She ran through the corridors behind them, gathering women with hot water and clean bandages. A whole procession of people led by a black-clad physician, like a harbinger of doom.
The arrow had pierced his gut. If Rovin were on the battlefield, one of his comrades would give him a quick, merciful death with a sharp dagger, and his agony would be over in the blink of an eye. But here in the chambers of the lord’s son and heir, high above the dusty plains, nobody dared mention mercy, even though they all knew the outcome. All but Roderi of Elmar, apparently, who paced the room like a madman, his eyes burning, his hands twitching with the desire to tear apart the first person who brought him the bad news.
As a consequence, they all cowardly feigned to fight for Rovin’s life, pretending not to hear his desperate cries, his pleas for them to stop. They pulled the arrow out and tried to close the wound that kept opening again, bleeding and festering; they poured bitter concoctions down his throat, which did nothing to alleviate his suffering.
Melia watched them from the corner of the room as they gathered around the table where they’d laid him. With their scarlet hands and blood-spattered clothes, they looked like peasants butchering a pig. Maren held him down while he screamed in agony.
“Stop it, please,” Melia muttered softly like a litany, “oh, please, please, stop it, please,” but they all ignored her because her father was watching them with murder in his eyes. She wrought her hands in rage and impotence, telling herself after every scream that escaped Rovin’s lips: She must do something to stop this torture.
There were men crowded in that room, far more powerful than her: venerable physicians, military commanders, her father’strusted advisors. And yet, throughout that endless, terrible night, they all kept their silence and averted their eyes as her brother thrashed and cried.
In the end, Melia had done what her father refused to do—begged Ferisa for help. “Pray to your goddess,” she pleaded, hanging on to the herbalist like a drowning woman. “Make it stop.”
And Ferisa made it stop.
A few drops on Rovin’s lips before dawn. As the wind howled outside, the shadows moved around Melia and a cold breath touched her neck, the smell of marsh plants filling her nose. Shadows slid through the room and people instinctively moved out of the way. Their voices wavered and were cut off like candle flames in the wind. Time slowed down, and all Melia could hear was Rovin’s ragged breathing getting fainter.
Rovin’s dark, tortured eyes found Melia’s face. “Mother,” he whispered. And then he turned his head to the other side. “And you.”
A shadow fell across them, cold and dark. From the corner of her eye, Melia could see a creature standing beside her brother, but she dared not look up. Rovin breathed in and let out a soft, gurgling sound. She squeezed his hand and bowed down to kiss his clammy cheek, and then her brother was gone.
The room around her exploded in light and noise, but she refused to let go of his hand while people crammed around her, bringing in torches, raising their oil lamps to see what was going on, trying to push her away. “Do something,” her father shouted. “Do something!”
But there was nothing to do, not anymore, and eventually, they all picked up their bandages and bottles, their scalpels and bowls, and scurried away until it was just Melia, and her father, and Rovin’s butchered remains between them.
When the first rays of the winter sun crept in through thewindow, Roderi of Elmar lifted his head and looked at his daughter with cold, dead eyes.
“My last heir,” he said.
When Ferisa found her later that day, Melia was huddled like a heap of dirty clothes in the corner of her room, her hands still covered in Rovin’s blood.
“You will avenge him,” she said, taking Melia’s hand.
“Is that what my father wants?”
Ferisa nodded.
Melia didn’t know what to say. She only wanted the pain to go away, and she didn’t know how to achieve that.
She lifted her eyes above Ferisa’s head, to the golden pattern the sunlight had drawn on the whitewashed wall of her room. There was warmth somewhere, and life, far from this endless cycle of death. There were people unburdened by grief and revenge, people who could still feel happiness and joy and hope.
“What if I want something else?” Melia asked, squeezing her callused hand.
“What do you mean?”
She looked at Ferisa’s tear-streaked face. “What if I don’t want revenge? What if I want to forget about it and get out of here?”
“And go where?” She frowned. “Some soft town in the belly of the kingdom where people know nothing about duty and honor?”
The doors of possibility slammed shut. “No,” she said. “Of course not.”
“I will help you avenge Rovin. I will go with you all the way,” Ferisa said and wrapped her hard, wiry arms around Melia.
It was the only solace anyone had offered her that day, and she took it. She let Ferisa brush her tears away. It was better than thinking about loss and revenge. When Ferisa pulled away from her, Melia framed her face with both hands, feeling a desperate need to kiss her dark eyes, to press her lips to Ferisa’s, to tastethe bitter arrowfoil on her tongue.
Ferisa stroked her face. “Not now, little raven, you hurt too much. But I promise I will always be by your side.”
Melia lay in her arms that night, her face salty from the tears she’d spilled. Ferisa’s body was a real, tangible thing in the world of shadows, pulling Melia back into her skin, anchoring her to the moment. Death retreated for a little while, and sorrow hid in the shadows. For one brief, sleepless night, Melia had felt alive.
