She followed him down the hall until they came to his cabin. Stone’s room was similar to hers, only slightly larger and with a single bed, not a bunk. She’d woken up in that exact bed earlier, head foggy, leg throbbing. “Sit,” he said, pointing to the end of the bed. He busied himself, rifling through a small trunk as she made herself comfortable.
Hands full, he dropped to his knees before her, setting his supplies out next to him.
She squirmed as he began to unwrap the bandage. “Still hurts?”
“Only a little,” she lied. His fingers worked deftly, peeling the sticky bandage off with little contact. He balled the old cloth up and set it aside then pulled out a fresh one from his pile along with a small tub.
“This might sting.”
“What is it?” she hissed through her teeth as Stone’s fingers pressed into her wound, layering on a thick salve that smelled both sweet and medicinal.
“Just something to quicken the healing, fight off infection.” His fingers were gentle as he spread the salve across the wound on herthigh, his free hand bracing the back of her calf. As he massaged it in, the throbbing ceased and eventually, when his fingers swept over her leg again, it stopped entirely.
“Did you make this?” She picked up the tub, holding it to her nose. There was something she couldn’t place but through it all, a faint whiff of floral. The yellow flower Soo was crushing at the Apothecary, she realized.
“Just something I threw together before we left.” He tightened the bandage around her leg, much slower and more gently than probably necessary.
“You really are something of a genius aren’t you?” His laugh caught her by surprise. He smiled up at her from where he still knelt, his hands wrapped around her leg, his broad shoulders taking up most of the space between her thighs. “Where did you find the supplies?”
“Soo,” he said, just as she’d suspected. He stood and pulled a towel from the floor, using it to wipe his hands. “We won’t have to change it again until tomorrow.”
“Thank you.”
His eyes met hers and she hated the tiny dip it caused in her stomach. “You really okay? You were out for a while and you were…” He tossed the towel aside.
“I was what?” Aesira tried to stand but the salve only did so much, her leg was sore and her body tired so she sank back onto the foot of the bed.
“You were saying some things in your sleep.” He bent down and collected the supplies from the floor. “A name I think. Eldrin?”
A sweep of dark curly hair flashed behind her eyes, then crimson and teeth. She stood up, putting her full weight on her leg, wobbling, hands searching for purchase.
“Don’t go too fast,” Stone said, his hands finding her waist. “Sit back down, take a minute.” He guided her back on the bed, her heart beating against her ribs so quickly she hardly noticed the pain in her leg. Stone lingered next to her but when she nodded up at him, giving him reassurance that she was fine, he went back to organizing the supplies.
“Eldrin was my brother,” she said, looking at the freshly wrapped bandage on her leg. The throbbing had disappeared and she was up and talking. Moving. When Strix venom should have taken her out for days. She knew that, because she’d run into one before. Had fought one before. Had lost to one before. “He died,” she said. “I must have been dreaming of him.”
She wouldn’t say how or that it was her fault. She wouldn’t say she was not brave or noble or fearless like all the knights that looked to her for guidance were. She wouldn’t say how long she pushed that memory of him away and how strongly she’d built the walls in her mind to keep that night out. How easily they came crumbling down.
“I’m sorry you lost him,” Stone said. She gazed up at him, arms full of bandages and ointments, glasses slipping down his nose. Brick by brick that wall in her mind went back up, layer by layer she buried her mistakes.
“Is the reason you took this job because you thinkastragrows in Ravki?” she asked, changing the subject before her emotions could slip out. Stone set the rest of the supplies in a drawer then ran ahand across the back of his neck, his muscles bunching under his shirt as he took a seat on a stool across from her.
“When I was fifteen, I had already been working for Vic for years. Smuggling drugs and tinkering during any free time I had. There was a man in the Outpost, a regular who bought weekly. I came to know him well, he was something consistent in a world of chaos.”
“I hit all my normal spots that day and Ramses was my last stop. I always saved him for last because he loved to talk and would pin me there until well after sundown.” A faint smile slipped across his lips.
“Everything about that day was the same," he said. "I woke up, got my fill from Vic, and made my rounds. Only this time Ramses didn’t have the money to pay. He was desperate, begging me for anything I could spare and promised he’d pay me back. Then he offered me something else instead.” His eyes flicked to hers. “A book.”
“What kind of book?”
He sighed, pulling off his glasses and shoving them in the front pocket of his shirt. “It looked ordinary but Ramses assured me it was worth more than any coin. I gave him just enough to get him through the night and took the book home, decided it wasn’t worth showing to Vic in case he wanted it for himself, so I took my beating for showing up with less profit than I sold and that was that.” He folded his arms across his chest.
Aesira readjusted, stretching her leg out now that the pain had stopped, grateful for the distraction of Stone’s story so her mind could get to work rebuilding the wall around Eldrin she’d worked so hard on. “You didn’t tell me what the book was about.”
Stone cleared his throat. Everything about the way he was sitting, with his shoulders slouched, the way he avoided looking at her, the way he fidgeted in his chair told Aesira what she needed to know. He didn’t want to tell her. He didn’t want her to know.
“It was about Ravki.” He straightened his shoulders and she couldn’t help the shock of surprise that swept across her face. Not just because Stone had a book about Ravki, but because he told her the truth. She expected more of a push and pull with him but he shrugged at her look of surprise and continued. “It spoke of a place where water ran freely. Where trees grew to the stars.” He picked at a stray thread on his shirt. “It spoke ofastragrowing in open fields.”
Aesira’s heart sped up, like she was running for her life and in a way that’s how it felt. Like she was being chased by a truth she couldn’t accept. “And you believe that’s true? That’s why you’re here?”
