Chapter 20 Kailia #2
“Where are my daggers?” she insisted. “You can’t keep all my things, Cethin. I already agreed to the marriage. What else do you want from me?”
His eyes were wide as he lurched up from his chair, attempting to stop her. “Kailia, just— Calm down. The daggers are downstairs.”
“Why? They are mine.”
“And you’ve been asleep. Although Tybalt does have questions about them.”
He wasn’t touching her, but he was standing close enough that if she tried to get out of the bed, she’d touch him.
“I want them back.”
“You’ll get them back,” he said, lifting a hand before a swirl of black appeared. “After Niara checks you over.”
“I’m not a child, Cethin,” she retorted. “You don’t actually get to decide when I get my own belongings back.”
He smirked. “Tell that to your arrow.”
“Should’ve stabbed you three times,” she muttered, sinking back into the pillows.
Cethin chuckled, and she ignored him, looking anywhere else.
But without his distracting conversation, she went right back to the daggers and the stabbing and the whole fight in the forest. She couldn’t have stabbed him with the same daggers.
No one survived being struck with one. It didn’t matter where.
It could be the smallest knick to the arm; they still crossed the Veil, and she’d been very careful not to have them on her in his presence lately due to the way he provoked her.
A minute later, there was a soft knock before Niara came into the room, followed by Razik and Tybalt. So many people. So many hands and fingers. So much proximity.
She immediately stiffened as Niara approached, wincing at the tension and strain on her torso.
“Please tell me she hasn’t been out of that bed,” the Healer said tightly.
“She needed the bathing room,” Cethin answered, once again watching her closely. “She will not hurt you, Kailia. You know that, right? You know Niara. And Razik and Tybalt.”
She knew all of them, but it didn’t assuage the growing panic.
The burns and the hands from the last fight and from her dream lingered.
She tried to focus on her breathing, wishing she was outside.
The feel of the earth beneath her feet was grounding.
A dagger to run her fingers along would be nice too, but it would invite more questions if she conjured one now.
Niara had paused at the foot of the bed, also studying her far too closely.
All of them were. As if she were some foreign thing they weren’t sure how to interact with.
The feeling was mutual. She’d been plucked from the security of her ashes and smoke and forced to be among the masses.
And that thought had her remembering that she’d tried to move among them during the attack.
Or after? At one point, she’d tried, and still had been stuck. It was all so…suffocating.
“I only need to inspect the wound and apply a new dressing,” Niara said after several beats of awkward silence. “However, if you’d rather Cethin do the actual touching, I am amenable to that. I only need to see it. I can instruct him.”
“What?” Kailia asked, unsure of what was happening. She glanced at Cethin, who appeared as surprised as she felt, before looking back at Niara. “I don’t understand.”
“It is merely an offering to make you more comfortable,” Niara supplied simply, seeing far too much with her keen Witch senses. “But the choice is yours.”
Would that work? A touch was a touch, but…
But if she pretended it was a dream—the same dream from an hour ago—maybe it would be enough to survive these few minutes.
Her eyes fixed on the fur blanket her fingers were buried in, she said, “I would prefer Cethin do it.”
She could feel his eyes on her, and she couldn’t describe what she was feeling right now. It was a mixture of resentment at the situation and humiliation at her weakness, but also an odd thrill she’d never experienced before. Certainly never at the prospect of being touched.
“Lie flat,” Niara instructed, and Kailia started to inch down the bed.
When Cethin reached to help, she stilled. “Not yet. Just…not until necessary.”
He nodded, and she worked herself down before Niara said, “The blankets only need to go down to your waist.”
Well, that was good considering the whole no pants thing. She didn’t want to contemplate how she’d come to be in such a state.
As if reading her thoughts, Razik suddenly spoke from across the room.
“Wren and Fallon got you into clean clothing,” he said. “Your other attire was torn, soaked, and bloody.”
She nodded, meeting his sapphire gaze for a second before refocusing on Cethin and readying herself.
“Remove the bandage, Cethin,” Niara instructed, passing him a small knife with a long, narrow blade.
He nodded, taking it from her and stilling again as if hesitating. Kailia closed her eyes though, trying to go anywhere but here. Thinking of the safety of her smoke. A quiet room by the sea. Frigid lands with snow and freezing temperatures.
But a small gasp fell from her lips as something icy brushed along her bare stomach, and her eyes flew open a second before Cethin’s fingers followed. He was focused on his task, carefully sliding the blade beneath the bandage, but his eyes flicked to hers for the briefest of moments.
His fingertips were rough where they touched her, callused from training the way hers were.
And instead of closing her eyes to suffer through all this, she studied him.
The slight crease on his brow as he concentrated, trying to be cautious but also quick.
The intensity in his eyes, glowing faintly as if they held starlight itself.
The tense jaw. The press of his lips as he worked.
The steadiness attributed to one comfortable performing under pressure.
Then he stepped back to let Niara in, the female inspecting but not touching as promised. Something eased in Kailia’s chest a little.
“It’s healing nicely,” Niara said. Meeting Kailia’s gaze, she added, “The wound was deep but done with a standard blade. The burns have all healed as well. You still need to rest. And keep applying the herbs until fully healed, which should be in a day or two.”
Kailia nodded as Niara stepped back again and went to a dresser, where supplies were scattered across the surface. Picking up a small pot, she lifted the lid and brought it to Cethin along with a small, flat stick.
“Cover the wound fully,” she said. Looking at Kailia, she added, “You’ll need to sit up then so he can wrap the bandage around your torso.”
The paste was cool on her skin as he spread it around, and it wasn’t until he handed the pot back to Niara that his magic skated along her arms. He reached for her, extending a hand.
“The sooner we both get fixed up, the sooner we can go home,” he said, giving her a small smile.
Tentatively, she slid her hand into his, and he gently pulled, his other hand hovering between her shoulder and lower back. Soon enough, she was sitting upright, and he wound a bandage around her torso.
“Are you doing all right?” he murmured, the words low and the moment somehow feeling intimate despite other people being in the room. It didn’t make any sense.
“Yes,” she answered, trying to figure out why her voice sounded odd and breathy.
He smiled again, reaching around her to take the bandage from his other hand, but he said nothing else.
And did she kind of wish he would have? She knew his words were full of deceit and deception to coerce and get his way, so why were they also somewhat comforting?
Or maybe it wasn’t the words, but the manner in which he spoke them.
Yes, that had to be it. Practiced mannerisms and inflections.
“Done,” he said, stepping back a bit, but staying near as she eased back into the pillows.
“Three times a day,” Niara said, striding to the dresser. She placed a few items in a satchel while organizing the remaining items. “Both of you need to rest for the next two days.”
“You’re leaving?” Cethin asked.
Picking up the satchel, she started for the door. “I taught you what is required. I’m no longer needed unless something drastic happens. Which it won’t. Because you’ll both be resting.”
“Of course, Niara,” Cethin replied, a smirk playing on his lips. “Thank you for all your help.”
“I’ll walk you out,” Tybalt said, following her from the room. The male hadn’t said a single word the entire time.
“Do you need anything? Something to eat?” Razik asked. His eyes begrudgingly slid to Cethin. “Either of you?”
“Kailia?” Cethin asked, all of his attention back on her.
“Water would be nice,” she replied, smoothing her hands over the soft furs again before shaking them out.
“I’ll bring a pitcher up and see what I can find for food,” Razik said. For some reason, he sent Cethin a pointed look as he added, “I’ll bring up plenty of choices.”
Then he left, leaving the door partially open behind him.
Cethin turned back, gaze sweeping over her. “Do you need more blankets? Pillows?”
“A bath,” she sighed. “I need a bath.”
“I don’t think that’s an option for two more days,” he said, lowering to the chair and fidgeting a bit as he stretched his legs out. It was then she saw the blanket on the floor beside the chair.
“Have you been sleeping in that chair this whole time?” Kailia asked, because surely not.
He nodded, shifting again. “Niara wasn’t pleased.”
“But why? Sleep there, I mean.”
“You said you don’t like waking in unfamiliar places. That it unsettles you. You’ve never been here, so I wanted to make sure someone you knew was here when you woke,” he answered.
“But there’s a bed,” she said, wondering why her chest was feeling warm. Why her whole body was feeling…something.
He paused, studying her before asking, “You want me to share a bed with you, tiny fiend?”
“I want you to give me back my arrow,” she retorted. “And my daggers. Though it doesn’t seem to matter what I want.”
His face fell flat at that, the small bit of humor gone. “I can get your daggers now if you’d like.”
“I would,” she said with a nod.
He got to his feet, pausing at the doorway to say, “Please don’t get out of the bed.”
Minutes later he returned, the daggers in hand. Placing them on her blanket-covered lap, he reclaimed his chair. “Am I redeemed now?”
“Still missing my arrow,” she muttered, picking up a dagger and turning it over in her hand.
How was he still alive?
She held it up, the blade pointed at him. “You didn’t die.”
He’d gone still, looking at her as though she’d said something absurd rather than spoken a simple truth.
“I am indeed still on this side of the Veil and not in the After,” he agreed, the words measured. “Were you hoping for a different outcome?”
“Not yet.”
He huffed a laugh. “Sorry to disappoint,” he mused, relaxing farther into the chair. “However, we do need to discuss those daggers of yours.”
“Why?”
“We’ve never encountered ones like them. Similar to your arrows. There is a theory they delayed my healing among other things,” he explained. “Do you know anything about that?”
“My daggers usually kill people,” she replied, sending them away in a swirl of ashes.
He huffed another laugh. “Fair enough, tiny fiend.”
She didn’t know why he was amused by the statement, but she was too exhausted to try to decipher social interactions right now.
So she let the silence linger, watching Cethin out of her periphery.
He seemed content to sit in that chair. He’d closed his eyes, the fingers on his left hand lightly drumming on the armrest. And of all things, she found herself contemplating his earlier question.
You want me to share a bed with you, tiny fiend?
Reaching for the necklace at her throat, she toyed with the crystal as her thoughts swirled. No, she didn’t want that. That was intimate. That involved touching, or at the very least, close proximity.
She glanced at him again, his eyes still closed.
No, she’d save the touching and the closeness for her dreams where she was safe.