Chapter 38 #2
I frowned at his sigh, at the pity in it.
He rotated to face me fully, not letting go of my hand.
Carefully, he unpicked the linen tied to my palm.
My mouth parted at his delicate touch, at the Butcher’s hand moving so tenderly.
It was mostly healed, the crusted blood an illusion to its severity.
Before I could retract, he skirted it under the hem of his tunic, to the heat of his chest, pressing it firmly at his heart. It beat steadily, unlike my own.
“Blessings can be addictive.” Thump, thump, thump. “Something that makes you feel invincible will inevitably turn into something you crave. As someone who is blessed like you, what the gods chose to bestow upon us can be curses as well as gifts.”
“You think your blessing of truth a burden?”
“To scent and taste everything?” His dry laugh rumbled under my palm. Thump, thump, thump. “Yes. Watch as the world soon tires of meat if butchers could taste the fear of the lambs.” A deep breath. “Truthfully, I would be rid of it if I could.”
Thump, thump, thump. What must it feel like to smell and taste everything? To hold on your tongue the desires of even the most twisted and wicked of beings? Of Falstaff?
“What about the other?”
“The blessing of healing?” He plucked my hand from his heart, lowering it. “Now, that is truly a gift. It has served me, and a fair few others, quite well. Though, none have appreciated a licking half as much as you.” I pinched my brows at the smile lacing his words.
He jutted his head towards my other palm. “What are you holding on to, Seamstress?”
I clutched them tighter.
He beckoned, fingers curling. “Show me.”
I hesitated.
He waited.
“Her eyes,” I eventually confessed. “Esioul’s. He gave them to me… I-I have to give them back.”
Dropping his hand, he strode to the bedside table, rifling through the drawer.
Glass clinked, and he lifted a bottle, a clear liquid sloshing within.
“Distilled spirit,” he explained, holding it up for me to examine.
“It will preserve them; the salt from your skin will only damage them further. Give them to me, Ashara. I promise, they’ll be safe. ”
My lips twitched, knuckles loosening.
“If you give them to me, I have something to give to you in return.”
“A druid’s pardon?”
“You already have that.” He jiggled his hand, something rattling within the cage of his palm. “This is something better; something you thought lost.”
I straightened at that, his trick tempting as it was cheap.
With a last gentle squeeze, I surrendered her eyes, stretching my fingers for the first time in a turn, the joints stiff and reluctant. He plonked, one by one, the deep, near-black of her irises into the solution. They whirred before sinking to the bottom. Corking it, he placed it on a shelf.
“Away from the heat,” he clarified. “Here—” Taking my wrist, he manipulated my fingers to open, the fist of him resting in the centre of mine. After a breath, he splayed his hand.
Two buttons, their edges scalloped and rough, dropped into my palm. I sucked in a breath and brought them close to my face, my finger skimming their charred, burnt edges.
“I polished them as best I could, but the scorching would not fully absolve. Now, to the cot.” He pointed at the four-poster, clearing his throat. “You need stitching.” Boiled thread and a needle already lay waiting on the table to its side. “And to be cleaned.”
I stared at them for what felt like an age, until I could stare no more. Pocketing them with a sniff, I approached the bed wordlessly, the words I wanted to say piling up in my chest, unable to spill. I paused at the foot of it, eyeing the stark white of the sheets. We fly together.
“I can get a sister?” he asked, mistaking my hesitancy. “Though we may have to wait since most are in the Great Hall.” He rubbed at the back of his neck under the chain.
The thought of anyone’s hands on me but his turned my stomach.
“I want you to do it.” Mounting the bed, I turned to lay on my back, head softened by a cushion. The scent of jasmine and fire was faint, as if he hadn’t graced the sheets for some time.
With a nod, he made for the hearth to retrieve a small pot of water. Dipping a cloth into its belly, he wrung it out, the water running down like a brook into the dips and valleys of his hands and forearms.
“It’s warm,” he assured, catching my stare. I fixed my gaze on the wooden panels above.
“Go ahead.” I breathed hard through my nose as he removed the crude padding at my hip. Without its pressure, the pain sharpened, and I jolted at the first press of the cloth.
“Stop squirming. You’ll only make it weep.” Another press, another squirm. “Seamstress, don’t make me tie your wrists to the posts.”
My grimace bled to a smile. “If anyone tries to tie me to a bed again, Druid, I’ll slit their throat.”
The cloth stilled. “I’m glad to hear it. If I ever attempt such a thing, be sure to make it quick. It would be no small sin to dare say I’d enjoy it.”
The tinkle of water and crackle of flames were not enough to drown my clamorous heart, or perhaps it was the buttons; the pulsing reminder of them in my pocket as much a burden as a comfort.
“I’ll stitch it now,” he warned. Craning my neck, I examined the wound. The cut was clean, but ran deep, oozing despite Lycandor’s fingers pinching it shut.
“Will it heal?”
“Yes, but Falstaff will die anyhow. One way or another.”
I nestled back into the pillow. “Good. Though it shall be penance indeed to have him join me in the pits.”
He threaded the needle.
“If you are clever, if you are smart, if you listen, it will be a while before you must endure such a fate. There is hope yet, even after this mess. I will see to it.”
I stamped down the hope, aware of its foolishness. “How shall you do it?”
“Keep you alive?”
“No. Take his life.”
Without warning, he made the first stitch, a sharp nip, robbing me of breath.
“I could wring his neck,” he mused between another loop.
“Stab his heart. Cut him into little pieces and feed them to the templum’s hounds.
Or I’ll simply tie him down and arm you with a blade.
It would be a delight to witness whatever creative solution you devise, though I doubt it could ever exceed the genius of your first.” His dark helm glinted orange from the fire, the mesh boring into the cut.
“Heed this, though, Seamstress. Even if you somehow become inclined to mercy, I have no such compunctions.” Another bite of the needle.
“I promise you, it’ll be slow, it’ll be agony…
He’ll wish he’d taken that blade to himself, not your body, once I’m done. ”
“Do not condemn yourself on my account.” I clenched my teeth at another stab of its point.
“His ledger drips with more than just your blood. I would have done it sooner, but”—he froze, as if the words had lodged in his throat—“but I could not. Finished.”
His mesh shifted, as if waiting for approval. I nodded as he turned his attentions to my breast, swiping at the gash with the same gentleness as the one at my hip. The pot of water sloshed red, the cloth sodden pink.
“Is this because of the decrees I am not privy to know of?”
“Yes.” Another swipe. “I do not keep you in the dark for spite. Not only am I forbidden to speak of it to those who are uninitiated, but if things went south, and we were separated and you were put through inquisition,” he spat the word like the dirtiest of curses, “then it could put everything I’ve worked towards in jeopardy. ”
“Is that where you were? When they…”
He plonked the cloth into the water with a messy splash.
“I was not quilling letters over a goblet of wine whilst he cut you, Ashara. Look at me.” I shifted towards his veil, to the pinpricks of light glowing under the metal.
“I was in the catacombs, far, far underground. There is no other chamber in this templum that I wouldn’t have been able to scent you, your fear or your joy, not now that I’ve tasted it.
” He hung his head, the chain pooling over his chest. “I failed you this day. Do not think I won’t penance myself for it. ”
“You owe me nothing, Druid.” I focused on the carvings above that branched over us, the leaves etched in wood. “I am a riddle, a puzzle to solve. Don’t think me ungrateful for your attempt to keep my blood in my veins, but I’m under no illusions that your true concern is what lurks within it.”
Fists scrunching the linens, his body leaned forward until he hovered over me, the weight of his veil resting on my stomach.
“Try as I might, the riddle I cannot crack is not your blessing, or your blood, but why I feel so compelled to you.”
I gritted my teeth, that urge to tear at his covering roaring anew.
“I cannot make sense of it,” he whispered above me, more to himself than to me.
“But regardless…” As I fought to control the rise and fall of my chest, he returned to the stool, retrieving the needle.
“It seems we have run out of time.” Without warning, he slid the needle through the first part of the cut, on the underside of my breast. He worked quickly, efficiently, more practiced after stitching the first.
“Time for what?” I asked.
“To do things the way they were meant to be done. Instead, we must leave.”
I rose to my elbows, stilling his hand. The other cupped me, pressing the split flesh together. “We are to leave?”
He hummed. “By boat, so I hope you’ve been assiduous in your studies of naval travel. I wasn’t playing templum librarian simply for fun. Let’s pray you’ve been a diligent student.”
I had not.
My lips thinned before remembering the book he’d retrieved, scanning the shelves to the sides of the bed for any hint of its spine.
“The Word of the Other,” I breathed, its worn leather absent amidst the few cloth-bound tomes stacked on the walls. “Where did you put it?” Cogs churned, the disjointed clues clicking together.
“You are no druid of the Blood God,” I breathed. “But a servant of the Other?”