“Different sources. Training accidents when I was young. Fights when I was older. A few from hunts that didn’t go as planned.”
“May I see?”
He hesitated, then extended his arm across the table, but she pushed back her chair and moved to his side, telling herself it was scientific curiosity. She studied injuries and healing in her plants all the time. This was simply... research.
She took his arm in both hands, turning it to catch the light. His skin was warm under her fingers, and she could feel the steady pulse of blood beneath the surface. The scars varied in texture—some smooth and flat, others raised and ridged. She traced one with her fingertip, following its path from wrist to elbow.
“This one’s deep,” she murmured. “Whatever caused it must have nearly reached the bone.”
“A blade. I was careless, and my opponent wasn’t.”
“But you won?”
“I survived. Sometimes that’s the same thing.”
She moved to another scar, this one a cluster of small punctures arranged in a crescent. “These look like teeth marks.”
“Because they are. A mountain cat, defending its territory. I didn’t realize I’d wandered into its hunting grounds.”
“What happened?”
“I killed it.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “It was attacking to protect its young. I understood that. But it would have killed me if I hadn’t defended myself.”
Her fingers stilled on his skin. “That’s sad.”
“It’s survival. The jungle doesn’t care about fairness or morality. You do what you have to do to stay alive.”
She thought about that for a moment, her hands still resting on his arm. The jungle she’d seen from the tower windows had always seemed beautiful—a vast green wilderness full of mystery and wonder. She’d never considered how many things in it might want to kill her.
Is that why I’m kept here? Because the world is full of teeth and blades?
“Are you afraid?” he asked quietly.
“Of what?”
“Of me. Of what I am. What I’ve done.”
She looked up and found him watching her with an intensity that made something flutter in her stomach. His eyes were so green, like the heart of the jungle, like the new growth she coaxed from her seeds. And in them she saw something that made her chest ache—vulnerability. As if her answer mattered to him. As if he was afraid of what she might say.
“No,” she said. “Should I be?”
“I’ve hurt people, Liora. Killed them, when I had to. My hands aren’t clean.”
“Clean hands just mean you’ve never done anything hard.” She turned his arm over, exposing the underside where the skin was softer, the scars fewer. “These tell me you’ve survived. That you’ve fought to stay alive. How could I be afraid of that?”
His breath caught. She felt it in the subtle tension of his muscles, the slight tremor that ran through his arm. And something about that reaction—that evidence that her words affected him—sent a rush of warmth through her entire body.
She didn’t really understand these feelings. She couldn’t categorize them the way she categorized her plant experiments and file them away in neat observations and logical conclusions. They were messy and overwhelming and completely outside her experience.
But they were also wonderful.
“Your skin is different here,” she said, tracing the inside of his wrist. “Softer. The pigmentation is lighter too.” She leaned closer, examining the fine network of veins visible beneath the surface. “I can see your pulse. It’s faster than I expected.”
“Liora.”
“Yes?”
“What are you doing?”
