Chapter Four #2
Seraphina’s fingers brushed over the front of the bandage and discovered rows of bone shards.
“I pinned an Anodyne Band for the pain. I could give you a few drops of laudanum–”
“No, no more.”
“Willow bark tea, then. But I’d rather you ate something first. Here, I cut some cheese and speck for you, and I’m not sure you’ll like what I did with the hardtack, but it’s what I saw other soldiers do, though I never tasted it myself.”
It was difficult to pay attention to him, but she tried her best. He placed something warm on her lap, and when she ran her hands over its sides, she realized it was an iron pan.
“Where did you–”
“There was a cooking kit in a burlap sack under the driver’s plank. I made an inventory of everything in the cart, and we’re well stocked on food, beer, cooking utensils and blankets. Lucky that soldier you asked stole a cart full of provisions.”
He laughed, and Seraphina smiled and nodded. She was confused, her head hurt, and there was a pressure behind her eyes that wouldn’t let up. Her stomach rumbled. After all the alcohol she’d ingested, she was so hungry that she was about to faint.
Idris took her right hand and guided it inside the pan, where she grasped a piece of cheese between her fingers.
“Don’t worry, I cleaned your hands,” he said. “They were covered in soot and dried blood.”
“Thank you.” She lifted the cheese to her lips.
“So, the hardtack. I soaked it in beer and roasted it on the fire. It should be edible, and I’m happy to announce there were no weevils. I inspected it carefully.”
Seraphina couldn’t help but laugh. Leave it to Idris Gharbi to be obsessed with the smallest details.
“Aren’t you eating?”
“I am, in fact.”
He sat next to her, and she scooted over to make space for him. He had his own pan of food that he’d prepared separately. She dug into the cheese, speck, and roasted bread that tasted like malt and smoke.
“What do you have there?” she asked.
“Almost the same as you. I found some dried peas and cooked them in the kettle. Cheese, and hardtack soaked in hot water.”
She felt bad that she was eating better than him. But Idris wouldn’t touch pork even if he starved.
They ate in silence for a while. It was like the old days, and even though the food wasn’t as fancy as the lunches they’d shared at the academy, the hunger, the cold, and the misery of the place made it delicious.
“When can we get back on the road?” Seraphina asked.
“You need to heal first.”
“I can heal just as well in the back of the cart.”
“You don’t have an implanted relic anymore, so your system will have to do the job on its own,” he said. “The lattices will help, and I’ll give you medicine as well, but rest is the most important.”
“Sleep…”
“Yes.”
Seraphina shook her head and pushed the pan away.
Idris sighed and jumped off the workbench, taking the pan with him, then returning with a wet cloth to wipe her greasy fingers.
She snatched the cloth from him and did it herself.
She wasn’t a child. Immediately after having the thought, she felt guilty.
She knew Idris was treating her like he would any of his patients.
“We don’t have time to waste,” she said. “We need to reach the convent.”
“Seraphina, it’s hailing outside! It’s been hailing all night!”
“You… operated on me all night? It’s morning?”
She heard him sigh. “The surgery took four hours, then I let you sleep for a while, hoping you’d wake on your own. When you didn’t and it was getting dangerous, I used the smelling salts.”
“Idris, how long until I heal?”
“Hard to say. Your eyelids need to stay sewn shut for a few days to prevent dryness and movement of the eyes while the tissue heals. I will change the dressing regularly and clean the wounds to make sure they don’t get infected.
I’m thinking after seven days, it might be safe to remove the sutures if absolutely nothing goes wrong. ”
“No.” She leaned forward, wrapped her arms around her knees and started rocking back and forth. “No, that’s too long.”
“If you ask me, it’s not long enough.”
“Then you need to reimplant the atlas vertebra. It’s a greater relic, it will heal me within hours.”
Idris was quiet for a minute, watching her trying to deal with the onslaught of emotions. She could feel his eyes on her, wondering, judging.
“About that,” he said. “What does it do?”
“It makes one see in the dark. Without it, I wouldn’t have managed. Do you know how terrible it is to not see? To have no eyes?”
She felt his big, warm hand on her shoulder.
“And its toll?” he asked gently.
Seraphina pressed her forehead against the tops of her knees. Bad move. The pain behind her newly reattached eyes intensified.
“No toll,” she said, voice muffled.
“All greater and apex relics have tolls,” he said.
“Not the ones that have positive, healing properties.”
“Seraphina, we studied together. Hours upon hours spent in the library. Even the good ones have tolls. They might just be more subtle.”
“No, not this one. Not Saint Vivia’s atlas vertebra.”
He sighed. “If you say so.”
She heard him walk away, then the clatter of tin pots as she guessed he set about making the willow bark tea he’d promised.
“Not this one,” she repeated in a lower voice, only to herself.
The other one, though…
The vomer bone she’d desecrated a grave to find. The thrall relic she’d been using for the past two days.
The dreams were the toll.