Chapter 26
Amaris
A sharp pain in her neck jolted Amaris awake. She’d fallen asleep on the floor beside Theodoric’s cot. Alan and Esaias were nowhere to be seen, and she didn’t bother to check if they’d fallen down the stairs in a drunken stupor.
She massaged the angry muscle of her neck while she ventured toward the open window.
The crackling hiss of a dying fire and the smell of herbs hung in the air.
It wasn’t the smell of diesel fumes or the smoldering scent the fire engines had after a fire, but it was familiar.
The scent of blood tainted the air from the bowl she had yet to discard, but that was recognizable too.
Her stomach growled. The bay was still shrouded in a haze of clouds, but she was willing to bet she’d missed dinner. Scavenging the tower, she hoped to find a slice of bread or a magical cheeseburger, but she found a jar of peanuts in a small cabinet of the worktable.
“I wouldn’t eat those if I were you.” Theodoric’s muffled voice carried across the room.
“And why not?” she questioned with her hand digging in the jar.
He smirked. “They’re poisonous, causing hallucinations followed by paralysis and then death.”
Amaris’s throat made an audible gulp as she threw the peanuts back into the jar and wiped her hands against her pants. She grabbed a few logs from the corner and threw them onto the embers within the fireplace. Reaching for the flint and steel, she set to work making a new fire.
“How long have I been out?” he asked, trying to sit with a grimace. He stopped mid-rise, his eyes sweeping to his exposed chest.
“You shouldn’t move. I only bandaged you this morning,” Amaris said, busying her hands as she lit the fire.
“That’s all it’s been?” he whispered. “The amount of cudweed you gave me should’ve allowed me to rest for days.”
She glanced over her shoulder and caught his eyes straying to a blanket folded beside the fireplace. She bent forward and picked up the wool fabric, smoothing it down as she then kneeled before him.
“Can I check your wounds first?” she asked, offering him the blanket. He wavered but nodded, and she set to work, prying at his bandages.
“I’ve received punishments before. I’ll be fine by next morning.” The gritting of his teeth as she checked beneath the cloth said otherwise.
“I highly doubt that. Gerard practically opened your entire back. He could’ve killed you.” She eyed him, but he turned away to face the newly kindled fire.
“What happened?” he whispered.
“What do you remember?” She continued checking each bandage to see if any of his wounds had started bleeding again.
“Pain,” he breathed. “Arguing with my father.”
“Your father put a stop to it before Bennet could finish.”
He closed his eyes, taking as deep of a breath as he could. The lazy strands of his hair brushed the side of his face as he released it.
Amaris stood from the cot, clearing her throat. “I’m putting you on mandatory bed rest.”
“That is quite the formality.” His scoff jerked the muscles of his back. His jaw tightened.
“As I’m the one who bandaged you up, I make the decisions.” Amaris folded her arms.
“You are a stubborn woman.” He tossed the blanket over his back, sliding it past the jagged scar on his arm.
She rolled her eyes and began cleaning after the morning fiasco. She wiped down the worktable and placed the various jars back in their homes.
“As you’ve saved me not only once but twice now, will you finally tell me your secrets?” he asked.
Amaris froze with her rag wound tight. “What kind of secrets?”
“Cornelius was a brilliant mystique, but not in the way you are. Gris told me I wasn’t breathing when you pulled me out of the river.”
“Did she? I hardly noticed.” Amaris draped the rag over the windowsill to dry and dug her fingers into the grout between the stones.
“Amaris,” he whispered, and a shiver swept over her. “Please.”
She chanced a glance over her shoulder. He may have been from Magoria, but he sure knew the effect of puppy dog eyes.
She leaned against the window and folded her arms. “Fine. Yes, you stopped breathing.”
Theo hesitated, unsure. “How did you heal me?”
“Your heart was still beating, so you had that going for you.” She pulled a stray hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “I performed CPR. Compressions and rescue breathing.”
“Rescue breathing?”
“When one is giving rescue breaths, you pinch their nose and put your mouth around theirs, and you breathe for them. For adults, you want to do it about every five seconds until they start breathing again. For kids, it’s more like three.”
“And if they don’t start breathing?”
“A story for another time,” Amaris sighed. By the quizzical expression settling over Theodoric’s face, the rescue breaths might have been too much. He’d likely never understand compressions.
“How do you see it and not…” His voice broke, and he tugged tighter at the blanket. “How do you still carry on healing people?”
Amaris moved to the worktable, a light shuffle in her step to avoid the flutter his question brought to her chest. She’d seen a lot in her career but had never panicked in the middle of a call before.
Her thoughts meandered toward the mystique journal instead of her bounding heart from the morning.
“I’ve been around it all my life, and you get used to it. ”
She decided to busy her hands, flipping through the pages and avoiding his lingering gaze.
Her cheeks flushed, and she set her eyes on the open window.
Would it kill the gods to offer a breeze or a signal gust of wind?
Amaris hadn’t deciphered the extent of their religion, but she’d seen statues and paintings of the different gods and goddesses throughout the halls.
“Can we not have a simple conversation where one of us isn’t busying themselves or screaming?”
“I’m a member of your staff, aren’t I? I’m supposed to stay diligent, especially in the company of someone of your status.” It was harsh, but it kept her from saying anything she’d regret. Why did she want to sit beside him and ask him about his world, his life, what his favorite color was?
“Do you take me for the kind of man to look down upon you for your status in society?”
“I don’t know what I take you for.” Her mind told her one thing, that he was a nosy asshole, but his actions spoke something different.
“As I said earlier, I’m truly sorry.”
She finally lifted her head. He bore an expression of remorse deeply felt.
Amaris twiddled her thumbs, digging the blood and dirt from her nails.
She’d spent so much of the last year of her life being angry.
It was exhausting, but she didn’t know how to act anymore. Her first instinct was to defend.
She forced herself to sit in one of the chairs across from him. He’d saved her twice. He’d stepped between Bennet and her, and he took her lashings. What could she say to him?
“But I’m truly sorry for how I handled this morning,” he said, playing with a stray strand of the blanket. “It was reckless.”
“I’m not a stranger to recklessness.” She kicked off her boots and curled her legs onto the chair. After several moments of his breaths being the only thing filling the silence, she whispered, “Thank you, by the way. Esaias told me you took my punishment. You didn’t have to do that.”
“You didn’t deserve it.” His voice was low, angry.
“But it wasn’t because of the scrying fever. It’s because I tried to escape, wasn’t it?”
He didn’t respond. “Tell me something,” he said, his muscles slackening as the stern tone faded from his voice.
“Like what?”
“Anything. What did your days look like before?”
She grasped tightly around her legs. “Not that interesting. In fact, compared to everything that’s happened today alone, you’d find my daily life to be completely and utterly boring.” She dropped her head to her knees.
“Sometimes a boring life is not the worst thing to have.” His eyes softened. “I could go the rest of my life without another war.”
“Could it happen again?”
“I pray to the gods there won’t be another one in my lifetime.
My father sent me and several of his other soldiers to aid in the war efforts.
” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “When I returned, it seemed all of Luana heard of my war stories, a warrior against the fight in Mosfelkov is what they would whisper.” His eyes tracked Amaris as she dragged the sleeve of her shirt over her hand.
“After the war was over, I returned to Soyenia to oversee the disbursement of troops, which took a season to accomplish. The worst part was, Esaias had been sent home, and I was forced to remain in the unfortunate company of some of the king’s men.
Thankfully, Gris was by my side, but the captain of the Royal Guard is a real piece of work. ”
“I take it you two never became friends.” Amaris rubbed at her wound through her sleeve.
“Gris and I stayed no longer than was required of us, if that tells you anything. That was the last several years of my unfortunately exciting life. Now, tell me about your boring one.”
“Why did you step in?” she asked, gripping her thighs tighter to her chest.
“You’re evading my question.”
“Answer mine, and I’ll tell you one thing about me.”
“Even after I already revealed something of my own?”
Amaris squinted her eyes. “Humor me.”
He dropped his head back to the cot, shifting his gaze to the fire. The pops and crackles were the only thing she could hear besides his slow and steady breaths.
“I’m a soldier,” he answered.
“My best friend’s name is Viv.”
“Tell me about her.”
“Viv? She’s the fiercest woman I know. She reminds me a lot of Adelaide, only Viv is probably twice the size of her in muscle.
” A smile spread across her lips as she recalled how she’d dropped Amaris’s boot at her feet after the fire.
Viv had practically hurled her from that bedroom.
“She’s never afraid to tell me when I’m wrong or to speak her mind.
I miss her. She’s one of the few people I have left. ”