“Aye,” she whispered. A watery sheen blurred her eyes and her chin wobbled. “How do you feel?”
He groaned. “Like my head is splitting open.”
She flinched, covering it with an unamused chuckle. “Well. Good thing I have just the remedy for it.” She bent over, her eyes falling away, and the absence of them hit him in his gut. She lifted a goblet inhis line of sight and he narrowed his eye. “Wine? Really? I thought you knew by now I don’t drink.”
“I know,” she said with a rueful smile as she held it out once more. “Which is another thing I want to know about but right now, I’ll need you to forget it’s wine and just drink.”
Still, he hesitated. “What’s in it?”
The left side of her beautiful mouth lifted in a genuine smile. “Wine with some extra special medicine for the Commander of the Liodari.”
Terena moved, her right hand tucking under his head as she lifted him enough to drink. She held the goblet to his lips, and he brought his hand up to cover hers as he took a sip.
He made a face and looked back at her.
“Ugh,” he said, his lips twisted. “That’s awful.”
“Well, it’s not supposed to be good. I don’t know any medicine that tastes good, Daris. Now, stop being a baby and drink up.”
He tried to scrunch his face, but the motion only made his head ache even more, so he drank the rest and sighed when she let his head lower back to the pillow.
Silence settled and Daris closed his eye again, then frowned.
“What happened?”
Terena’s breath was shaky, and he opened his eye again to look at her. A tear fell and she quickly swiped it away.
“I mean… where do I start?”
“How about why the hell my eye won’t open? Did something happen? I remember nothing after I gave Peleon the shroud.”
Terena was quiet for so long, a strange sense of wrongness settled in his bones. Maybe it was the tincture she’d given him, but his gut roiled.
“Peleon,” she started, then dropped her chin and sighed before she looked back at him. “Peleon stabbed you. In the eye. As soon as you reached for Pytho.”
Daris jolted. He lifted his hand to touch the cloth over his ruined eye and tried to sit up too fast. He cried out at the sharp stab of ice hotpain that almost split his head. Terena put a hand to his shoulder, her grip firm as she leaned closer.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice pained. “Please. Can you please be calm?”
Daris’s pulse raced, and his breath quickened. The nausea from a moment ago was back in full force, and he thought he might embarrass himself by retching in front of her.
“Daris,” she said soothingly. “Calm down or you’ll hurt yourself. I can have Pytho bring you the sleeping potion she made for you. Do you want that?”
He clutched her hand, willing his stomach to calm, willing his heart and his breathing to calm.
“No,” he said. Daris swallowed, then took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “No, don’t leave.”
“Never,” she whispered.
His eye widened and they stared at each other for a long moment before she smiled.
“What else happened?”
Terena blinked. “That’syour question? I just told you that weasel stabbed you in the eye and you want to know what else happened?”
He frowned but said nothing as he waited.
Terena scratched at her nose and then lifted her hand. “Let’s see. You died. A battle broke out. We killed these fuckers called cyphers—wait till I tell you about those guys—and we took back Messene. Oh, and Peleon got away because, of course, he’s a snake and they always land on their feet… belly, I mean. You get it.”
