by Evie Manieri
Lahlil didn’t need to answer.
Isa felt the tension straining between them and didn’t want to be in that room any more, but the thought of taking even one step away from the fire made her hug her arm closer to her body. She looked at the little girl instead, watching her very carefully pour out a little of the poisoned wine into a shallow, red-rimmed dish. The girl was missing her first and second finger on her right hand, but she had no trouble at all taking the stopper off the skin, pouring out the wine or putting the top back on again. Isa watched her smooth movements with envy.
Isa’s hand dropped to her side as recognition stole over her, slowly, creeping like a shadow and draining the blood from her hand and face. She couldn’t believe it, but she couldn’t deny it, either. She should have recognized Ingeld at once—except how could she, when this was the last place she would ever have expected to find him?
She readied Blood’s Pride to oblige him.
Isa struggled as Lahlil grabbed her sword-arm, holding her with a strength she couldn’t match while everyone else in the room stared at her, their emotions colliding and careening all over the place.
The girl snatched up a clay bottle from the table and hurried over. He was too exhausted to resist and she managed to get a few drops down his throat. He fell back onto the bed a moment later and shut his eyes.
Isa could feel Trey trying to hold back his anger.
Cyrrin lashed out.
Isa felt as if a pail of freezing water had been thrown in her face. The image of Trey rising up naked out of the pool appeared unbidden, but it was the scars down his right shoulder that she remembered most clearly. She held her breath, waiting for him to say something fine and noble; something about courage and perseverance and strength of spirit, the kind of speech she made to herself sometimes when she was trying to thread a buckle or sharpen a pen.
But Trey just walked out of the room.
Disappointment curdled in Isa’s stomach. As she moved closer to the fire Cyrrin lurched over to the table, shutting them all out.
Lahlil bent down and picked up the fur Isa had dropped.
said Isa.
Isa hadn’t realized how badly she was shivering until her teeth ground together and the buckles on her swordbelt rattled.
Isa shot back,
Lahlil’s anger licked out into the space between them and she dropped Isa’s coat.
Lahlil’s mind went as blank as a sheet of paper, and Isa would have sworn her sister had disappeared if she hadn’t been looking right at her.
Lahlil collapsed in on herself—Isa was reminded of a spyglass folding up, and all trace of her emotions just vanished, until Isa again became aware of the rest of the room: the snap of the fire; the small sounds of Berril grinding something with a pestle and mortar; the creak of Cyrrin’s strange brace as she reached for something across the table.
She couldn’t stand it any more. She picked up the coat and went out into the hallway and ran straight into an old woman with a small stack of clothes folded neatly over her arm. A complicated pattern of purple blotches roiled over the whole left side of her face.
The woman gave a wry smile.
Chapter 26
Lahlil turned back to Jachad, squeezing her fists until they ached as she watched him twitch and moan in his sleep, remembering the forest and how he had made her promise she would stay by him. If Cyrrin couldn’t help him, then Lahlil had made his last few days a misery just to please herself. Everything always has to be about you, Callia had told her.
Jachad gasped in pain and called out her name.
“I’m right here,” she said, kneeling down by the pallet and taking hold of his wrists as he tried to claw at his chest. Confusion clouded his eyes and Lahlil wasn’t even sure he recognized her. Her wet gloves began to steam as black flames twisted around his hands, but she held on, whispering, “Jachi, it’s me. Stop fighting me.”
Lahlil took off her gloves and carefully took the jar from the girl’s maimed hand without acknowledging her hostility. Everyone’s anger would have to wait. She circled her arm behind Jachad’s shoulders and lifted him up so he could swallow the last few drops of the syrupy liquid inside the jar, then held him until the moaning and writhing stopped. When he was no longer gasping for air, she pulled her arm away and took his wrist to check his pulse, but he took her hand instead.
“So, that’s striding,” he said. He was too weak and too pale for his smile to be reassuring, and his voice had a thin, reedy quality that made him sound like a little boy. “You won’t hear me complaining about triffons after this.”
“Good.”
“You won’t leave, now that we’re here,” he reminded her. “We’re staying together. You promised.”
Lahlil gathered up the edge of the blanket in her hand. The wool was stiff and smelled of damp and woodsmoke. “I haven’t forgotten.”
He let his head fall so he could see the fire. “That Abroan man in Prol Irat, the way he looked at you…” He tailed off, then said, “You were right. I didn’t understand.”
“Don’t talk any more now.”
“Do you think my mother is in Ravindal now?” he asked. Lahlil kept her eyes on the stitches unravelling along the blanket’s hem so she wouldn’t have to see the tears darkening the freckles on his cheeks. “I think she’s close. Just a feeling.”
“We’ll find her as soon as Cyrrin figures this out.”
He didn’t say anything; she knew he no longer had the energy to pretend to believe in a cure, even for her sake. The hundreds of tiny nicks opened by Isa’s accusations began to bleed.
Cyrrin and Berril came over carrying a small cloth spread with a thick red paste.
“Don’t,” Jachad pleaded in Nomas as Berril exposed his chest again, but he couldn’t lift his arms to push her away. Cyrrin laid the poultice over his heart.
“It’s cold—” he began, before his hands curled into fists and his whole body convulsed in pain. Lahlil clutched his arm as a tortured sound twisted its way through his clenched teeth.
Lahlil kept hold of Jachad’s hand until he settled down again, then she moved out of the way so Berril could take care of the poultice.
Cyrrin’s silence was worse. When Berril went to tend to the fire, Lahlil walked over to get an extra blanket from one of the empty pallets. The musky smell of the fur brought back the memory of waking up in this room for the first time. She remembered thinking she would never leave, and then she remembered thinking she would never come back.
Cyrrin explained.
Berril was kneeling in front of the fire and piling on more logs.
said Cyrrin, dropping a pinch of white powder into the saucer of poisoned wine.
The rough iron of the poker scratched at her hand and white ash from the end of it dusted her boots. There wasn’t any point in saying she had taken it from Berril without thinking. That was exactly the problem.
Berril put down her brush with exaggerated care and took her coat from the hook by the door. She left to follow Cyrrin’s instructions, but not before making sure Lahlil felt her wrath like a shove from her small shoulder.