He sits.
I ladle water into a bowl, grab a cloth, and pull up a stool. He stiffens when I tug his arm to me for closer inspection, holding himself so tensely I’m reminded of a coiling asp. “What happened?” A strong, solid wrist. Black hair covers his forearm, the skin beneath my fingertips warm, alabaster pale.
He watches me push up the sleeve. “There was a battle. The townsfolk managed to break through the Shade. It needs your blood.”
I swallow at the thought of having to return to that horrible, hungry barrier. “So soon?” Why does the king’s power weaken? Why does it fade? I have no answers. “Why hasn’t your skin healed? It did when…”
“When you stabbed me?”
Right. “Yes.”
“I’m not sure.” As he speaks, I clean his wound. “It is possible their weapons contain power that nullifies my body’s restorative abilities. They will not stop until I am dead.”
As I would expect. Even the strongest rope frays under sustained pressure. “Where would they acquire such weapons?”
“That is a question I have yet to answer.”
I return to my task in silence. Our knees touch, and the heat radiating from his body surges against me like waves lapping the shore. His shoulders stretch the fabric of his soiled tunic. He smells of man.
“You are too soft,” he murmurs, watching my hands in careful study as I wrap the cloth around his forearm. His expression has thawed, if I’m not mistaken.
“There is no softness in me.” It is the only way to guarantee my survival. What kind of provider would I have been for Elora if I had allowed vulnerability to cloud my judgment?
It turns out people do not want a soft heart. So I hardened mine.
“So you think,” he says, “but your actions prove otherwise.”
The king is wrong, but I don’t bother arguing with him. “You speak as though this theoretical softness is a bad thing.”
“It is, if you want to protect yourself from harm.”
“And how would I do that?” I counter. “By isolating myself from the rest of the world?”
Again, that stubborn silence.
“Is that what you think? That my isolation is something I chose?”
I don’t know what to think. He has given me no answers. “Not everyone seeks to harm.” I cut the end of the cloth and begin tying it off.Who hurt you?I wonder.Why do you harbor so much mistrust?
“You cannot know a man’s heart.” He gestures to the unconscious patient. “Who is to say you didn’t doom this man to a worse fate?”
I’ve experienced terrible things in life. I have lost and I have grieved. I have struggled and toiled, and still I choose to look for the light, even when the immortal before me knows only darkness. “And if it had been you?” I challenge. “Should I have left you to die?”
Clearly, he doesn’t know what to make of my query, because he reminds me, voice ripe with frustration, “I cannot die.”
Our eyes lock. A knock sounds at the door.
“Enter,” the Frost King intones.
“My lord.” A soldier takes us in and quickly averts his gaze. “Another hole has appeared in the Shade to the north. What are your orders?”
The king rises to his feet. If the Shade is weakening, might it fall all at once? Does that mean I could return to Edgewood?
“I will deal with the breach in the north. Come, wife.”
“My name is Wren.” As I move to dump the bloody water out the window, I mutter, “And you’re welcome.”
15
