The instant this idea strikes, I doubt it. Over the course of my years, I’ve had slip-and-falls, head bumps, stressful things. I think of the Fulcrum, those boys, and what I was still able to see of the dragon’s plight. So fear and anger don’t affect… whatever it is I have.
“Let’s sit you up a little bit more.” He cups my shoulder and does all the work of the repositioning. “And now we get this off.”
I assume he’s talking about my jacket. Instead, he takes off my pack, which I have wholly forgotten about, and then he resettles me.
“There, you should be more comfortable.”
Well, in fact I am. What I assumed were rocks was in fact the contours of the compass and the box. But who really cares about all that. I want to understand why I can look into his—
As he strips my arm out of the baggy sleeve with its fine silver embroidery, a familiar clip-clop suggests an approach, and sure enough, our sweated steed rounds the boulders, his head down low, his ears lax as a dog’s, his feet trudging through the loose gray stones as he still catches his breath from our sprinting.
Turning my head, I hold out my hand. The chestnut glances at Merc, but it comes to me. Meanwhile, Merc is talking to me, and pushing at my arm. I ignore both whatever he’s saying and the brief flares of pain that mark his exploration. Instead, I focus on the horse as I palm the loose reins.
Taking a deep breath, I slowly lift my stare from those frothy, still-flared nostrils, up the graceful bridge of his head… to his doe-ish brown eyes—
Like a crack of lightning, my body is racked with electricity, and my arms and legs stiffen. The barren lakebed disappears, and so does Merc, as I am consumed by the connection with the horse—
For once, there is no pain. There’s just peacefulness. I see no violence, no fire, no blood or gore… only a redolent green meadow, a peaceful pasture, a broad realm tree overhead. The horse is lying down on its side, its hooves and spindly legs curled in, its head slowly sinking to the fragrant green grass. I can feel its heart as my own, and the beats become slower, slower… ever slower. There’s a brief flare of breathlessness, but that passes soon enough.
And then all is still.
Death is kind to this animal, and I can’t help but tear up in gratitude for its destiny—
“Sorry,” Merc says as he pours water on the ragged wound in my skin, “I know this hurts, but we must clean it.”
His words return me to my own timeline, and I release my hold on the reins. “Stop. Water for him. More important.”
Merc looks at me. “You come first—”
“No, he does.”
As our eyes meet again, I’m filled with wonder, but also a confusion that derails me.
“Give him all the water,” I say. “He needs it more than I, and he deserves it for his efforts.”
Merc’s brows drop down in a glower. But then he shakes his head. “You have a thing for salvation, don’t you.”
Shifting away, he makes a basin out of the side of his surcoat and pours the water into the leather bowl. The horse goes in immediately and starts drawing, the two turning into a painting, the man at a kneel, the animal bending down.
Salvation.
I look at the hilt of the broadsword protruding out of the top of its holster, but what I see is the flat of the blade… and my own eyes staring back at me.
I’ve always thought I don’t see my own death because I’m so close to it—and because my survival instinct is so strong that my free will is too disruptive to any final fate, at least at the age I am now. And I think the latter is the key right now. Given the journey ahead of Merc and me, and for however longour destinies are linked, I know I’m prepared to fight for him as I’d fight for myself: Of the many deaths I’ve seen, not once, ever, was I willing to give my own life up for any of the people—or animals—I set my eyes to. Why is Merc different? He’s my protector.
And also maybe it has something to do with what I saw in him as he stared over that field this morning.
By virtue of our circumstance, I’m too close to him, too.
Perhaps, at the moment we separate, if I were to look into his eyes, I’d see what awaits him for his last breath. Until then? His mortal destiny is so inextricably intertwined with my own that the time and circumstance of his grave is not something I’m going to know.
It’s such a relief.
“All right, then,” Merc says. “That’s your fill whether you like it or not.”
He flaps his surcoat, water drops flicking around, while the horse lets out a satisfied groan and shakes its head with a rattle of tack.
“I’ve got a cloth to wrap up your arm.”
