SOUR ALE HAD SOAKED so deep into the floorboards that the wood itself seemed drunk. Rancid lamp oil coated the walls, thick and yellow. Bottles lay where they’d fallen, and swords leaned against walls like tired men. I knew this particular neglect. It was the same absence that fills a hearth when the last ember dies and no one reaches for the kindling.
Seven guards filled this room built for twenty. Some sat with bottles cradled like infants against their chests. Others stared at nothing with the doomed blindness that comes from years of boredom. They were forgotten men in a forgotten tower, remembered only when the King needed blood.
“Ready yourselves!” Roderic’s voice cracked against their indifference like waves against stone. “Get moving! They’ll be at the gates any moment!”
But the words failed, as they always do when a man tries to command the loyalty he never thought to earn. I watched the King pace the center of the room, his movements frantic and floundering, each gesture grasping at authority these men had no reason to grant. Behind his commands lay something else. Something like fear trying to sound like power, speaking to keep the silence at bay.
“Oh.” Auri’s voice drifted softly from the corner. In three light steps she stood before me, her eyes drawn to my shoulder. “You’ve brought me a quill!”
I looked down at the crossbow bolt jutting from my shoulder. A length of blackened oak, its shaft split and splintered. I could feel the weight of it, the pressure at my back where the tip had lodged. “I did,” I said, my voice tight with pain. “Tricked a porcupine out of it. Though I’m afraid I’ve stained it red.”
“That happens sometimes,” Auri said, taking my arm with surprising firmness. “Sit here. We’ll make it proper again.”
Sim moved closer, studying the wound for the first time since we stopped running. “Merciful Tehlu,” he gasped. “That looks awful.”
Auri paid him no mind. She tore a strip from her sleeve with unexpected efficiency and set it aside. Her fingers traced the splintered shaft, testing how it held. She looked up at me, her eyes worried. “It kissed the stone too hard,” she whispered. “Broke itself trying. Won’t come out whole.”
Wil’s eyes traced the bolt’s length. “The fletching’s in the way.”
She nodded and pressed the cloth between my teeth, her touch gentle as always. “This will help,” she said softly.
I turned to Sim and Wil. “Sim, hold it steady. Wil.” I met his eyes. “Quick and clean.”
“Quick I can manage,” he said, positioning his hands in a firm grip. “But clean is another matter.”
I braced myself. Nodded once.
Wil snapped the bolt. Pain came white and sharp, scattering thought into fragments. I felt Auri’s small hands steady against my shoulder. The broken shaft scraped past bone and muscle, a long moment of white fire before it emerged from my back. Then her touch again, gentle but certain, pressing cloth against both wounds.
When the white faded from my vision, she was bent close, examining what the bolt had left behind. Her fingers worked with gentle precision, but I felt something grate against my raw flesh. She made a soft, troubled sound. Her fingertips came away gritty.
“Stone dust,” I said, understanding. “From the ricochet.”
She nodded, still focused entirely on the wound. “Bits that don’t belong,” she whispered. “They want to stay but mustn’t. They’ll turn things wrong.”
“How bad?” Sim asked, his voice tight.
I looked down at Auri’s careful work. “Bad enough.”
Each bit of debris she drew free brought a small star of pain. Gasps broke from me, unbidden, but Auri never wavered. I had never seen such steadiness in her hands, had never witnessed such certainty. Had she studied at the Medica? No. I would have known. Wouldn’t I?
When she finished, she tied the last bandage with a knot that would hold but not bind. She looked up at me with those wide eyes. “The red’s stopped running away now,” she said softly.
As Roderic watched her, something moved across his face. Pride and guilt twisted together, wound tight with recognition and regret.
“Did you learn that at the University?” he asked, though it wasn’t a question.
Auri’s eyes lifted to his. Just for a breath. Just long enough for him to see what lived there before she looked away. “Of course,” she said softly.
The King opened his mouth, closed it, and turned away. The weight of all those lost years settled onto his shoulders.
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