Chapter 21
I wake to a tickling on my cheek. My eyes crack open. Black feathers hover inches away. A hawk is perched by my head, its wing draped over the side of my face. I stir and it hops back.
I glance down my body and find hawks nestled on top of me, and on either side of me on the bench, their wings spread over me like a feathered blanket.
They adjust as I shift, ruffling and resettling.
Their warm bodies make a clear difference, cold morning air creeping through wherever they lift away.
My chapped lips split into a smile. “Are you keeping me warm? Or am I a comfortable place to sleep? Either way, thank you.”
Feathers rustle in response, as if the hawks are content to stay as long as I lie here. But I have to get to work.
I groan as I move to sit up, my joints flaring with pain. Squawks answer me, a few hawks hopping off the bench to the ground while the ones on my legs flap up to the rafters.
“Sorry,” I say, breathing through clenched teeth as I force myself up on shaking arms. “It’s just…ugh.”
This is the worst my body has ever felt.
Every joint I unwind out of my sleeping position throbs.
Usually, it’s just my back and jaw, but now pain radiates from my feet, my arms, the hip and shoulder I slept on.
The full day in motion, followed by a night on cold stone, was a poor combination.
For a moment, I’m afraid I can’t turn my head at all.
But after I rub my neck, I can twist it into a painful stretch.
One of the hawks on the bench hops closer and nudges my hand with its beak. I run my fingers over its head, and it leans into the touch.
“It’s fine,” I murmur. “I’m just a mess.”
I don’t bother to change out of the clothes I slept in.
They are still clean, and I’m not sure I could get my arms over my head anyway.
I untie my cloak and fumble with my shoes, my numb fingers tripping over the finer movements.
Everything is hard, but there is something satisfying in this agony.
It’s not from a night spent huddled in bed, muscles tensed in fear.
It’s from a day of necessary work, helping people who needed it.
It’s from a night giving up a bed to someone who lost their home.
I fold the blanket and turn to find a dozen hawks blocking my path to the door. I take a step forward, but they don’t move an inch.
“Was I that comfortable?” I chuckle. I take another step only to stumble back to avoid flapping wings. “Shoo!” I tell them gently. “I have to go.”
I limp forward without stopping. They hop aside just in time to clear my way. I smile. Stubborn beasts.
When I exit the aviary and hobble to the front of the grounds, the energy has changed.
Instead of frantic cries and chaos at the gates, wagons are lined up outside, with guards in black leathers unloading supplies.
It takes me no time to spot Alaris among them, lifting a massive canvas roll over one shoulder and walking it toward the tents in the courtyard.
I slow my steps so we don’t cross paths, suddenly nervous. I can deal with playful, lecherous Alaris. But this doesn’t look like the same man who spends most of his time receiving women in silks.
Once I’m sure there is enough distance between us, I trail after him to the courtyard.
Clusters of townspeople huddle together around fires, speaking in hushed tones.
Cries of pain have turned into subtle whimpers and grimaces hidden in the crooks of elbows.
I can’t believe these people are bearing what happened so quietly.
But then, I’m not sure what the appropriate reaction is the day after horror.
Karns directs me to the medical tent to replace bandages.
I crouch beside the nearest cot and unwrap the dressing on a woman’s forearm.
The wound underneath is pink but the stitches are holding.
I apply fresh cloth, tucking the ends the way I learned from the healers yesterday. She winces, but nods when I’m done.
I move to the next bed. And the next. My fingers are slowly learning the right tension for bindings.
I overhear my first accounts of the wither.
About how it appeared in one corner of town like a drip, then a puddle, then it spread like a flood.
How every living thing it touched froze, grayed, and began to crumble.
How people caught in it had only seconds to react, how the screams that chased the survivors out of town cut off moments after they started, how anyone who turned back to see or try to save someone didn’t make it out.
I switch to the courtyard, organizing supplies, helping wherever I can.
I’m more comfortable than I was yesterday.
I take cues from those around me and ask what to do when I find my hands still.
My mind is better prepared too. Even though my heart aches at every child’s blank stare, I don’t freeze up.
In fact, I settle into an almost meditative rhythm.
Recently, I’ve spent my days jumping from one calculation to the next: which room to search, how to avoid getting caught, what to say if I am.
And I’ve spent my nights going over the same visions again and again until they blur together.
Even though I was alone most of the last decade in the Sunrise Palace, I’ve never felt this stuck in my own head before.
Helping these people makes me feel awake. It’s like my eyes are open wider than usual, taking in that I’m here now. These people have already faced death. These people have already lost. And I’m still here, using my hands to retie their bandages and fold clean linens and carry buckets of water.
I’m here alive today, not dying in some bloody future.
The day blurs by and evening comes quickly. I carry stew to cots and collect the bowls when they are done.
After the townspeople are served, I get my bowl. Across a fire circle, Alaris is crouched beside a woman and her two children. The smaller one has his arm in a sling. Alaris says something to the boy, and the boy reaches out of the sling and wiggles his fingers, grinning.
I pick a different fire to eat by, letting the flames account for my flush.
Karns dismisses me with a group of staff. Others are still working, but I don’t argue this time. The emergency is over. And now that it’s dark, I’m happy to get away from the crowd. It saves me the energy of having to examine every face in the shadows.
I enter the stone tower and trudge through the dark, not waiting for my eyes to adjust to follow the familiar path to the bench.
“Sorry I’ve neglected you,” I mumble through numb lips to the hawks. “I’ll refill your water tomorrow.”
I shuffle forward and stumble when my foot hits something soft. A large dark shape covers the ground in front of me. I reach down and my hands meet fur. I lift one heavy skin and find another spread beneath.
It’s a pallet bed, lined with fur blankets. Only one person could have arranged for this.
I’m filled with instant, irrational annoyance. I didn’t give up my room just to create more work for someone.
But my traitor fingers are deep in the fur. And defiance won’t help anything at this point. I quickly shed my outer dress, and slide between the layers, shuddering as softness envelops me. I’m instantly warmer, and they smell delicious—like cloves.
My heart squeezes, and the corners of my mouth turn up, then down, with emotions I don’t want to name. I don’t want to think about this caring act in the midst of all this chaos. I can’t let my mind linger on the idea that I’ve been singled out, when there are so many reasons to know better.
He’s caring for his people. Now that I’m on his staff, I just happen to be one of them.
I sink into the fur, somehow both heavy and weightless. Sleep takes me in seconds.
When I crack my eyes again, the light streaming in through the shutters above tells me it’s midday. I sit up, slowed by the weight of the fur sliding off me and the rare grogginess of oversleep.
I wasn’t given a formal shift, but I feel late.
I hobble to the camp, still wiggling my feet properly into my shoes. I step straight in to help serve stew—lunch, I assume.
Even after a cozier night, my muscles still protest. I do my best to roll pain out of my shoulders as I spoon meat into bowls. It’s a hopeless attempt, the stretches barely tugging at the ache sunk into every part of me.
Across the bright courtyard, I find Alaris. I don’t know why embarrassment flames my cheeks, just because he sent me something to sleep on. It was wasteful of him to spend precious resources on a hawk keeper.
I commit myself to holding it against him. It’s further proof that he’s impulsive. Impractical.
But again, today, I see him laboring. I catch him hammering tent stakes into the packed earth. Handing a stack of blankets to a woman and waiting while she counts them for her family. Talking with Karns over a list. Through all of it, he has that same steady intensity in his eyes.
I resist the urge to look when I feel that tug on my attention.
I know now it comes from him, somewhere in my peripheral vision.
It’s just because he’s tall, I reason, focusing on the task in front of me.
Or maybe it’s because I can’t quite make sense of him, these scenes conflicting with my image of him as a pleasure-seeking lecher.
I redouble my commitment to my work throughout the day, trying to make up for the morning hours I missed. I wait until the last scoop of dinner is served before I get my bowl. I take it and find a spot on the ground in front of a firepit, too tired to care that my legs might not get me back up.
I drain the cold stew in minutes, and shake out my limbs, pressing the pads of my fingers into the tight spots on my shoulders. My eyelids are heavy, but I slept through the morning. I should stay and find out if the late shift needs assistance.
I glance up to find Alaris just across the circle, his elbows resting on his knees, eyes glinting. They are on me. There is no way I missed him sitting there when I chose this place to eat. I straighten, then duck away.
I don’t know why, but I feel guilty.
Perhaps it was easier to face him when I viewed him as careless.
Someone born into power and languishing in its perks.
With that version of Alaris, I could meet him as an equal or even look down on him.
My life in the palace was a life of plenty, but also, restriction.
I could judge him for what he did with the freedom I never had.
Seeing him as frivolous made it easier for me to steal from him, to dismiss him, to push down other thoughts.
Now, he’s gone and made everything more complicated.
Unfortunately, breaking eye contact doesn’t break his focus. He stands and stalks around the blaze. My feet root into the ground and my mind blanks, nerves, pride, and shame jostling for space. Only when he’s squarely in front of me do I raise my eyes.
The flames highlight the impossibly sharp lines of his face. He is just as gorgeous, probably more so, for the grime and sweat. He doesn’t seem bothered by the cold in nothing but a white shirt, dirtied from his day of work.
His lips press into a tight line. “It’s time for you to rest.”
“I am resting. I’m having dinner.”
A low sigh rolls out of him. “And after dinner?”
I raise my chin. “I’ll help with the dishes.”
“You’ll be no help to anyone if you need a healer to lift your arms.” His voice comes out firm and low. “Come with me. Now.”