“You’re not touching my stump.” His voice came out harsh. Mean. Reaper-y.
It made me jerk back in surprise, but I narrowed my eyes right back at him. He could go all Reaper all he wanted on me, but it wouldn’t make me back down. I knew he’d never hurt me. I knew he was a good man.
“There’s no reason to be embarrassed, Max,” I said, gently putting my hand on his thigh above the prosthetic.
“I-I already have some in my room, so I’ll put it on when I go to bed.”
I shook my head. “You’re hurting now, and you still have a few hours left up here. Put it on now.”
He turned his face away, staring up at the sky as if he could simply ignore me and I’d let it go. If he thought that, he didn’t know me as well as he thought he did.
“My master lost his leg in a battle, I told you that before. But I didn’t tell you that I used to help him when the pain became too intense. I’d help him remove his prosthetic—his was in even worse shape than yours—and he would swell so bad it was difficult to get the prosthetic off him. When it was really bad, I’d sometimes rub salve on his stump. It wasn’t something he ever asked me to do, but he was a good man, and I hated seeing him in pain. So I did what I could to help.
“By the time I was apprenticing for him, he’d been living without his leg for nearly twenty years. But he was still embarrassed by the injury the first time I helped him. He got over it after a while and had an easier time asking for help.”
I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. “I really hope he’s found a new apprentice by now.”
Max didn’t respond for a long time, but I kept my hand on his thigh the entire time. Eventually, he plucked my hand off him, lifted it to his mouth, and placed a few small kisses there. Then he pulled his pant leg up and removed the sleeve, giving me my first full view of his prosthetic.
It was bronze and had lots of nicks and dents. It was very clearly well used, and luckily, it had almost nearly charged fluxstones in at the moment.
Max hesitated for another beat, his fingers lingering on the straps of his prosthetic. I could see the conflict in his eyes.Finally, with a deep breath, he unlatched the remaining buckles and pulled the mechanical leg off, setting it carefully on the crow’s nest floor behind us.
As he rolled up his loose-fitting pants, I tried hard not to stare, but I couldn’t help taking in the details. His leg ended almost halfway between his hip and where his knee would have been—a bit shorter than Master Redman’s, who’d lost his just above the knee. The stump was rounded at the end, the skin pulled tight and scarred from surgery.
The injury was clearly old and had healed well overall. But tonight, the stump was angry, red, and swollen, especially around the circumference where the prosthetic had been pressing. The skin looked irritated, with a few spots that might blister if he wasn’t careful.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Max said quietly, not meeting my eyes.
I opened the jar of salve, the herbal scent rising between us. “I’ve seen worse,” I said matter-of-factly. “Master Redman’s would get twice this swollen when he overdid it.”
Max nodded, his jaw still tight.
I really wanted to kiss it to make it feel better, like my mom used to do when I was little—not that it actually made it better, but the sentiment was nice. But I knew Max wouldn’t appreciate that at all.
I also didn’t think he’d appreciate me saying anything about it or making it a big deal. So I scooped some of the salve onto my fingers without another word, then I gently rubbed it into his skin.
Max was tense and seemed a little horrified, but I just smiled at him and made sure to cover every inch of the sore limb with a generous helping of salve.
It took a couple of minutes, and Max didn’t say a word the entire time.
When I finished, I closed the jar and tucked it back in my sack. “Since you have some in your room, I’ll keep this so I can use it next time. But please make sure you put some on tomorrow morning before you put on the prosthetic.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “It really doesn’t bother you, does it?”
After wiping my hand on my pants to get rid of the lotion, I reached up and brushed some curls off Max’s forehead, staring into his eyes. “No, Max, of course it doesn’t. The only thing that bothers me is seeing you in pain.”
He swallowed hard, and I watched his Adam’s apple move. “That can’t be helped. I have a job to do.”
“Don’t you have a cane or something you can use?”
He shrugged. “I have one, but I’m not about to walk around, barking orders at people, while using it.”
“Why not?”
He sighed. “The Reapercannotbe seen as weak.”
“Using a cane doesn’t make you weak.”
