“I’ll listen for screaming,” said Altien. “Madam, I suggest that you let me sit you upright, if you have the strength.”
She did, barely. The door closed behind Zelen, and Branwyn looked after him for a long moment. “Hedeserves better,” she said.
“You would each say that you survive in a satisfactory enough fashion.” Altien began cleaning her wounds with the careful, impersonal precision that Branwyn was used to from healers. “I would say that you’re both correct, in both senses, but I’m not infatuated with either of you. I’m going to cut this garment off. The strain of removing it will do your muscles no good, and any value it once possessed is certainly gone.” His tentacles twitched in distaste.
“We’re not infatuated,” Branwyn said, barely noticing as Altien produced a pair of small scissors from his garments and made short work of her now-filthy dress. “Just…pleasan’ company.”
“Nonsense.” Altien returned to the task at hand with an occasional sibilant noise when the cleaning process bared a particularly hideous bruise or swelling. Branwyn supposed it was the waterfolk equivalent oftsk. “Your attempt to deceive either me or yourself is impressive, however, given the sedation. I’ll credit your nature. On your stomach now—I’ll brace you.”
After a second of pain, during which the dragon-eye and willpower managed to keep Branwyn from screaming, she changed position and found herself very glad that Zelen wasn’t the one ministering to her, suspected murder aside. She’d been bathed by healers before—Sentinels, like all weapons, needed the occasional cleaning and repair, and the knee wasn’t her first broken bone—and had come to accept the temporary helplessness, but being taken care of would have weighed on her far less easily when it was a lover doing it, or an almost-lover, or the subject of infatuation, if Altien was right.
Branwyn suspected that Yathana would’ve agreed with him. She expected to hear the dry, sardonic voice doing so in her head, and the silence hurt more than the skinned places on her spine that Altiensarn was attacking with soap.
You can’t help that. Don’t dwell on it.
“Drugs work on us,” she said to give herself another focus for her thoughts, “jus’ takes a lot. Mostly. A friend of mine’s completely immune, but that’s…” She shrugged. “I’osn—idionsa—” She knew the word, but it was a corkscrew that her tongue couldn’t follow.
“Idiosyncratic? Hmm.” Branwyn felt cool salve on her back, then bandages being wound around her torso. Altien eased her backwards, which didn’t hurt as much as the reverse motion had done. Propping her head on the edge of a basin, he began washing days of filth out of her hair. “An interesting order, the Sentinels. I would avoid pressure on your right shoulder as much as possible. The bone isn’t broken, and I don’t believe you’ve torn the muscles significantly, but it’s a near thing.”
“Oh,” said Branwyn, and a thought floated up in an increasingly thick fog. “How’d you find Zelen? Or other way?”
“He provides healing services to those who can’t afford professionals, thus taking some weight off the Mourners. I came to these lands to study humans, specifically their physiology. Our meeting was natural.”
“Of course,” said Branwyn. She closed her eyes.
A little while later, the basin moved. “There,” said Altien. Branwyn was aware of motion in the region of her shoulders and hips, of being turned and lifted slightly. The world was all mist now, but she was clean and the pain, though present, was remote. Relaxation stole over her, and a set of blankets settled more concretely about her. “Sleep is called for now. We can address the matter of your clothing later, with less awkwardness.”
Branwyn made what she meant as a noise of assent, and then asked, “Zlen?”
“I’m certain he’s well, but I’ll make sure of it. Sleep.”
She’d never obeyed orders so readily.
Chapter 26
Waking, Branwyn was again unsure where she was. This time she was in a bed, though: warmth above her, softness beneath, and a pale-blue canopy before her slowly focusing eyes. Shecouldfocus her eyes, which was an excellent sign. She remembered why that pleased her, which brought the rest of the immediate past back, though her memory of those crucial few hours remained a blank.
She inhaled slowly, evaluated, and exhaled again. Pain was still in residence around her knee and one side of her head, and was a fainter presence along her backbone, but it was maybe a quarter of what it had been. She could reason around it. She could simply live with it, as long as she had to, the way she lived with the silence in her mind and the worry, beneath her conscious thoughts, about whether that would ever end.
Moving was still difficult. Branwyn sat up gradually, with an occasional hiss of pain when her knee became too involved in the process. The bruises she could see—she was still naked beneath the blankets—were faint purple-yellow, and the places where her skin had split from the impact had healed over to pink lines. A few of her muscles, particularly those in her back, were still healing, and her knee was swollen and disinclined to flex.
Judging from what she knew of her healing rate, and the faint light through the windows, she’d slept at least twelve hours. She wondered how badly her reputation had suffered in the process.
There was nothing she could do about that.
A small table by her bed drew her attention before she could start earnestly brooding. Branwyn saw a clear flask of wine, its pale color likely a sign that it was heavily watered. A plate beside it held sliced brown bread, pears, and a wedge of pale-violet cheese. Next to that sat a heap of folded white cloth with a note on top.
I didn’t want to wake you just to have you dress. The shirt should fit until one of us finds better clothes. I should be back within a few hours of whenever you read this. Please don’t leave the room, for everyone’s safety. The servants won’t come in, but I can’t keep them out of the house without rumors starting.
There was a blotchy mark, where the writer had clearly considered adding more, but then only a signature:Zelen Verengir.
“Gods love you, Zelen,” she muttered to the empty room, “for thinking I could even try.”
All the same, she smiled, the first time she’d done so out of anything but the darkest of mirth since she’d woken up in the alleyway. Zelen was alive and well enough to write: that was good news.
He also trusted her enough to leave her unrestrained. Logically, Branwyn wasn’t sure whether that was good or not, but it was pleasant to know.
All three of the occasions when Branwyn had put her faith in him had been out of her control: the assassins and the demons had attacked them both, he’d guessed about her being a Sentinel, and she hadn’t been in any state to try to escape, or to fight, when he’d found her in the burned-out house.
