I didn’t argue with her. She folded her cloak on the floor for a cushion while I pushed my cot away from Maz’s and collapsed onto it.
Sleep overwhelmed me, blessedly empty darkness.
When I woke, sweaty in the afternoon light, Nikella looked as though she hadn’t moved a muscle. But Kiera and Ruru were awake, eating cheese and fruit with some bread. Kiera clutched a brown bottle of some liquid in her lap.
Her eyes met mine immediately, and some of the tension melted from my body. I knew that brief, blazing happiness I’d found with her in that tent in the woods wouldn’t last. But, gods damn it, I wanted to find it again.
Soon.
Despite the sleep she must’ve finally gotten, her face was still pale and drawn. A frown pinched my lips, and she looked away.
Perhaps she wasn’t so eager to revisit our time in the woods.
The tension seeped back into my muscles, and I rose wearily from my cot. I checked Maz’s back, pleased that no blood had leaked through, and the silvertree casing hadn’t cracked. Someone had already replaced the dirty water and towels from last night.
I was about to leave for a wash myself when Maz groaned and shifted. I flew back to his side. “Don’t move too much, Maz.”
“Fucking Four,” he mumbled into his pillow. “It itches like a thousand mosquito bites.”
A grin strained my tired face. “Glad to hear it, brother. Means it’s working. Can you drink? Eat? You need to get your strength back up.”
Maz grunted, which I took to mean yes.
Kiera and Ruru rushed over with the remnants of their lunch. They fed him bits of it while Nikella quietly excused herself to ask Sophie for more.
Kiera flashed the bottle she’d been holding at him. “Sunshine, Maz,” she said in a brittle voice. “You said mead could cure anything, right?”
He huffed a laugh, then grimaced in pain. “I sure did, lovely. Gods, I love you.”
I stiffened, but she smiled, tipping the bottle to his lips.
Ruru fed him a chunk of bread, and Maz smiled at him. “I love you too, Ruru.”
Then he looked past them to me, his eyes warming with gratitude. “And you, brother.”
A lump swelled in my throat. “Look at you, not even drunk yet, and proclaiming love for everyone in the room.”
“Nearly dying makes a man think. Tell Nikella I love her too when she gets back. No, wait, don’t. I want to see her face when I say it.”
I shook my head with a chuckle. Fierce hope blistered a hole in my chest. If he was back to talking like his usual self, that was a good sign there might not be lasting damage. But I also knew that he joked to hide his pain. And judging by the creases near his eyes, he was in a lot of it.
I poured him a cup of water and nudged it into Kiera’s other hand. “Give him some of this, too.”
She gazed up at me, a storm of emotions brewing in those lovely eyes. Our fingers brushed together, and she bit her lip before quickly bringing the cup to Maz. A little water sloshed over the rim.
He looked between the two of us, a mischievous look erasing some of the pain there. “I will also need a story later,” he said pointedly. “The other half of the cure, you know.”
I rolled my eyes at him as he slurped his water.
But the exasperation and joy at his consciousness drained away as the harsher realities settled back in. I needed to ask him what happened. Later, when we were alone. I let Kiera and Ruru have their moments of happiness with him.
After I’d sent them off to Sophie to help her with the laundry and to take baths themselves, I sat next to Maz. Nikella had gone back to the Temple to check on Librius, leaving just the two of us.
Some of his pain had eased with food and water—and Kiera’s Sunshine—but he was starting to fade once more.
“You love her, don’t you,” he said between labored breaths. “Kiera. I saw it on your face when I told her.”
My fists clenched. “That’s not what we need to talk about.”
