Chapter Twenty-Eight
Sunshine crackles hot on my skin, followed immediately by darkness and slightly duller pain. Then brightness again—too horrible
and sharp for my pounding head. The world blinking in and out means something is deeply wrong. I know this. Still, sleep beckons.
I want to lose myself in black oblivion. Stay there forever.
Something claws at my hands. Wipes them of mud. Turns them over. My fingers are investigated, examined one by one. I want
to wrench them away, hold them safe to my chest, but I can’t force my muscles to move.
The skin of my knuckles is twisted, ground against bone. Someone is stealing the rings Titus gave me.
Titus! I can’t will myself into the darkness, not while he’s still out there, needing my help.
Please still be out there.
This gurgling sound is me, trying to yell.
“Stop fighting me, you rich mountain bitch,” comes a familiar voice. How do I know that voice? “You won’t be needing them
anyway, by the looks of you.”
I focus my vision through slow, painful increments. Someone kneels beside me in the mud, their hands all over mine. Blood
on her face, mud streaking her purple hair.
“Lili,” I gasp. “Why . . .”
“Thought you were better than me, did you?” A ring grinds over my knuckle, taking skin with it.
“No . . . Gherulan. Is he—”
A blow to my face silences me. I’m helpless as she pries the rings from my fingers, one after the other.
Loss hits me like an arrow to the gut. My rings. Given to me by Titus. Treasures I would have kept forever.
Time passes, though I can’t tell how much. Light and darkness compete for my attention, and the world sways beneath my broken
body, as though I’m still on that ferry getting rocked by waves.
The darkness is winning. No, the sun is going down, and I’m having trouble distinguishing between consciousness and sleep.
I definitely should not sleep. I have to find Titus, see to Blackwind, do something about our missing supplies. Just as soon
as my legs are working again.
I mumble to myself to stay awake.
Little Lady Bria takes Anja round the world. Iola! Suratia! Now they take a twirl. . . .
I miss Anja so much. She was a rascal, brimming with confidence, always willing to see how far she could go with Da and Ma.
“I’m a better twirler than you,” she once told me. I can’t see anything around me clearly, no matter how hard I try, but that
memory is crystal sharp. She was about eight years old, and her blond hair was flying out of her braids in little wisps. “My twirls are beautiful,” she told me. “Yours are clumsy. Like a big bear trying to dance.”
I opened my mouth to tell her she was wrong, that I was older and therefore less clumsy, but at the last moment, I changed my mind.
“You’re right,” I said. “You’re an amazing twirler. The best twirler.”
Her grin was bigger than a moon, and somehow my ten-year-old mind grasped right then that being kind to my baby sister was
so much more satisfying than being irritated by her.
My eyes drift closed with the memory, so I start chanting again. Little Lady Anja, it’s time to take a rest. Suratia! Iola! But Grimsvold is the best. . . . We would collapse as dramatically as possible on the Grimsvold side, full of giggles.
Little Lady Bria wants to go to sleep. . . .
No, no, there was never a verse like that.
Little Lady Bria, let me see your hands. . . .
I can’t see anything. It’s too dark, and my head hurts too much. I know I shouldn’t lose myself to unconsciousness, but I
can’t stay awake a moment longer.
“Bria?” A panicked voice. A weighty presence dropping beside me. “Oh, Bria, no.”
“Titus,” I whisper.
Hands dig through the mud beneath my skull and lift my head, sending a blade of agony down my spine. “No, no, no,” he mutters.
“No no no no no.” Titus wraps his arms around me, lifts me.
He cradles my body to him, and though every muscle and bone screams in protest, something deep inside blooms with euphoria.
This is where I want to be. Right here, more than anywhere in the whole Sunderland.
He wipes mud from my forehead. “You saved the gauntlets. Oh, you maddening, wonderful girl.” Then he leans down and presses his lips to my brow.
I want to kiss him back. To reach my arms around his neck and pull him to me, demanding more, but . . .
“Can’t move . . . ,” I manage.
“I’m going to try my best to heal you,” Titus says. “But Bria . . .” He falls silent for a moment, and I dearly wish I could
read his face through the fading dusk light. Or maybe it’s my concussed head that makes it so hard to see.
He tries again. “I’m exhausted. Spent. I can’t heal you fully. Not yet. It will have to be in slow stages, and they might
be . . . painful.”
Doesn’t he know? My flesh and bones already crackle with all the fiery pain of a blazing sun. It can’t get worse.
“It’ll be fine,” I assure him. “Strong Grimsvolder girl.”
He chokes on a laugh. Or maybe a sob. Then he lays me gently back on the ground. “I shouldn’t have moved you. I should have . . .
anyway, hold still. And when I’m done, the healing won’t be complete. You’ll need to remain still for a long time. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Close your eyes.”
It’s what I’m longing to do. I close them and immediately begin drifting away. I continue to drift even when the light of
Titus’s healing magic lights my body with fire and joy, even when something pops in my neck and feeling returns to my legs
and feet in a rush of thorn pricks. I barely hear his voice when he says, “Now sleep.”
I let myself drift. . . . No! I have to tell him.
“My rings,” I blurt. “I lost them. Lili . . . stole . . . from my fingers . . . so sorry . . .” Tears are cold on my cheeks
as my eyes close of their own accord.
When next I wake, I’m alone on a bed of leaves, beneath a canopy of aspen branches. Dappled sunlight flicks my eyes, and water
trickles nearby—not the rushing sound of the river, but the happy gurgle of a healthy creek. Blackwind stands beside me, nuzzling
at a bush, his swishing tail creating a constant eddy of air.
I start to sit up, looking for Titus, but I remember his admonition to keep still until my healing is complete.
But I feel fine. A bit hungry, and I have to pee, but my headache is gone and my toes wriggle with ease.
The snapping of twigs warns me that someone approaches.
“You’re awake!” Titus says.
A brace of rabbits is slung across one shoulder, his bow across the other. A deep cut is scabbed above his left eyebrow, but
his grin is as wide as the sky. I’m so very, very glad to see him. I open my mouth to say so, but what comes out is, “I have
to pee.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“You told me to be still.”
“That was four healings ago.”
“It was?”
He squats to unload the rabbits and begin skinning them. “It’s been almost two days since we crossed the river.”
“Oh.”
“Every time you woke up, you told me I had lost my boots and that I was a goose now.”
My face flames. “That’s from a game I played with little Titus and Lina when we were at the inn.”
“I figured it was something like that. Go pee.”
I jump up and race into the cover of the trees. When I return, Titus has ringed a firepit and started a pile of kindling.
“Thank you for healing me,” I say.
“Thank you for saving the gauntlets,” he replies, then blows onto the kindling.
“I thought I’d lost you. I couldn’t see you anywhere. I looked, but . . . Apple was swept downriver.”
“He’s a strong mountain pony. He might have survived.”
Losing Apple is going to sting for a long time. “I hope so.”
We are silent a long moment, like there is so much more to say, but neither of us knows exactly what or how.
“Oh!” he says, standing abruptly and reaching into the pocket of his coat. “I found these.”
I hold out my hand, and two rings drop into my palm. They are filthy, covered with mud and maybe blood. “How did you find
them? And Lili? Did you . . . ?”
“I didn’t hurt her!” he answers quickly. “Though I wanted to. I just headed downriver until I found her. Then I . . . encouraged her to give the rings back.”
“Well, thank you,” I say again, slipping them on. The skin of my knuckles is good as new, like nothing ever happened.
“She’d already sold your citizenship ring.”
I’m so glad to have the other two, at least. My shield maiden ring. My royal household ring. It’s a relief to feel their weight
again, and I hold out my hands, admiring them.
“They were supposed to keep you safe, not put you in more danger,” Titus says, frowning.
“If you do that self-loathing thing again, I swear to the sun, moons, and gods that I’ll smack your giant head.”
“No need. I’m saving my loathing for Lili.”
“I think she lost her boy. Gherulan.”
His frown deepens. “Desperate people do desperate things, I guess.” Anger radiates from his whole body.
“Well, thank you for retrieving these.”
“You wear them well,” Titus says.
“I like how they feel,” I admit. “Wait. How did you find me? I remember sinking into a mud bank. . . .”
Titus reaches up to ruffle Blackwind’s forelock. “It was this big fellow. I got caught in the middle current. Swept me way
downriver before I could get to shore. But he found me, herded me in your direction.”
My eyes fly wide. “Horses can do that?”
“The Thordin can. They’re bred for intelligence and loyalty.”
“Oh, Blackwind, you sweet, huge boy.”
Blackwind responds by lipping more leaves from his chosen bush.
Titus and I have somehow moved closer to each other. I look up, and his amber eyes are right here, sparkling and intense.
I search for something to say and come up with “I’m especially glad to have the shield maiden ring back.”
He nods. “I’m especially glad to have my shield maiden back.”
My cheeks feel warm again. “How did you get across the river? It’s a long swim.”
“Found some planking to cling to. Kicked until I gradually made it. You?” His face is so close.
“Blackwind. I had to cut off his saddlebags. But once he was free of them, he carried me.”
“My horse,” he murmurs, “really, really loves you.”
“Well,” I say, gazing into those impossible eyes. “I love him right back.”