“Didn’t mean much by it,” she said.“Didn’t cross my mindyou’d think different, neither.Fucking’s as basic as breathin’ to me.Everyonedoes it.Everyone wants to.”She paused.“You seemed like you did.”
Isaac got back to his feet, fast enough that his legswobbled beneath him.He went through the mnemonics of his warding spell,gathered a purple light in his hands, and spread it over the open ladder.Itremained as a solid film.He could have cast the spell over the entireperimeter of their tower, but that would’ve been far too taxing for his currentstate.The most obvious ingress would have to suffice.
He stayed where he was, looking through the membrane of hisspell.He realized he was waiting.He was waiting with fear and expectation.
Waiting for what?
“Seems you took it different than I intended,” Zariacontinued, her voice almost probing.“Seemed half a world away, afterward.”
His breath caught.
Isaac stood and walked to the opposite end of thewatchtower.He gazed out over the city.It stretched far past what he could seewith the faint cartilage light.All the streets were paved, all the buildingsclose and ordered.It was quite an efficient design.Isaac could easily graspthe layout of several districts, just at a glance.He imagined that space was alimited commodity, here in the chest of a dead colossus.If he had to say onething for a slaving empire, it was that their zoning laws were worthy ofpraise.
Further ahead, he could see the suggestion of skulls, risingabove the roofs and towers.They were utterly massive, stacking one atop theother.Each of them gazed to the sky.
Those were not the necromancer’s thralls.
Was that a building?
“Isaac?”Zaria asked.
He flinched.
“If you want to speak your piece, now’s the time.”
He gripped the battlement.
“It weren’t my intention to hurt you,” she said.“Notpermanent-like, anyway.If I did so ...I’m sorry.”
He turned, ready to say something rash.He stopped.For thefirst time, he noticed she was injured.He hadn’t seen it very well from theside, but a long gash had been torn through the thigh of her trousers, and theblood was drenching the spotted fur of her thigh.Various lacerations adornedher right arm, which was unarmored compared to the left.When she shiftedposition, the way she moved suggested painful bruises.
He had known she was hurt.She had told him as much.She hadshown him the tortures she’d sustained as a prisoner.Even still, the thoughthadn’t crossed his mind....
“Ahem,” Zaria said.
Isaac blinked.
“Typically,” she said, “young sir, when you want a secondround, you use your words.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.His chest was fluttery withnerves, and he could not figure out why.“You’re still bleeding.Why didn’t youbandage yourself?”
“Used ‘em on you, love.”
He ran a hand down the white fabric wrapped around hischest.She’d had to use most of the roll just to apply the barest layer.
“Thanks,” he said, quietly.
“Nothing to it.You had the greater need.Just ...triaging.That’s the word, right?”
“Yes.That’s—” He looked at herwounds again, both the new ones and the spots where he knew the old ones lay.He made a decision.“I can make you a poultice.Soldier’s Rest.It’ll ease the pain, accelerate the healing.”
She blinked.“You can do that?”
He went for his pack, already measuring the herbs in hismind.“Like I said, I can do many things.Some would say useful things.”
“No, Isaac,” Zaria said.“What I mean is—I told you of thetorture and horror I went through before we met.”
“You did, yes.”
