to rest until they’re healed. But you can’t very well pick and choose when you need to wrangle dragons.”
“Finally, something reasonable out of that mouth.”
Was she looking at my mouth? I swallowed hard, shoving that thought aside. “As much as I’d like to tell you to take it easy until this has scabbed over, I doubt you’d listen anyway.”
She scoffed, the corner of her mouth twitching again. I held her arm closer to the lantern, my eyes flickering over the wound. It didn’t look any worse than it did yesterday. At the very least, the redness wasn’t spreading, and that was always the first sign. That and—
“How’s your pain?” I asked.
“Manageable,” she said. “I’ve had worse scrapes.”
I didn’t doubt that. I held up the bottle of antiseptic, giving her fair warning before I poured it over the wound. She didn’t flinch this time. “But no worse?” I said. “No burning?”
“Aside from when you pour that horrible stuff over it?” She shook her head. “More like a dull ache. Occasionally sharp if I move it wrong. But nothing that’s keeping me up at night.”
Which was impressive since a dragon had put its teeth through her hand only yesterday. “Let me know if that changes,” I said, picking up a fresh roll of bandages.
Her eyes widened. “You mean I have to come back? Again?”
I nodded, threading the bandage through her fingers. “Tomorrow.” Her expression dimmed. “What? You thought you were going to spontaneously heal overnight?”
“No,” she muttered.
“Well, seeing as I can’t trust you to keep the bandage intact, and I certainly don’t trust Dalton to do any better a job, you’ll have to come back.”
Vaela sighed heavily.
“On the bright side, tomorrow’s a new day.”
“And?” she said, sounding unimpressed.
“Maybe Gunther will come back to put you out of your misery.” He’d put us both out of our misery.
“Stars willing,” Vaela said. “Is that it? Am I free to go?”
“You’re free.”
She jumped down from the table, looking eager to flee from my presence. As she stepped forward, that same metallic thunk sounded.
I frowned, looking around again to see if there was an instrument on the floor. Vaela leaned down to adjust her well-worn trousers. She tugged at the material, revealing a flash of metal, a bolt, a sanded piece of wood.
I blinked in surprise as she finished her adjustment, the prosthetic limb disappearing from sight. She met my gaze.
“Sometimes it sticks,” she said, answering a question I hadn’t asked. Then, with a nod, she set off, heading outside to join her dragon.
I stared after her, feeling something strange root itself in my chest. This wasn’t the first time I’d seen a prosthetic limb.
Midair mishaps occurred frequently at the academy.
And if it wasn’t a burn that sent a rider to the infirmary, it was a break or a crush injury.
Sometimes those accidents were so severe that there was no saving the limb.
But I hadn’t realized that Vaela… Well, how would I have?
Accidents like that had ended the careers of many riders. I’d seen it time and time again. And yet Vaela moved with such steadiness, such assuredness. Like she’d been doing it all her life.
Through the window, I watched her scramble up the side of her dragon with ease, and they shot off into the sky. That feeling in my chest flickered with… something.
I shook it off. What did it matter?
Tomorrow, Gunther would return, and Vaela would no longer be my problem.
Thank the bloody stars.