“Then what is that?” she asks, gesturing at my chest.
I glance down and pause.
Fresh blood soaks into my already torn tunic beneath the location of my heart.
“Shirt off,” she commands. “I need to see the damage.”
My brow furrows as I pull off the tunic, puzzled by the wound that rests across my uppermost left rib. I remember a stabbing pain after I jumped away from Graviter Rex, but there was no reason for me to be hurt at that moment.
Petra sets to work, ordering me about—hold this, put pressure on that, stay still, stop moving—and I scowl back at her, focusing my energy on the annoyance of being tended to and away from my confusion about the injury itself.
She’s quick and efficient, making short work of stitching and bandaging the wound.
When she finishes, I expect her to move away, but instead, she remains.
When I look up, I find her studying me.
It’s startling to discover that she’s looking directly into my eyes.
Before Asha made me whole, no human would look me in the eye.
Every part of my beastly countenance was fixed. Hideous reminders of what had been done to me. The humans couldn’t look at me, so I let my hair grow wild and allowed it to fall across the side of my face, reminding them of what I was and what I’d done to give them their freedom.
But now…
Petra contemplates me for a long moment, and I’m reminded that she knew me before I was changed, even if she didn’t know my name or where I came from.
“You’re you again,” she says.
I try to find my voice. “Asha did this.”
Petra gives a nod. “She loves you.”
I’m startled for a second time. I know Asha loves me. Now, that is.
But Asha didn’t love me when she was my captive—which was when Petra knew her—and she shouldn’t have. My power over Asha’s life was too complete.
Love can only live in freedom.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised.” Petra scoffs. “If she didn’t love you, she wouldn’t have risked her life to drag your dying body away from my father’s men. Or fixed your face.” Petra shrugs. “She hated you before that, of course.” She bends to her basket, pushing her instruments back into it. “I hated you, too.”
“I know.”
“You reminded me of him.”
My brother.
More softly, I repeat, “I know.”
She closes her basket but stays crouched beside it, her focus on it, her hands pressing to its top. “When you asked me to healAsha, I didn’t refuse because it would hurt her. I refused because it would hurtyou.”
She looks up at me again, and now tears glisten on her cheeks. “You saved me. You didn’t save him.”
I try to find my voice, but it’s nearly impossible. “He should have lived,” I whisper. “Not me.”
She nods, a harsh movement. “Yes,” she says. “But then you left.”
She rises to her feet, but her face is pale again, and she sways a little. I reach out to steady her, my hands closing around her shoulders. She doesn’t shake me off.
