Chapter 22 #3
Commander Stonelay hesitated. It was good of him to hesitate.
To not offer up such personal information on his liege so easily.
But Commander Stonelay had been on that ship.
He’d seen Renn and I together. I imagined he’d also sorted out the eccentricities of our connection.
And so, when it became clear I would only press again, he gave in.
“I saw him fly south,” he admitted, tipping his head in that direction. “Toward the woodland.”
Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Thank you.”
He offered the faintest smile before heading for the keep. Turning back, I retraced my steps, angling first toward the infirmary for a healer’s satchel, then toward the kitchen. Multiple cookfires had started as Beatty desperately tried to get warm food into soldiers’ bellies.
I found Sten and Brien near the cold smithy, chatting quietly. Their conversation was cut short when they saw me approach.
“I’m going to the south woodlands,” I announced. “You can come with me or stay behind, I have no preference. But if you will insist on guarding me, as I’m sure you will, then guard me now, because I will not wait.”
Brien opened his mouth as though he were about to protest, but Sten straightened and so easily slipped into my shadow that my brother took note. When I left the castle wall, which was surrounded by lounging soldiers and half-built tents, they followed.
I tried not to look at the bodies, still awaiting either burial or pyre.
Derren Castle occupied what I would best describe as a meadow; the woodland was farther out than I’d anticipated, but I walked swiftly, energized by purpose.
I occasionally scanned our surroundings for signs of blue—a dragon lingering behind—but I saw none, and while my guards kept their hands on their sword hilts, neither ever drew.
Oak and beech trees, I noticed, sentineled green and bright with summer; we were nearly halfway into August already.
Soon enough the leaves would turn and the air would cool, and I wondered how it would affect the war efforts.
Strange to think not even a year had passed since Sesta first launched itself on Rove. It seemed an eternity ago.
The trees were not thick, and even with the basalt wall I sensed him and followed unmarked trails until, far ahead, I spied a silver gauntlet settled beside a tree root.
Staying Brien and Sten with my hand, I continued onward by myself, crushing wild grass underfoot.
A stream babbled to my right, and along it came other pieces of bloodied armor—another gauntlet, a helmet, a gorget—and finally him, crouched like a hawk at the edge of the stream, staring into the rippling water.
In another time and place, I might not have recognized him for all the blood.
It tinged his hair auburn, caked around his ears and neck.
Marked the lines of his hands, which sat open in front of him.
Slipping my satchel from my shoulders, I crouched beside him. He still wore his cuirass; I gently unhooked its buckles, one at a time. It was surprisingly heavy; I had to stand to tug it free from him.
Even beneath the breastplate, blood soaked his clothes.
Grateful for the stream, I unpacked my satchel. Grabbed one of many rags and dipped it in the shaded water. Wrung it out and started at his forehead, wiping red grime from his brow.
“I can’t stop,” he whispered, eyes still locked on the water. “I can never stop. I’m the reason we win.” He coughed, hard, the rattle in his chest shooting alarm through my heart. Grimacing, he swallowed.
I pressed my lips together to withhold rising emotion, cleaned his temples and the bridge of his nose, his lips. “I know,” I answered, and rewet the cloth. Returning to him, I got the blood off one ear and the surrounding skin and hair. It completely soiled the cloth.
Renn’s eyes shifted to it, and even through the wall, I felt a pulse of anguish.
“Close your eyes,” I said. “You don’t have to see it.”
He set his jaw. “I can bear it, Nym.”
Kneeling in front of him, I clasped one of his red-inked hands in my own. “But you don’t have to. Not alone.”
He swallowed, his throat’s apple bobbing. Clenched his teeth. After a few seconds of steeling himself, he said, “You don’t—”
“Just let me love you,” I whispered, repeating words he’d once given me. I rinsed out the cloth and returned. His eyes shimmered like the sunlit sea.
Then he closed them, and I continued my administrations.
They felt so personal, so reverent, I couldn’t bring myself to be offended by the gore.
With every swipe of the cloth, I found a little more of myself.
Healer. It was what I wanted: a healer in all things, physical and elsewise.
However special I was, or wasn’t, didn’t matter.
I would heal him again and again. And in doing so, I would heal myself.
I cleaned his neck, his hands, then clasped the hem of his shirt and pulled it off him, setting it aside.
Pointless to scrub it, I thought, but he’d need it for his return to the castle.
I washed his hair and his feet, until gooseflesh from the chill rose on his skin.
Until I couldn’t see any more blood to remove.
Then, sitting beside him, linking his fingers with my own, I tore down the basalt wall.
I held my breath, my best show of stoicism, as the emotions overwhelmed me.
As though I’d been buried in a shallow grave and the entire Sestan army marched over.
The heaviness of agony, the sharpness of melancholy, the drowning of despair and regret.
They flowed into me, coursing over each other and knotting in their misery.
My throat thickened and eyes watered, but I leaned into him, sharing in it.
He was not alone.
And neither are you, came the memory of Ursa’s voice, and new tears traced down my cheeks, falling onto his shoulders.
Squeezing his hand, I focused on the warmth beneath the waves, on the softness of trust and the glow of love, the cool rain of relief.
And, gradually, as the sun purpled the sky, I found their echoes through the torrent.
I held on to them, holding them in my hands as though they existed in a lumis, and I felt him holding them, too, a cluster of light at the end of a long and dark tunnel.
Twilight fell, and Renn murmured, “Thank you.”
And when stars pocked the sky, the four of us walked back to Derren Castle.