My attention was solely on her. Zogga was cleaning the wound, stitching it closed with a practiced, steady hand. I hovered nearby, a useless, hulking mountain of anxiety.
“She is strong,” Zogga said, not looking up from her work. “The blade missed the artery. She has lost much blood, but she will live.”
The relief that washed over me was so profound it almost brought me to my knees.
“You should be pleased, General,” Zogga continued, her voice dry as she packed the wound with a poultice of healing herbs. “To have found one withsuch a spirit.” She finally looked up, and her ancient, wise eyes seemed to see straight through my armor, into the frantic, terrified heart of the beast within. “The wound on her leg will heal. It is the one in your chest that I cannot tend to.”
Once she was bandaged, I gathered Kael into my arms once more and carried her home. My mother met us at the door, her face a mask of stone that did not quite hide the fear in her eyes. Together, we settled Kael into my bed, piling the furs high around her. Grakka brewed a bitter, steaming tea to ward off fever, and held the cup to Kael’s pale lips herself.
Throughout the evening, a strange thing began to happen. A silent procession. One by one, warriors and artisans and even other females would appear at the door of my longhouse. They would not speak. They would simply place a gift on the threshold and retreat. A perfectly cured wolf pelt. A small, intricately carved bone charm. A string of smoked fish. A waterskin of the oldest, strongest mead.
It was tribute. It was thanks. It was an acknowledgment.
She had earned her place.
I sat on the rug by the hearth all night, watching her sleep in the flickering firelight, the pile of tributes growing by the door. I listened to the soft, steady sound of her breathing.
Chapter 13
Kael
Iwoke to the smell of medicinal herbs and the dull, throbbing ache in my thigh. For a moment, I was back in the mud of Grayfang Pass, my body screaming from a dozen different injuries. But the furs beneath me were too soft, the air too clean. I opened my eyes. I was in Korvak’s bed, in his longhouse, the morning light filtering in through the smoke-hole in the roof. The events at the spring came rushing back—the poison, Roric’s sneer, the flash of steel, and then the roar that had shaken the very mountains. Korvak.
The memory was a blur of terror and a strange, shocking relief.
The days that followed were the most surreal of my life. I was an invalid, a role I had never played and was horribly suited for. Korvak and his mother, Grakka, formed an unspoken, formidable alliance with the sole purpose of keeping me in that bed. Every time I tried to sit up, one of them was there. Grakka wouldappear with a bowl of savory, steaming broth and a look on her face that dared me to refuse it. Korvak would hover, a hulking mountain of anxiety, adjusting my furs, adding wood to the fire, his big hands clumsy and hesitant.
I had never been doted on in my life. I had never been cared for. The feeling was profoundly uncomfortable, like wearing clothes cut for a different body. I was Kael the grunt, the self-sufficient survivor. I didn’t know how to be… precious.
“I can feed myself,” I’d grumbled at Grakka on the second day as she held a spoon of broth to my lips.
“Hush, child,” she’d commanded in her thick, accented common tongue. “Wounded warriors rest. They do not argue with their healers.” It was the most she had ever said to me at one time.
The gifts continued to appear at the threshold of the longhouse. Furs, carvings, dried meats, even a small, beautifully crafted leather pouch filled with fragrant, dried flowers. It was tribute. Acknowledgment. Every time I looked at the growing pile, a complicated knot of pride and bewilderment tightened in my chest.
The first night was the worst. The pain in my leg kept me from sinking into a deep sleep. I was trapped in a hazy twilight of nightmares, flashes of Roric’s face twisting into a silent scream, the feel of his blade slicing my flesh. I must have cried out, because a shadow fell over me.
I jolted awake, my hand flying to where my dagger should have been, but Grakka had taken it while she treated my wound. Korvak stood beside the bed, his silhouette massive against the dying fire.
“You were dreaming,” he said, his voice a low, soft rumble.
“I’m fine,” I lied, my heart hammering against my ribs. A chill that had nothing to do with the night air washed over me.
He stared down at me for a long moment, his face lost in shadow. “You are shivering.” He didn’t wait for my denial. He walked away and returned with another heavy bearskin. He laid it over me, his movements surprisingly gentle. His hand brushed my shoulder, and an involuntary tremor went through me.
“It is not enough,” he murmured, more to himself than to me. He hesitated, a long, deep silence stretching between us. “I will not… touch you,” he said, the words sounding like a vow being dragged from his very soul. “But the cold is a battle you are losing. May I lie on the furs? My warmth will aid your healing.”
It was the most absurd, formal request I had ever heard. And the most respectful. He was asking permission to get into his own bed. He was giving me all the power. I should have said no. Every instinct for self-preservation screamed at me to keep my distance, to maintain the barrier between us.
But I was so, so cold. And the memory of my nightmares was a raw, gaping wound.
“Fine,” I whispered into the darkness.
He didn’t move to lie beside me. Instead, he lay down on top of the mountain of furs covering me, a living, breathing blanket of incredible weight and warmth. He lay on his back, a respectful distance between his body and mine, our sides not quite touching. But it was enough. The heat that rolled off him was a palpable thing, a physical presence that seeped into my chilled bones, chasing away the cold and the fear. The sheer solidness of him was an anchor in the storm of my own mind. He was a mountain range at my back, a shield against the night.
With the steady, rhythmic sound of his breathing beside me, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time since I had come to this place.
That became our new normal. For the next two weeks, as my leg slowly healed, he slept on the furs of the bed. We never touched, not really. But every night, I fell asleep to the sound of his breathing, cocooned in his warmth and an undeniable sense of safety I had never known in my life.
