She wasn’t quite sure what happened to her, so she didn’t answer. Everything was murky. All she knew for certain was relief that he was here now. That with him by her side she could endure the long night ahead.
“You’re too far from me.” That, they could agree on. “I can’t help you.”
Just having you here helps, Vi thought, and the words sounded as though they had passed through her lips. His ethereal presence shifted, slightly, as though his chest rose and fell with a sigh.
“Will you ever free me from this torture?” he lamented softly. Vi felt it as though he’d whispered it right into her ear.
The words rumbled through her. They were deep, contemplative. Full of a profound emotion Vi wasn’t even sure she could name. She wanted to twist, to see him, to hold him, to touch him. She would burn away his sorrows and reveal the brightness that only he contained.
But he wasn’t truly there. There was only darkness surrounding her; every passing moment had him drifting further away from her. He was always fading in and out of her life, like a weak pulse that vanished the moment she put her finger on it.
He may have never been there to begin with. Yet she could still feel his skin on hers. She could still feel the rough embroidery of his coat under her hands. There was a phantom memory of feeling things she’d never touched, so perfect she wasn’t even sure what was real anymore.
* * *
Vi opened her eyes slowly, blinking into the light.
It was dawn. When had night become day? She turned her head, feeling soft hands pressing into something uncomfortably squishy.
The someone pressing was Ginger, and the uncomfortably squishy was a section of her body that was where her ribsshouldbe.
“Oh, Mother, princess, that’s the second time you’ve scared me half to death!” Ginger nearly jumped out of her skin the second she saw Vi’s open eyes.
Vi continued to look around. Her hands rested on her quilt; the feather mattress she’d always laid in was soft underneath her. The portraits of her family stood on the dresser, and her box of letters was on her bedside table… This was undeniably her room.
“Do you feel pain?” Ginger asked again. At least, Vi thought it was again. Her mind was still sluggish.
“No, I don’t,” she wheezed. “Discomfort, but no pain.” Why did her voice sound that way? Vi pressed her eyes shut and in the darkness behind them saw the glowing eyes of the man at the other end of the bridge. “We’re not safe.”
“Princess,no, I must insist, you cannot sit right now.” Ginger pushed her back toward the bed. “You’re young, and you received treatment promptly… You’ll be back up and about in no time flat. Even your face will get back to normal. But, Mother, child, give it at least a day. I’m a cleric, not a goddess.”
Vi allowed herself to sink back into her pillows. The haze was beginning to lift. A dullness still lingered on the edge of her mind, but Vi blamed it on whatever potion Ginger had forced down her throat when she was out.
If she was lying in bed, it meant she hadn’t died—simple deductions first. That meant, somehow, she was saved… The arms. Her face meeting the tree. Vi winced, raising a hand to her bandaged head, the echo of a terrible crunch in her ears.
She was alive. That also meant the red-eyed man hadn’t come back to finish the job. Like the saddle, he’d done his work in the shroud of night when he thought himself most likely to elude capture, vanishing in time to fade into suspicious coincidence by morning.
“How bad is it?” Vi asked, watching Ginger rub salve over her abdomen.
“As bad as you’d expect. But a whole lot better than dead. Which, were it not for Andru, you would’ve been.”
“Andru?” Vi wheezed, barely moving her lips.
“He was out, he saw you fall. The man nearly fell out of the window himself catching you. Popped both his shoulders pretty badly, too,” Ginger said, as though she could read her mind. “Promise me the rest of the day in bed, no unnecessary ventures, bathroom only. You can take dinner here. I’ll check you in the morning and hopefully give you the all-clear to begin moving, at least around your quarters. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to summon me should you ever need, princess.”
“I will, Ginger, thank you.”
Her cleric hovered, clearly debating something. Then a small, almost conspiratorial smile crossed her lips. “Princess, if I may, who is Taavin?”
“How do you know that name?” Vi tried to ask calmly, so as not to give away the instant feeling of protectiveness. She didn’t even want to share the mere thought of Taavin with anyone.
Taavin. Just the thought of his name, the way it settled with her, told her she’d dreamed about him. But the details of that dream had vanished on waking. Vi couldn’t recall anything.
“You were murmuring it in your sleep over and over.”
Vi felt a heat rise to her cheeks that had nothing to do with her spark.
“It’s normal for girls your age to begin feeling things,” Ginger started. Vi could tell from her tone that shereallydidn’t want to have this conversation. First Sehra, now Ginger. “Even your tutors have noticed that perhaps someone may have caught your eye, given your distractions lately. You’ve been taking more lunches and dinners in your room and, well… They’d suggested that I perhaps speak with you on the—” she cleared her throat “—logistics, of men and women.”
