“There, there.” Mirete’s smile was tender but not pitying. “Your body remembers safety, even when your mind struggles to.”
Clasping her hands in mine, I whispered, “Thank you.”
She patted my knee. “Bathe yourself, my dear. Put on something warm and dry. Your spirit will mend faster if your body feels whole.”
I nodded, dazed, and stumbled toward the washroom. When I glanced back, Mirete was moving toward Mav as he peeled off his ruined tunic. The sight punched the air from my lungs.
His skin was a battlefield: deep bruises blooming across his ribs and chest, long claw marks raked down one shoulder, cuts in various stages of healing and rebreaking. The angry gash along his side—the one he’d taken for me days ago—was swollen, new blood drying dark at its edges.
My hands flew to cover my mouth as I bit back a cry.Why would he insist on my being healed first when he clearly had the greater need?
He caught me staring.
“I’ll be all right, princess,” he said, voice low but steady. He tossed me a wry half-smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Go ahead and take that bath.”
I wanted to argue. To insist I stay. But my throat lockedaround the words, and he was already turning to Mirete, baring himself to her hands and her light. I ducked into the washroom.
My bath was quick and clumsy. I scrubbed the stench of Rouzbeh from my skin, watching the water darken with dirt and fear. The warmth should have been soothing, but all I could see behind my closed eyes was Mav’s injuries. The bruises. The blood. The way he had still tried to stand tall, to shield me from his pain. I dressed in my nightgown and returned to the main room as quickly as I could.
The room was empty.
My pulse spiked, a rabbit caught in a snare. “Mav?”
No answer. The walls leaned closer. My breath came too fast, too sharp. Then—on the table—I saw a folded slip of parchment weighted by a wooden spoon.
Quinn,
Gone to Branrir’s chambers to wash. I’ll return shortly.
Please eat.
—M
My knees nearly buckled with relief. Saints above, I hated how easily panic claimed me these days. I sank cross-legged onto the bed and pulled the tray of food closer. Shubre’s cooking smelled incredible—but my appetite was stubborn. I picked at the meal, tearing bread into useless crumbs, forcing myself to sip water because Mav had asked me to eat. Time blurred. The lamp guttered low.
Finally, the door opened.
“Mav,” I breathed, twisting toward him.
He filled the doorway, hair damp and curling, his framewrapped in fresh clothes. His color was better, though exhaustion clung to the slope of his shoulders.
“You are back,” I whispered, stupidly obvious, but I could not seem to stop the words.
His smile was small but real. “Told you I would be.” He crossed the room and sank onto the bed beside me, reaching for a piece of bread. “The food looks good,” he said around a mouthful, as if we had not nearly died.
We ate in near silence, too wrung out for words. The only sounds were the soft clink of cutlery, the occasional creak of the inn’s bones settling around us, and the distant drip of rainwater falling from the tree walks outside. When the tray was mostly empty, Mav rose to take it to the side table.
The lamplight caught on the damp ends of his hair as he moved, on the clean lines of his tunic, freshly laundered and blessedly whole. Miraculously alive. After nearly losing him, I could hardly stand the distance between us. He returned to sit at the edge of the bed, and something inside me snapped.
Before I could second-guess, I leaned forward and caught his face between my hands. My lips brushed his in a question I did not know how else to ask. He inhaled sharply.
Mav pulled away. His hands fell to his sides, his gaze searching mine.
“Quinn.” He breathed my name as a pleading whisper.
“I—” My throat closed. “I thought?—”
“I don’t want this.”
