“The right one.”
Lynette set down her bag and the pot of salve and gently probed his shoulder. It was odd to see her fingers against his skin – hers, a medium shade of brown, while his skin was as black as the obsidian gems the miners sometimes brought out of the mines, alongside their hauls of copper ore. Was it strange for her to think the contrast was beautiful?
She pressed each of the muscles around his shoulder, but he gave no reaction. “Where does it hurt?” she asked finally.
“Here.” He reached back and pressed the muscle just above his shoulder blade, his fingers brushing hers as he did so. His claws scraped her skin lightly, making her acutely aware of the points where they touched. She had the strangest urge to touch his horn, to see what it felt like, and she actually lifted her hand to do so, before realising how inappropriate that would be and lowering her hand again.
“Just here?”
“That’s it. It’s just a minor strain,” he said again, glancing back at her over his shoulder.
“Nonetheless, it’s better to treat it now rather than let it get worse.” It was advice she’d given dozens of patients over the years, usually to the more stubborn ones who’d insisted that their burn or cut or sprain was ‘just a trifling thing’. Treating wounds early and preventing them from becoming a major issue was far easier than waiting until there was a fever and a raging infection and trying to fix it then. Thankfully, Koradan gave her no more protest and sat quietly as she rubbed the salve into his skin. The texture of his shoulder was almost the same as human skin. No, notalmost. It was exactly the same, and if she’d had her eyes closed, she wouldn’t have known the difference. There were so many similarities between them, for all that the salases looked so foreign to a human eye. But horns and tusks and the colour of their skin didn’t account for their obvious sense of honour and their willingness to put themselves in harm’s way in order to help the village.
“How’s your back?” Lynette asked, to distract herself from her own thoughts. She could see the uneven lumps of scabs over the cuts from the falling rock the day before.
“A little sore. Mostly it just itches,” Koradan said. “I gave it a wash this morning.”
“It looks good,” Lynette said. “No swelling, no sign of infection.”
“I was treated by a very dedicated nurse,” Koradan said, a hint of humour in his voice. He tilted his head a little to allow her better access to his shoulder. But then he asked, “What were you going to say earlier?”
“What? When?”
“Before Mitch announced the men were alive. You were saying you’d been pacing back and forth, thinking about something. What was it?”
“Oh.” The uncomfortable thoughts weren’t going to go away, however reluctant she was to face them. “I was… This probably isn’t going to sound very noble. And I’m not trying to justify anything by it. But it’s hard sometimes to realise just how wrong we’ve been.”
“How so?”
The salve was as rubbed in as it was going to get, so Lynette forced herself to stop, wiping her hand on a cloth. Then she sat down beside Koradan, mustering the courage to look him in the eye. “It’s about why I was so angry with you before. Yesterday. And to be honest, it’s still hard to think about all this. Because of who Kai was, and because it’s still going on. And I don’t see any way it’s going to stop in the near future.” She rubbed her eyes and sighed. “You’re not bad people. You are actuallypeople, not demons. And maybe that sounds like a tiny, insignificant admission to you, but…” She bit her lip, then forced herself to continue.
“I loved Kai. We had our problems and our differences, but I loved him, and I genuinely admired what he did for our city, for our world, even. There’s something very appealing about a big, strong man who’s willing to risk his life to save others. And he was ‘saving the world from demons’. It was a cause worth admiring.
“But to admit now that salases and vreki aren’t demons means that I have to admit that Kai wasn’t…” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, forcing the tears back. “He wasn’t defending our world from an evil invasion. He was murdering innocent people. Good people. And he might have had the best of intentions in doing it, but that doesn’t change the result. And all the warriors who are still fighting at the Gate of Chalandros are doing the same thing.
“It’s a hell of a shock to realise that so much of the world is so verywrong. It would be so much easier to keep believing that you’re evil, or that you helping us here is an aberration, rather than something that could happen all over the world, if we just stopped and gave you all a chance to explain yourselves. But there are still people in this village who think you’re evil and need to be banished as soon as you’re done saving our men. There are people who think you’re going to steal the miners’ souls as payment for saving them.”
Koradan’s eyebrows rose with that comment, his mouth falling open in muted shock. He shook his head. “Even if we wanted to, what gives them the idea that we have that kind of power?”
Lynette waved the question away. “I don’t know. And frankly, it’s not important. They’re just making up lies to suit themselves. Humans are very good at that, by the way. So I feel like a right ass for being so difficult about everything, and I want to fix it for you, but I don’t know how. I know this has been said before, but the amount of time and effort you’ve put into saving us goes well beyond anything you actually owe us.”
“If I can be perfectly honest about that, we’re not doing it all just to help Bnaa,” Koradan said. “I would move mountains for any one of my team, don’t misunderstand that, but there is a bigger picture here.”
“Which is what?”
“What we want, long term, is a place to call home. We want to create an alliance with humans, to give you the opportunity to see that we’re not a threat to you, and ideally, to convince you that allowing more people through the gate would be a good thing.”
Lynette barked out a laugh. “I don’t mean to put a dampener on things, but you’re not going to achieve that by convincing a small bunch of farmers and miners in a remote village that you’re good at moving rocks out of the ground.”
“We’ve convinced you, haven’t we? And Mitch, and Peter. Paul liked the vreki right away. Hazel seems to have taken quite a shine to Sigmore.” He glanced over towards the ventilation shaft, and Lynette followed his gaze. Sure enough, Hazel was openly gawking as Sigmore hauled Gren up from the shaft, along with the latest bucket of grit and gravel, while Sigmore seemed to be lapping up the attention. “It’s a small start, but it’s a start. And it’s more than any other ‘demons’ have been able to achieve so far.”
“Even so, I’d like to do more to help.”
“So keep working on the villagers. Keep giving us the opportunity to prove we’re better than people believe we are. The rest will take care of itself in time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“We’re through!” The loud cry jolted Lynette out of a light doze. She lurched forward, almost falling off the rock she was sitting on, then scrambled to her feet. The sky had got darker in the last half an hour or so, and there had been doubts among the villagers as to whether they’d get a passage open before nightfall.
