I look at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Do you honestly think the entire continent is called the Dark World? We may have lost our light, but we haven’t lost our history. Similis isn’t the center of the world as they teach you to believe. There are places in Ferusa, and beyond that breathe and thrive, even without electricity.”
I mull this over as I tie the final knot and lean back to inspect my work. Rough, but the wounds are closed and that’s about as much as I can ask for. Pleased, I dip a new cloth into the stream and gently begin to wash away the dried blood around the wounds. Shaw flinches back, staring at me as if I have three heads. “You don’t have to do that,” he says awkwardly.
“And I suppose you can do it yourself? Rip your stitches open and pass out again? A lot of help you’ll be to either of us,” I bark. Shaw swallows roughly but allows me to continue without further argument. “Who was taken by the Achijj that you’re willing to sell me for?”
“I would never sell anyone. His name is Denver.”
I find my rancor slightly soothed at the pronouncement that there are at leastsomelines Shaw isn’t willing to cross. “And he’s your father?”
Shaw is silent so long I don’t think he’ll answer. Finally, he says, “Not by blood. But he is important.”
I open my mouth to retort that this is obvious, what with his willingness to kidnap me for the sake of this person, but Shaw shakes his head. “Not just to me, but to Ferusa. He can bring light. He might be the only person who can.”
Shaw shivers as I run the cloth absently over his chest, considering his words. I’ve never thought of the Dark World as a living thing, as something that could change and grow. Something that could be better. I’ve only considered it from beneath a Similian lens, as something different and therefore as something wrong. But what if, just like people themselves, it is capable of so much more?
With a start, I realize that Shaw’s skin has been clean for a few moments, and I am still staring at the wound.
Or more accurately, where Shaw’s woundswere.
I gasp, dropping the cloth in alarm.
I run my hands impulsively over the expanse of his caramel skin, blinking in disbelief. Because where only moments before angry wounds mottled his shoulder and chest is now only smooth, unmarred skin.
ChapterTwenty
Shaw
My shock is reflected in Mirren’s eyes. In the drop of her lips. Minutes before, I wasn’t even sure I would survive the night, never mind the exceedingly high chance of infection and the probability of never regaining the full use of my shoulder. But now, my shoulder is whole and unblemished. It doesn’t even smart as I roll it. The only sign that anything was ever amiss is a pale sliver of skin where Mirren stabbed me.
Because it’s new skin. Somehow, I actuallygrewnew skin.
I must have lost more blood than I thought.
Mirren closes her mouth, gathering herself. Under other circumstances, I’d enjoy the avid way she stares at me, but as I follow her gaze to my chest, all words die on my lips. It isn’t just my shoulder that’s healed. It’severyinjury. I extend my leg and my knee no longer smarts, something that has plagued me since I was ten when a fellow soldier shattered my kneecap during a sparring lesson.
Mirren lifts her eyes from my skin, bright emerald through sooty, dark lashes. They remind me of the sparkling southern seas that surround Tahi Okua, Max’s home.
“Where…how…” Mirren appears to have lost her words, a miracle, considering the way she usually struggles to keep them from battling their way out of her mouth. “How do you feel? Do you still feel dizzy?”
I shake my head. The threat of blackness that’s edged my vision since we left Cullen’s camp has faded, along with the nausea and tremors. I feel better than I have in months. Or maybe ever. “I feel amazing. Better than before.”
Her eyes narrow suspiciously. “Are you—” she hesitates.
“Am I what?”
“Are you…can you use magic?”
I bite back a laugh at the absurdity of the idea and instead, just shake my head, still staring at the smooth skin of my side. An odd sense of regret threads through me. My body is decorated with scars from years of pain, but I think I would have enjoyed the scar from Mirren’s knife. I could have pictured the flush of her skin and the way it felt to have her pressed against me every time I looked at it.
I shake my head. She is not for me and the sooner I remember that the better off we’ll both be.
“No one canusemagic, Lemming. It doesn’t work that way.”
She crinkles her brow, her fingers trailing over the space of skin I was just examining. I shiver, and then curse myself for such nonsense. They are only fingers, same as anyone else’s.
“The magic of the Dark World,” she shakes her head, “of Ferusa,” she corrects with a ferocity that brings warmth to my chest. I like the name of my world on her lips. “It’s just a myth then?”
