Chapter Seventeen
Seventeen
Aesira
The wound on Aesira’s leg still throbbed and the cabin air in her room was stale and heavy but she breathed in and closed her eyes.
Flashes of wings and teeth, torn limbs and veins and that memory—the one she forced herself to forget—flooded her vision.
She snapped her eyes open. It’d be easier to never sleep again, she decided.
A knock at the door had her pulling herself to her feet. She and Nora had switched bunks, making it easier for her to get in and out of bed but the pressure from moving still stung. Stone was on the other side when she opened it, casually leaning against the wall across from her room.
“Hey,” he said, a soft smile turning up his lips.
“Hey.” She clicked the door softly shut behind her, joining him in the hall.
“Wanted to check on your wound. Is Nora asleep?”
“Yes.” Truthfully she wasn’t sure if Nora was asleep or pretending to be. The conversation surrounding the idea that astra could be something other than a direct gift from Celestria had rattled her to her core. Moreso, it had pissed her off and Aesira knew better than to press her on the subject.
“I have supplies in my room,” Stone said. “If you want me to take another look.”
She followed him down the hall until they came to his cabin.
Stone’s room was similar to hers, only slightly larger and with a single bed, not a bunk.
She’d woken up in that exact bed earlier, head foggy, leg throbbing.
“Sit,” he said, pointing to the end of the bed.
He busied himself, rifling through a small trunk as she made herself comfortable.
Hands full, he dropped to his knees before her, setting his supplies out next to him.
She squirmed as he began to unwrap the bandage. “Still hurts?”
“Only a little,” she lied. His fingers worked deftly, peeling the sticky bandage off with little contact. He balled the old cloth up and set it aside then pulled out a fresh one from his pile along with a small tub.
“This might sting.”
“What is it?” she hissed through her teeth as Stone’s fingers pressed into her wound, layering on a thick salve that smelled both sweet and medicinal.
“Just something to quicken the healing, fight off infection.” His fingers were gentle as he spread the salve across the wound on her thigh, his free hand bracing the back of her calf.
As he massaged it in, the throbbing ceased and eventually, when his fingers swept over her leg again, it stopped entirely.
“Did you make this?” She picked up the tub, holding it to her nose. There was something she couldn’t place but through it all, a faint whiff of floral. The yellow flower Soo was crushing at the Apothecary, she realized.
“Just something I threw together before we left.” He tightened the bandage around her leg, much slower and more gently than probably necessary.
“You really are something of a genius aren’t you?” His laugh caught her by surprise. He smiled up at her from where he still knelt, his hands wrapped around her leg, his broad shoulders taking up most of the space between her thighs. “Where did you find the supplies?”
“Soo,” he said, just as she’d suspected. He stood and pulled a towel from the floor, using it to wipe his hands. “We won’t have to change it again until tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
His eyes met hers and she hated the tiny dip it caused in her stomach. “You really okay? You were out for a while and you were…” He tossed the towel aside.
“I was what?” Aesira tried to stand but the salve only did so much, her leg was sore and her body tired so she sank back onto the foot of the bed.
“You were saying some things in your sleep.” He bent down and collected the supplies from the floor. “A name I think. Eldrin?”
A sweep of dark curly hair flashed behind her eyes, then crimson and teeth. She stood up, putting her full weight on her leg, wobbling, hands searching for purchase.
“Don’t go too fast,” Stone said, his hands finding her waist. “Sit back down, take a minute.” He guided her back on the bed, her heart beating against her ribs so quickly she hardly noticed the pain in her leg.
Stone lingered next to her but when she nodded up at him, giving him reassurance that she was fine, he went back to organizing the supplies.
“Eldrin was my brother,” she said, looking at the freshly wrapped bandage on her leg.
The throbbing had disappeared and she was up and talking.
Moving. When Strix venom should have taken her out for days.
She knew that, because she’d run into one before.
Had fought one before. Had lost to one before.
“He died,” she said. “I must have been dreaming of him.”
She wouldn’t say how or that it was her fault.
She wouldn’t say she was not brave or noble or fearless like all the knights that looked to her for guidance were.
She wouldn’t say how long she pushed that memory of him away and how strongly she’d built the walls in her mind to keep that night out. How easily they came crumbling down.
“I’m sorry you lost him,” Stone said. She gazed up at him, arms full of bandages and ointments, glasses slipping down his nose. Brick by brick that wall in her mind went back up, layer by layer she buried her mistakes.
“Is the reason you took this job because you think astra grows in Ravki?” she asked, changing the subject before her emotions could slip out.
Stone set the rest of the supplies in a drawer then ran a hand across the back of his neck, his muscles bunching under his shirt as he took a seat on a stool across from her.
“When I was fifteen, I had already been working for Vic for years. Smuggling drugs and tinkering during any free time I had. There was a man in the Outpost, a regular who bought weekly. I came to know him well, he was something consistent in a world of chaos.”
“I hit all my normal spots that day and Ramses was my last stop. I always saved him for last because he loved to talk and would pin me there until well after sundown.” A faint smile slipped across his lips.
“Everything about that day was the same," he said. "I woke up, got my fill from Vic, and made my rounds. Only this time Ramses didn’t have the money to pay. He was desperate, begging me for anything I could spare and promised he’d pay me back. Then he offered me something else instead.” His eyes flicked to hers. “A book.”
“What kind of book?”
He sighed, pulling off his glasses and shoving them in the front pocket of his shirt.
“It looked ordinary but Ramses assured me it was worth more than any coin. I gave him just enough to get him through the night and took the book home, decided it wasn’t worth showing to Vic in case he wanted it for himself, so I took my beating for showing up with less profit than I sold and that was that. ” He folded his arms across his chest.
Aesira readjusted, stretching her leg out now that the pain had stopped, grateful for the distraction of Stone’s story so her mind could get to work rebuilding the wall around Eldrin she’d worked so hard on. “You didn’t tell me what the book was about.”
Stone cleared his throat. Everything about the way he was sitting, with his shoulders slouched, the way he avoided looking at her, the way he fidgeted in his chair told Aesira what she needed to know. He didn’t want to tell her. He didn’t want her to know.
“It was about Ravki.” He straightened his shoulders and she couldn’t help the shock of surprise that swept across her face.
Not just because Stone had a book about Ravki, but because he told her the truth.
She expected more of a push and pull with him but he shrugged at her look of surprise and continued.
“It spoke of a place where water ran freely. Where trees grew to the stars.” He picked at a stray thread on his shirt.
“It spoke of astra growing in open fields.”
Aesira’s heart sped up, like she was running for her life and in a way that’s how it felt. Like she was being chased by a truth she couldn’t accept. “And you believe that’s true? That’s why you’re here?”
“I’m here to find the king.”
“Stone.” She shook her head. “When you’re done lying, let me know.”
“Can’t both things be true? I want to find King Desmond and I want to see if what I’ve been reading about for the last fifteen years is true.”
He looked tired as he slipped his glasses back on and she didn’t blame him.
The night was seemingly endless and her body was exhausted from the injury and the adrenaline from the Strix.
The sun would be up soon and the idea that astra could grow from the earth was something she couldn’t wrap her head around.
Not with her leg and the memory of her brother being dredged up.
Not with Stone watching her so closely and Nora in the other room questioning her entire existence and everything they served.
She would need to see it first hand. She needed proof. Going off of some book Stone got in a drug deal when he was a teenager seemed impractical at best, so she’d compartmentalize. Put the crew’s safety first, finding Desmond second, and then she would deal with astra.
“What happened to Ramses?”
Stone cleared his throat again and she thought she saw a flash of hurt behind his eyes.
“He died. Overdose. I read the book from front to back every week for years. Whoever wrote it claimed that astra grew wild, a long time ago. The world was overflowing with it. Not to mention the claims that dragons and humans lived in harmony, providing a balance to each other. Soo was the only other person I trusted to show it to. She made me keep it hidden. Keep it safe. So, when the queen brought me those maps and journals from the king claiming the same things, that Ravki was real, there was no question as to whether or not I’d accept. ”