“Drink,” he said. “All of it.”
Dani obeyed without argument, either too tired to protest or simply recognizing the wisdom of the order. The broth was simple, just meat and herbs and hot water, but Jessa saw color returning to her sister’s cheeks with each sip.
He pressed another cup into her hands. “You too.”
The first swallow sent a wave of warmth from her throat to her stomach, chasing away the last lingering tendrils of cold, and she quickly drained the cup. Tarek watched her with an unreadable expression, then took the empty cup from her hands.
“More?”
“Please.”
While he refilled both their cups from a pot simmering on the iron stove in the kitchen alcove along the back wall, she recovered the small bottle of medicine from her bag and made Dani take a dose. Then she leaned back against the bench and really looked around for the first time.
His home was larger than she’d first realized. The main room stretched back into the cliff, its walls smoothed either by time or deliberate effort. A sleeping area was visible through an archway on one side, furs piled high on a raised bed platform. On the other side of the room, she glimpsed some smaller rooms leading off a long corridor, the walls lined with shelves holding meticulously organized clay jars and dried plants.
But what caught her attention were the details. The woven hangings on the walls, their patterns simple but skillful. Heavy furs hanging over what must be windows on the front wall. The carved wooden cups, each one slightly different. A small shelf of books near the fireplace—actual books, worn and well-thumbed. A wooden bowl filled with smooth river stones, placed near the hearth for no apparent purpose except decoration.
This wasn’t just a shelter. This was a home. A life, built patiently over years of solitude.
She thought of what he’d told her on the mountain. Five years of exile, alone in these peaks, and he’d created warmth and comfort out of nothing but stone and determination.
What did you do, she wondered,to deserve such a punishment?
A soft sound drew her attention back to Dani. Her sister had finished her broth and slumped sideways, her eyes closed, and her breathing slow and even. Asleep between one moment and the next, in the way only children and the truly exhausted could manage.
Tarek crouched next to her and pulled another fur over her small body. The gesture was so gentle that she felt her throat tighten.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely, even though the words felt inadequate. “For all of this. For helping us.”
He didn’t look at her. “You needed help.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Silence stretched between them, filled by the crackle of the fire and the distant rumble of thunder. She sipped her second cup of broth and tried to organize her scattered thoughts into something coherent.
We fled. We’re in a Vultor’s den. Dani is sick and exhausted and I have no idea what comes next.
The guilt that had been lurking at the edges of her awareness surged forward, sharp and accusing. She looked at her sleeping sister, so small and fragile beneath the furs, and her eyes burned with unshed tears.
“I shouldn’t have brought her out tonight. We were in a hurry to leave, but I didn’t expect the storm.”
The words emerged before she could stop them, raw and aching.
“It came faster than anyone expected,” he said in that measured tone, neither accusation nor absolution.
“That’s not an excuse.” Her hands tightened around her cup. “She’s sick. She needs rest and warmth and proper care, not—” Her voice broke. “Not fleeing up a mountainside in a storm because her sister was too stupid to have a better plan.”
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice sounded oddly clinical.
“How long has she been ill?”
“Almost two years now. It started as a cough that wouldn’t go away, and then…” She gestured vaguely. “It comes and goes. Some weeks are better than others.”
“Does she have trouble breathing at night?”
“Sometimes. Especially when it’s cold, or when she’s been exerting herself.”
