The sword took the strength in Zelen’s legs with her. He fell as much as sat on the bed, the world blurry and colorless.
He knew that the questions would come soon. He owed answers—owed the story, in fact. He was thinking of how to begin when Branwyn put an arm around him and he looked up, startled.
“Your sword—”
“Yathana and I can speak just as well without touching,” she said, and her hand was warm on his bicep. “Thank you for returning her. She thanks you too.”
Altiensarn was kneeling in front of him, peering from face to body and back. “You don’t appear physically wounded,” he said. “Are there injuries I don’t see? If not, I’m going to get you a cup of tea. Nourishment won’t solve our problems, but it will help a great deal.”
“I—” Zelen didn’t seem able to finish a sentence. They trailed off, boats loosed from their moorings. He made an effort. “No. No, I’m not injured. I don’t—”
“Think that you can eat,” Altien finished for him. “I’m perfectly aware, and we’ve both seen these circumstances before. I’m going to go extract the necessary provisions from your servants.”
Zelen watched him leave, more because it was too much effort to move his eyes than out of any real attention. There were next steps. There were steps that came next. Branwyn was beside him. He turned his head, which felt as though it took a year, and observed that she was beautiful.
It hurt.
“Gedomir asked me to get to know you,” he said, laying the words down between them, “then to tell him what I found out. I’d been reporting more or less faithfully up until the ball.”
Branwyn didn’t pull away. She didn’t move either. Zelen waited, deserving what came next.
“Did he know I was a Sentinel?”
“No. Neither did I.”
“I didn’t think so,” she said, in the same calm voice he’d heard when they’d been preparing to fight the demons: evaluation, instruction. “You seemed surprised. You might have been a very good actor, of course.”
“I might still be.”
“There’s no advantage in it for you, none that I can work out. I don’t suppose you stopped reporting for any reason other than circumstance.”
“No,” said Zelen. He didn’t know that he would have, and it wouldn’t have mattered.
“Did he tell you why he wanted the information?”
“Only that you were a foreign agent.”
“Well,” said Branwyn, after a minute that stretched out longer than Zelen’s entire carriage ride back, and he’d thought that had lasted an eternity, “that doesn’t seem unreasonable. If I were a noble family, even if I didn’t worship the Traitor God, I’d want to learn as much as possible about me, too, since I’m trying to get you involved in a war.”
Zelen, who’d been expecting rage of either the hot or cold variety, and hadn’t known what to say to either, found himself at even more of a loss for words than he’d predicted.
While he sat staring and, he feared, resembling a frog, Branwyn started to speak, stopped, actually flushed, then asked, “Was that the only reason you…took an interest in me?”
“No!”
He spoke with more passion than he’d felt in days, more than he’d known he was still capable of, and clasped the hand on his arm gently with one of his own. The skin was smooth under his fingers, save for the sword calluses that had been there as long as he’d known Branwyn—that had been there most of her life, if the stories about Sentinels were true.
“Well,” she said, still blushing. “Then here we are.”
“Yes,” he said, and then, “You’ve healed bloody well in my absence.”
“Good,” said Branwyn. “I wish there was a better way to put this, but—”
“You expect you’ll need to be in fighting form soon? So do I.” Zelen stopped. “That is to say, fighting other people. Who I’ll also be fighting. That did sound a bit like a threat.”
He’d missed her chuckle, which was as comfortable as a hearth fire on a winter day. “Don’t worry. I don’t think you’re stupid enough to bother threatening me if you wanted me dead. There are a number of things we each need to tell each other, but I doubt you’ll be in any shape for talking about them for a little while. Have you eaten today, at all?”
“I don’t think so.” He’d left the country house before breakfast, claiming the desire to get an early start on preparations. The journey had been gray and endless. Zelen thought he’d have remembered food. He wasn’t sure. “Are you a healer now?” He tried to joke.
