I follow Brevan’s directions to the lower levels, where the servants’ quarters are. He has a room at the end of the hall. I help him inside and get him seated on the thin mattress.
“What do you need?” I ask.
“There’s a bottle in the drawer.” He gestures to a nightstand.
I open the drawer and remove a small green bottle, uncork it, and pass it to him. He downs the entire thing in one gulp. Then, he screams and leans down so his face is on his knees. When the scream ends, he remains folded over, panting.
I sit next to him and set my hand on his back. “It’s alright, you’re going to be fine. Tell me what you need.”
My hand is wet and when I pull it away, it’s covered in blood. I lift his shirt and find blood smeared across his back. Black gift marks form shapes that are obscured by all the blood on his back. There’s slices across the skin. Like someone dragged a very sharp knife from his shoulder, diagonal across his back tohis hip. They come from both shoulders, varying in size but all oozing blood. I grab the blanket from his bed and press it against his back.
He hisses. “I’m fine. Leave me.”
“You’re hurt.”
“I can handle it.” He tries to sit, but grunts in pain and remains doubled over.
“Let me help,” I say. “It’s the least I can do.”
I rush to a small chest of drawers, where a water pitcher sits next to a ceramic cup and basin. I fill the cup, then set it next to the bed. Next, I find one of his tunics hanging in the wardrobe and bring it over to him. I pour water on the tunic and begin to wash away the blood.
The good news is that the bleeding is easing, as I clean, but not completely. I rush to get another tunic to press against the wounds. I can’t cover all of the cuts at once, so blood slides down his back from the uncovered parts. His original tunic is still pushed up around his neck, soaked in blood.
It takes a long time for the blood to stop. Once it does, I clean the cuts as best I can. The wounds remain, though. Angry and swollen. His whole back is covered in his gift mark, but with the injury, it’s difficult to make out details. I force myself to look away. It’s only on display because he was hurt while saving me. “There. I think it’s done bleeding.”
“There’s ointment in the drawer.”
I find the jar of creamy white paste in the nightstand and scoop some out with my fingers. When I slather it over his wounds, he tenses but remains quiet.
“You should take off this shirt,” I say. You need a clean one.”
“You’re just trying to get me out of my clothes again, aren’t you?” he says, but the joke falls flat. He’s trying to play off his pain, but he’s clearly still hurting.
“How did you know?” I tease, hoping to raise his spirits. “Now, hold out your arms. I’ll pull it off.”
He obliges but hisses out a strained breath as I remove the blood-soaked shirt and toss it on the ground. The dark lines swirl across his chest, down his arms, and around his ribs to his back. I wonder if all the god’s gift marks look like that.
“I can take it from here,” he says.
I hand him a clean tunic, and he winces as he tugs it on.
“How did you get those cuts on your back?” I ask.
“It happens any time I use certain aspects of my magic,” he says.
“That light. That was you. What was that?”
“A defect,” he says.
“It didn’t look like a defect.”
“I asked for shadows, just like everyone else. Instead, I got something else,” he says.
“Is that why you’re the enforcer? Because of the magic you can do?”
“No. I’m not supposed to use that magic,” he explains. “It’s because of other things I can do. And, I suppose, because I’m loyal.”
“Why didn’t you just fight them off?” I ask. “I’ve heard stories about you. You could have taken them.”
