22 Clare
22 Clare
They rode for an hour deeper into the woods, following no path except Vandra. Rocks and caves marked the way descending into
the forested darkness, the cover of the dense foliage choking out the light.
The decline followed the group’s spirits. Though they’d escaped their enemies, Clare felt no rush of victory. He found himself
in his head, replaying the past hours. The return of Myke Lycroft did not upset him the most. Not the reemergence of probably
the vilest man in the realm, intent on recovering the Sword of Souls. Not even the inevitable peril of Mythria, and so on
and so forth.
No, what upset him was Beatrice. Beatrice , who’d done exactly what he wished he could not have predicted.
He welcomed the release from his rumination when Vandra slowed her horse, her eyes scouting the forest in evaluation, searching
sharply for hidden risks. Evidently deciding they were far enough from the possibility of the Order’s pursuit, she stopped
the questing party.
“I’ll water the horses,” she declared, dismounting Killer in front of the mouth of the dark cave where she’d paused them.
“I’ll help,” Beatrice volunteered with unusual haste.
Vandra shot her a look. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You’re injured.”
Clare’s head whipped to Beatrice. Fear clenched suffocating claws into his chest. Injured? Wasn’t what she’d pulled in the cavern overwhelming enough? Would the Ghosts never give him peace?
“What? When?” he demanded. He could not, he found, pin down which question he needed spoken first. They rushed out of him
in clumsy chaos. “How—why—why didn’t you say anything?”
“It’s nothing. I’m fine,” she replied. He recognized the shortness of someone wishing to forestall a conversation.
Yet when she leaned to dismount her horse, she stopped short, wincing. He saw her knuckles whiten on the reins.
He was off his horse instantly, rushing over the rocks, reaching her the fastest he possibly could. While fear’s clutches
hadn’t released him, what joined them was even more powerful. Anger , lancing into his soul, hissing into him like fresh-forged steel. She’s injured. They hurt her . His vision red, he scoured her for signs of harm.
He could find nothing before Beatrice waved him away, irritated.
“Get off your horse,” he ordered, knowing she would only continue obstructing him.
She held her chin high.
“I’m fine here,” she informed him. “I’ll sleep on the horse. It’ll be more comfortable than the bedroll.”
He was livid.
Fear did not merely grasp him now. Like the darkest magics, it possessed him. “You need tending,” he ground out.
She held his gaze, furious, until finally his suggestion prevailed. She started to dismount—then promptly winced, wobbled, and looked woozy and weak from the exertion. She lost her balance, sliding from the horse right into Clare’s arms. He wrapped his grip under her legs with gentle desperation, holding her aloft.
“ Ghosts, I’m fine ,” she insisted, yet her voice held no confidence.
He ignored her, not wanting to risk depositing her on her feet only for her knees to give out under her. He glanced to Vandra
instead. “Healing supplies?” he demanded. The rest of his vocabulary was gone.
Vandra wordlessly tossed a small pouch from her belt, which landed in Beatrice’s lap. Vandra’s efficiency left him grateful—in
one who’d quite recently made her money killing people, her instinct for compassion startled him.
The projectile’s presence only sharpened Beatrice’s glare.
“I’ll just help Vandra with the horses, then,” Elowen interjected. The women skittered off, obviously wishing distance from
the sparring soon to occur.
Clare could not fault them. If Elowen , whose dourness was incomparable, feared the oncoming clash of Clare’s anger and his patient’s stubbornness, the fighting
was certain to prove fearsome.
Which it would. Good Ghosts, Clare was going to nurse her so furiously. He was going to unleash the full strength of his fury
on helping ease her pain. In the healing caress of his experienced fingers, she would know his wrath. Yes, he was going to
nurse the living shit out of her.
“How dare you—” she seethed.
He marched into the cave, carrying her as one would a mellifluously yowling lyricat left out in the rain.
The cave welcomed them ominously. No crystals grew here. The obsidian walls consumed light, leaving only the shimmering indication of the moisture dripping down the dank walls. It was no place for escapades or escapes, no place for heroism. It was the manner of underworld fit for fugitives, for last resorts and lost hope. The sort of place where wounded creatures would go for quiet to—
No. He would venture into despair no further.
He lowered Beatrice. Gently, he set her down on the rough ground.
“Don’t. Move,” he uttered. “Except to put pressure on your wound.”
She eyed him, glaring. He met her gaze unafraid. Or, unafraid of her . Indeed, her resistant resentfulness was nothing next to the cavalcade of horrors conquering his heart. Injured. Injured. Injured . What the fuck did injured mean? He was riven in half, needing to know and horrified of what he might find. What if he exposed her wound only to find
her vitally punctured, impossibly pale? What if minutes or moments from now her gorgeous eyes went unfocused, her precious
chin drooping to her chest?
What would happen to him?
He was grimly pleased when she leaned back on the wall in silent, bitter surrender.
In the dark, he could not properly minister to her wound, and if she’d lost blood, cold would only draw her strength. While
he did not wish to wait long, he needed firewood.
He ventured from the cave, returning in haste once he’d collected handfuls of dry wood from the woodland ground. As he stacked
kindling on the edge of the cave and sparked the flame, feeding it wood until it raged strong, he fought to do the opposite
in himself. He controlled his heart rate and his breathing despite the roar within him.
She’s injured. Lycroft struck her.
It was not the whole of his ire.
She was willing to sacrifice herself again.
Remembering how she offered herself to the Order in the crystal caves, he violently snapped a piece of wood for the fire.
He could not handle the idea of her acting this way again. Discarding her life for others, offering herself up whenever the
mouth of danger opened.
He was still fuming when the fire rose high into the cave’s darkness. “Let me see it,” he said upon returning to Beatrice.
“I’ll do it myself,” she replied, but her hand remained on her side, like she did not know where to start. She was maintaining pressure on the wound, he was gravely relieved to note. For once, she was doing what he’d asked.
He knelt in front of her. Fear had ceded to fury while he lit the fire. Now they resumed their clash on the field of his heart.
Hands wavering, he pulled her cloak aside, fumbling over the heavy fabric of her bodice.
“Gentlemen are supposed to ask permission before they do that ,” she remarked wryly, until she gasped with pain on the final word when his hands found the damp tear in the garment.
In her.
“We’ve firmly established I’m no gentleman, Beatrice. Not with you,” Clare retorted. Gone was every pretense, every self-presentation,
every grasping reach for idealized heroism. Only one wish consumed him—her, safe.
The gash, his fingers’ gentle inquiry found, stretched long. Until he could examine her skin, he could not know the wound’s
depth. He reached for the front of her bodice, where buttons and stays held the covering in place. His frantic fingers hesitated
on instinct.
Beatrice had the gall to roll her eyes.
“If I told you to stop,” she challenged him, “would you?”
His mouth flattened. Now was not the moment for jabs concerning his honor or lasciviousness. “ Are you telling me to stop?” he shot back.
She was silent. When she shook her head, it was the permission he needed to start viciously unbuttoning. The work was intricate
and slow, but he did not want to destroy the garment. No concern for immodesty nor fashion restrained him—the clothing was
the closest she had to armor. “You’ve obviously had practice undressing women,” she commented once he’d undone the first fasteners
easily.
Unceasing in his work, he glanced up at her. “Don’t pretend to be surprised,” he growled, “and don’t try to distract me from
my anger.” You’d have it easier convincing Vestryian nobles to cease espionage of each other , he wanted to say. Nothing could ever distract me in defense of you.
He did not need to. The wry fire in her eyes faded. She understood. In the wake of their conversation in Queendom, of course
she did.
Watch the worst moment of my life.
Undoing the final buttons, he tugged the bodice off—careful not to rip the piece—exposing her chemise and leggings underneath.
Dark red bloomed across the white linen at her side. While the fabric, mercifully, was not too dense with crimson, he nevertheless
wondered how long she’d intended to ride with the wound open.
“It’s—” Beatrice ventured.
“Not a word.”
Silenced, she permitted his ministrations.
He grasped the hem of her chemise. The moment he feared. When he would wake up from the nightmare, or step further into one. Incongruously, Galwell’s were the words he heard in his head. Legends never wait.
He exposed the wound.
It wasn’t deep. Thank Ghosts, the gash wasn’t deep.
He exhaled, wondering whether she heard the shudder of relief. The boning of her bodice had caught much of the blade’s clean
slice. He saw no deep penetration—nowhere the knife could have punctured her insides or her crucial veins. If he could mend
her, preventing inflammation, Beatrice would live.
If.
Despite relief’s rush, the knot in his chest hardly loosened. Not hesitating, he reached into Vandra’s pouch, finding bandages
and tinctures taken from hand magicians with gifts for healing. Methodically, calling on skills he’d not used in years from
his bounty-hunting days, he commenced work cleaning and applying spelled salve to the gash. He welcomed every wince, every
undulation of Beatrice’s skin, for they meant she drew breath.
When he finished, only bandaging the wound remained. Beatrice raised her arms, fighting pain’s grimace.
“Take my chemise off, please,” she ordered him.
He hesitated. On her warm side, his hand lingered. On her skin. Cream pale, with familiar freckles like gems in white gold.
The whole while he tended to her, he wasn’t thinking of her in a way to elicit desire. Her body was only the precious vessel
of her life, something to be protected and healed. But her words distracted him powerfully. They reminded him of what else
her body could do.
Noting his response, she smirked. Even in pain, her expression lit the cave like fire never could. “Don’t pretend to be modest
now,” she mocked, reveling in repeating his sentiments back to him.
He scowled. Indignation flared hot in him—he would not stand for teasing, not after what she’d done.
Swiftly, like he was pulling out an arrow, he lifted her chemise over her head.
Despite her exposed chest, his eyes didn’t dip. He kept them on hers. In firelight, they shone, brown, luminous, brown like—brown
gemstones. Did brown gemstones exist? If they did, he could not remember the name of them.
He felt ridiculous, distracting himself, playing poet in an effortful diversion from the naked skin in front of him. He was
no poet. Not even when her eyes made him rhapsodize like one.
He needed her dressing done, her wound managed, her chemise returned—her perfect chest no longer inviting his kisses. Ghosts, no—
“Thank you,” she said casually. “It’ll be easier to bandage now.”
He ground the words out. “Much easier, yes.”
Only if he commenced could he complete the miserable work. He grabbed the bandage and started wrapping her rib cage, covering
the wound—which was, wonderfully conveniently, right beneath her bare breasts. She was the one whose open wound stung with
spelled healing salve, whose gash his every constriction compressed. Yet why did he feel he was the one getting tortured?
Every wrap of the bandages brushed his knuckles under her curves—heaving, he counseled himself harshly, only with every pained
inhalation. He was so close to her he could feel her breathing on his neck. She lit his body with fire. With desire. With
rage. He did not know where one gave way to the other.
He grew hard in his leggings, infuriating himself further. One shouldn’t yearn with insatiable sexual hunger for one’s nursing patients. Certainly not for one’s former lover who shook one’s very soul with incurable habits of venturing into danger.
Finally finished, he tied the bandage off on her uninjured side. When he yanked the knot sharply, she sucked in a surprised
breath. His tending complete, she pulled her chemise back over her head with effort.
It was not the end of his work here.
“Don’t ever,” he ordered her, “do that again.”
She hesitated. When she replied, he found the confrontation in her voice unconvincing. “I can’t promise I’ll never get injured,”
she informed him. “Neither can you.”
He shook his head with quiet vehemence.
“Not that,” he said. He would indulge no coyness. Indeed, Clare Grandhart had never felt more serious in his whole life. “You
endangered yourself. You gave yourself up. You were going to go with the Order.”
When he met her gaze, he was surprised to notice her flinch.
“You were going to sacrifice yourself. Again,” he went on. “I—I can’t... You—” The comedown of realizing her wound did
not endanger her life, combined with the unrelenting fearsomeness of what she’d done, caught him up short. He composed himself,
continuing. “You’re not a sacrifice. You’re a person . Your life is no less precious than those of queens or knights or nobles. You can’t throw it away.”
His elegance was gone, but he kept going. He had to.
“I didn’t say it to you when we first faced the Order, and Ghosts know I’ve lain awake more nights than I care to count thinking about what would have happened if Galwell hadn’t found you out. If you had—succeeded because I never told you...” he said. He felt he was carving each word in rock. Headstone or victory monument, he could only hope he knew. “I guess I’m... saying it now. I don’t know how to live in a world without you in it, so fucking stay in it. Please.”
Embarrassed, he swiftly made to stand. He did not know how desperation reconciled with rough charm. How it fit in a rogue,
or a leader. Or a hero.
He stopped when he felt her hand on his arm.
“I didn’t know,” she said softly.
“Now you do,” he replied. His voice remained furious, guarded, covering the fear, the hurt underneath.
She took in his declaration, her eyes turning sad.
“We’re heroes, Clare. Or, we’re supposed to be,” she said. “If it comes down to one of us or Mythria, we have to be ready
to make the choice. If it comes down to one of us or the other...” Somberness descended over her. “When we defeated van
Thorn, we knew any one of us might not come home. My life isn’t worth more than Galwell’s.”
He hated the impossibilities she was stating like fact. He rose to his feet. “I can’t tell you what to do,” he replied, grasping
onto the rare certainty he could find in heroism’s foreboding fog. “If I could, you never would’ve married him . You would’ve—”
He halted himself. Desire, he was realizing, waged its own war on his wiser judgment. It unexpectedly had much in common with
fear, he found. It pushed him, warped him, possessed him, challenging the edifice of the character he imagined for himself.
Fear and desire both were no heroes.
They were rogues. Like him.
“Never mind that,” he corrected himself. “What I mean to say is, if it makes a difference to you to know you matter to me...
well, now you know. You matter to me.”
He could hear Vandra and Elowen approaching, voices loud and cheerful. The contrast with the hush in the cave could not have rung out sharper. The long look Beatrice gave him was inscrutable, or perhaps he was just hopeless at reading her.
“It makes a difference,” she said. Her voice was so quiet, so vulnerable, it sounded fragile.
Clare nodded, finally feeling the fires of his anger die down. He did not come on this quest to have this conversation, but
he felt grateful for the opportunity nonetheless. Incredibly grateful. Ironically grateful—for he felt a piece of him that had been wounded for ten years was finally, finally healed.
Interrupting his realization, Vandra sauntered into the cave, holding wine bottles.
“Do you all fancy getting completely drunk?” she asked.
When his eyes met Beatrice’s, he knew instantly she shared his reaction. Wine in the midst of questing and confessionals?
For once, an uncomplicated question.
“Absolutely,” they replied in unison.