Alizeh drew a deep, steadying breath.
She knew now that she’d have to prod his memory, and while she suspected that the truth would hurt him,this—him thinking she’d abandoned him in that state—struck her as far worse. If nothing else, her pride couldn’t handle it.
“I never left you,” she said, steeling herself. “I sat there for two hours while you suffered, and I used my own dress to wipe the blood from your face. I begged you to wake up. I begged you to bring us back to the palace—”
“No,” he said, “no, you...”
His voice trailed off as he looked at her—reallylooked at her—his eyes fixing upon the knotted red stain on her gown. Alizeh saw him visibly stiffen, the blood draining from his face.
“Cyrus,” she said. “I didn’t leave you there.”
He was breathing hard now, his body turning to stone before her. He seemed paralyzed by this revelation, astonished into speechlessness. Finally, he said, “That wasn’t a dream?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Fucking hell.” He pushed a hand through his hair and looked away, his body so tight with tension she worried he might break.
“What— What did you think happened?”
“I thought I was in bed,” he choked out. “I thought I was sleeping—”
“But how did you think you got back to bed?” she pressed. “Who did you think took off your boots, or your bloody coat?”
He shook his head. “In the aftermath of these—experiences—I always”—he hesitated—“I often sleep for a time, because it takes me a while to recover. Still I somehow get myself into bed. No matter the circumstances, I manage, in the end, to take care of myself, even if I can’t always remember doing so. It didn’t seem importanthowI got myself in bed—only that Ididget myself in bed. I didn’t question it.”
“I see,” she whispered.
“You were in my room,” he said thickly, “because I brought you there.”
“Yes.”
“And you—” He looked up, distraught. “You took care of me. You washed the blood from my face.”
This was the second time he’d fixated upon this latter point; once while delirious, and now again, fully alert. Alizeh wasn’t sure why. “Yes,” she said. “I used my skirt to mop up the—”
“No,” he said, and shook his head, as if he was remembering something. He lifted a hand to his cheek, his confusiongrowing only more apparent. “No, youwashedmy face.”
Alizeh frowned. “You seem preoccupied with this detail.”
“It’s impossible not to notice the difference,” he said, dropping his hand. “Even when I manage to wipe away the worst of it, I wake up from these incidents with my eyes all but sealed together by the dregs of dried blood.”
Alizeh absorbed this admission like a punch to the gut.
It was the casual way he said it, the nonchalance with which he described something so gruesome, that revealed so much about him. It was confounding to her, how he didn’t seem to care about the blows he took, that he could speak so easily about his own torture.
“I just don’t understand,” he was saying. “How did you wash my face when we had no water?”
At that, Alizeh felt the prickle of something like embarrassment. How could she put into words an explanation that, when spoken aloud, sounded melodramatic to the extreme? At the time she’d seen only a person in need; she’d not questioned the impulse to assist; she’d not thought she might be overreacting. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Nervously, she clasped her hands.
“I did use my skirt to mop up most of the blood,” she said, fixing her eyes firmly on the floor. “But then— Then I used the moisture of my tears to scrub away the sticky residue.”
Cyrus was silent for a frighteningly long beat.
When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, his astonishment palpable. “You cried for me?”
“It has been noted,” she whispered, “that I perhaps cry too much.”
