7. Kieran
Kieran
Ihad rehearsed.
I had prepared for questions about the Tether, the bond, the particular indignity of having my shoulder discussed by strangers while I sat close enough to hear them turn pages. I had even prepared for Marrow to refuse treatment. Refusal was familiar territory. I knew how to smile through it.
I had not prepared for him to take my records.
Hale kept one arm around me on the walk back.
I allowed it because the draught had left the corridor soft at the edges and because falling in front of the stewards would have been difficult to make charming.
Astra and Caspian followed close behind.
Whenever the green-gold line burned brighter beneath my shirt, Astra’s steps quickened.
At the first turn, I said, “You can stop glaring at my back. It hasn’t done anything to you.”
“I’m glaring at Marrow,” she said.
“Through me?”
“Yes. So deal with it or move.”
It was not her finest attempt at humor, but I appreciated the effort.
The stewards left us at our corridor. Hale got me into my room and lowered me onto the bed with enough care to make the humiliation nearly bearable. The ceramic bowl still stood on the table beside the folded cloth Astra had used earlier. The water inside had gone cold.
Caspian remained near the door. “Do you need the cord pulled again?”
“Not unless one of you intends to hang Marrow with it.”
No one smiled.
They were probably all thinking the same thing.
Hale crouched to look at me. “Can you breathe?”
“Well enough to answer insulting questions.”
“Kieran.”
I drew a slow breath for him. It caught but made it all the way in. “Yes.”
He watched me release it. Some of the tension left his jaw, though not much.
“I’ll stay,” Astra said.
Hale looked at her, then at me. I nodded once. He rose reluctantly.
“I’ll be close,” he said.
“I don’t think you have much choice. We’re confined.”
“Pull the cord at the first change.”
“Yes, Hale.”
Caspian touched Astra’s shoulder as he passed. The two of them exchanged a look I did not try to read. Then he followed Hale out and closed the door behind them.
Astra waited until their steps had faded.
“Marrow frightened you,” she said.
There were gentler ways to begin a conversation. Astra had never shown much interest in them.
“I’m feverish, drugged, and being detained inside a mountain.”
“I saw your face when he said they would measure it themselves.”
I looked down at my hands. The right one had begun to tremble. I closed it before she could pretend not to notice.
“I have measured every change for nearly three years,” I said. “When the pain moved, I wrote down where it went. When my hand failed, I wrote down how long it lasted. The healers had stopped telling me anything useful by then. The record was the only part of this I could keep hold of.”
She sat beside me. “He has no right to take it.”
“Rights appear to be in short supply here.” I tried to smile and couldn’t. I rubbed my thumb across my palm, trying to still the tremor. “If Marrow’s readers find the same rate, I lose my record and learn nothing. If they find a faster one...”
I stopped.
Astra’s hands tightened in the fabric of her skirt. “How much faster?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point.”
Water moved behind the wall, throwing a wavering band of light across her hands.
“What if I have less time than I thought?” I asked. “What if I have been wrong for months?”
She did not tell me I wasn’t. She stared at the closed door, jaw tight, as if Marrow might be standing on the other side of it.
“Then we know,” she said at last.
“And if knowing is all we get?”
Her gaze came back to mine. “I don’t know.”
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and waited for the dizziness to pass. Astra stayed beside me without touching me, her hands still twisted in her skirt.
“I’ve been afraid since I was fifteen,” I said.
“Since the Oracle finished my Verse and wouldn’t look at me.
Once the decline started, at least there were things I could do.
I could hide the symptoms. I could get answers from healers who thought they weren’t giving me any. I could write it all down.”
“And Marrow sat there and talked about you as if you weren’t in the room.”
“Something like that.”
She looked at me.
I let the smile go.
“I knew what my Verse said when I let myself get close to you,” I said. “I knew I might not have long. But knowing I would die young is not the same as waiting for Marrow to tell me how soon.”
My breath caught halfway in. Astra’s hand lifted from her lap, then stopped. I reached for it before she could draw back.
“I’m scared too,” she said.
Her fingers were cold. I held them tighter.
“I don’t know what Marrow will find,” she continued. “I don’t know whether this place can help you. I’m trying not to think about what happens if it can’t.”
She put her arms around me. She was careful of my shoulder without holding herself away from me. I rested my forehead against her hair and breathed through the bitterness of the draught still coating my tongue.
The pain did not ease. The green-gold line continued its slow burn beneath my shirt. When the bell sounded in the distance, Astra was still holding me.