18. Geological Climatology II #2
Ciarán tilted his head back and forth as he took a moment to think.
“Not quite. We should still have a couple days on them. Lady Quill says we are well hidden here, so our priority should be to rest.” He looked at Tiernan. “What are your injuries?”
Tiernan straightened up the best he could, but even after bathing, eating, and sleeping, his ashen cheeks were sunken and his eyes heavy with fatigue.
“I can leave as soon as we need.”
“The Lady Saergrim is proving an adept healer. Talk to her.” Ciarán turned to exit.
I didn’t quite understand the thrill of frustration that rose in my gut at his cold departure, but the way his shoulders tensed told me had felt it too, singing along our tether.
“Where are you going?” I demanded.
“Hunting. We need to be well-fed if we want to make it to the citadel library without Ferrin’s soldiers catching us.”
“Do you need help?”
He didn’t reply and made his exit in silence. I prodded at the space in the back of my head where I could usually hear him. “Ciarán?”
The humming of his thoughts cut as he put up a mental wall between us.
Jonquil meowed into the awkward silence that followed and jumped from Fana’s lap to chase after Ciarán. I suppressed a sigh and forced myself to turn back to Tiernan.
“Where does it hurt?”
Orla and Fana vacated the chamber to prepare a meal out of our food rations while Iseult studied the copper plate on the wall. Tiernan brushed twisted locks back from his face as I approached.
“I said I’m fine.”
“Can you walk?”
“Probably.”
I smirked and crouched next to him. “You won’t do Fana any good if you can’t stand long enough to defend her.”
His gold-flecked eyes locked with mine, and his brow furrowed. I may have sprung him from Ferrin’s prison, but Tiernan had never liked me much. He’d kept his distance since our escape from the mountain, so I was sure some of that dislike lingered. I was likely the last person he wanted healing him.
However, he leaned forward and rolled up the leg of his thread-bare trousers. His dark skin helped disguise the bruise that painted his leg, but the swelling of his ankle was painfully apparent. I bit on the inside of my cheek, trying to disguise the churning of my stomach.
“Is it bad?” Tiernan asked in a hushed tone.
“It’s not great.” I poked at the swollen joint, and Tiernan flinched. “Did Ferrin do this?”
“Caitria.” His sister. He’d mourned her when he’d thought she was dead, and this was how she repaid him. Part of me hoped she was hunting us so I could repay her on Tiernan’s behalf.
“And you planned on walking to the citadel with a broken ankle?”
“I will do whatever it takes to—”
I cut him off with a raised hand. “It looks either severely sprained or broken. I can’t tell which, but I can try to fix it.”
“Were you a healer in your world?”
“Maybe, and not really.” My two semesters of Sports Medicine in high school didn’t exactly make me a doctor, but I’d seen enough rolled ankles to know that Tiernan’s was screwed.
“I know a little bit of healing magick, but it works best when I use it on myself. Also, your ankle might need to be set depending on if it’s really broken and to what degree, but I don’t know how to do that. ”
“Which means?”
“I can try to heal it, but it might heal wrong and you’ll end up with a crooked ankle forever.”
He stared at his ankle, and then flinched when he tried to flex his foot.
“I can walk on a crooked ankle,” he finally said. “Do it.”
I drew heat and magick into my hands, trying to visualize the diagrams of ankle bones, tendons, and ligaments I’d seen in class.
Tiernan grunted at my touch, but managed to stay still.
I tried not to press too hard against the injury as I wrapped my fingers over the joint and felt Skal surge between us.
I listed the names of ankle bones in my head, as if doing so might make my magick work better.
Tibia, Fibula, Talus… I was healing blind, unable to use my own injuries or my connection to Ciarán’s injuries to guide my magick, but it had to be better than leaving Tiernan the way he was, especially if we were going to be traveling.
A few minutes in, I caught him staring with his brows drawn together and his lips pressed into a tight line.
“Does that hurt too much?” I pulled my hands away from his leg, but Tiernan cleared his throat and shook his head.
“No. Sorry. I’m just—” He cut off as the look returned, quirking his scowl and re-furrowing his brow.
“What?” I asked. He gulped and looked away, watching Iseult run her hands over the copper wall plate.
“I’m not used to you looking like this. You’re so different from your Nightmare,” Tiernan admitted. “It’s weird.”
“What, am I not your type?” I joked, returning my hands to his injury.
“My type of what?”
I hesitated. Keldorian and Skalterran English had developed in tandem, but there were still certain terms and idioms that hadn’t crossed the Rift.
“Your type of girl. Sorry. I was making a joke. It’s something we say back at home. If I’m not your type, you don’t find me attractive.”
Tiernan coughed, and his cheeks darkened. “Oh. No, I didn’t mean to offend you—”
“Tiernan,” I interrupted with a half-laugh. “You blew me up once. And then you tried to kill me again in a wheat field. I don’t think you can offend me at this point.”
“The Umberdust Plains are not a wheat field. And for what it’s worth, you look fine. I just don’t think I have a type of girl.”
“Guys, then?” I kept my face turned towards his ankle, but peaked through loose strands of my hair to gauge his reaction.
I wasn’t entirely sure what all was socially accepted in Skalterra, but Orla had been up front with me about her preference for women, so it wasn’t crazy to imagine men were free to show interest in other men here.
However, Tiernan frowned and shook his head. “No. No type of anyone.”
“Oh.”
“I know that might not make sense—”
“It does.” I nodded too eagerly. “I’m the same. Or I thought I was.”
“You thought?”
When I’d first met Tiernan, I’d thought he was a figment of my imagination. Maybe that’s what made talking to him so easy now. That and the fact that I was pretty sure he could not think less of me than he already did.
“Yeah. I think I started to have a type recently, but then he died.”
Confused horror crept across Tiernan’s face. “Galahad?”
“God! What? No!” I pulled my hands back from his leg in disgust. “Someone from home!”
The horror on his face eased, but his brow remained furrowed. “The Grimguard?”
“Good news! Your leg is all better.” I stood up, trying to shake my mortification. “Let me know if it hurts again. Or don’t.”
“You said he was your friend in your world, right?”
“I think I liked you more when you were trying to kill me in the wheat field.”
“You didn’t have ‘a type’, and then of all the people, he’s the one that changed for?”
I rubbed at my temples, thinking again of Ciarán’s distant demeanor since our bath. “I don’t have a type, and I didn’t change for anyone! I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’m sorry.” Tiernan bowed his head. “I didn’t mean to intrude. Do you think this is what normal people our age get to worry about instead of saving realms and staying alive?”
“Yeah,” I conceded. “I think it is.”
I sat down, defeated, and placed my hands back on Tiernan’s ankle, slightly more aggressively this time. As much as I hated this conversation, it probably was a nice change of pace from the horrors he’d faced the last few weeks.
He hissed through his teeth at the pressure and warmth of my magick, but I ignored him.
“You must be close with him,” Tiernan said after a moment’s silence.
“Tiernan, please.”
“I mean it. You refused to bathe with us in the Shogunate when we stopped there a few weeks ago, and you refused to again last night. But you were comfortable enough to let the Grimguard join you today.”
I bowed my head over his ankle in exasperation. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“You forwent the culture of your people to engage in something that otherwise makes you uncomfortable. I think that means he is your friend.” Tiernan watched his ankle and the blue light that leaked out between my fingers instead of meeting my eyes.
“Maybe that’s your type. A friend. A close friend. ”
“Maybe,” I conceded. “At the very least, I can promise my type is not Galahad.”
“Thank the Three Magicians for that,” Iseult called out. “Tiernan, how much do you care for your sister?”
“Not much at the moment. Why?”
“Because I don’t like the idea of being chased to the citadel. If she is out there looking for us, I think I’d rather draw her here and kill her. Is that alright? If I kill your sister?”