He sat in the alcove, back straight, while I removed his cloak and jerkin. Beneath, I found a bloody mess. All the stitches had oozed, and some had broken. He must have been in a world of fucking pain yesterday.
This was bad, but not unfixable.
I brought out Thalassa’s moss and vial of coagulating fluid. I cleaned up the wounds with the moss and applied the fluid with my fingers. Dorian flinched and sometimes jerked but remained otherwise silent.
He knew the stakes of too much noise just like I did.
When I was done, I picked up my cloak, flicked it out, and swung it around my shoulders. “Better?”
Dorian dressed gingerly, taking care not to move his arm too far. “Better.” He unclipped and extended the canteen toward me.
I felt a little animal in my thirst; I drank more than I should have, leaning my head back. He didn’t object, didn’t try to stop me. When I handed the canteen back, his hand came over mine to take it. His eyes stayed on me as he drank. Then, brushing a hand across his mouth, he said, “I dreamed about my home as a boy.”
I had pulled my short sword halfway out of its sheath to check it. Now I paused. “Last night?”
He gave a small nod. “We lived in the forest. Lowborn, my mother and me.”
Lowborn. Like me. “But you’re a noble.”
“Living near a throne doesn’t confer nobility.” He stretched out his shoulder. “I expect you of all people would know that.”
Yes, I would. My mother was nobler than anyone I’d ever met. “And the dream?”
He reached for the edge of his cloak still hung over the hedge. “Just like every dream of that place. Something was trying to get inside, and I was trying to keep it out.”
Not someone. Something.
He swung the cloak aside, revealing the Eldermaze. And I was left standing, staring after his raven-black hair and straight back as he emerged out into it.
Who are you, Dorian?
I didn’t have time to ponder it. I stepped out after him, my mind already revolving on the maze and most especially the riddle. It wanted to be solved.
In the days we’d spent inside the maze, I’d been paying attention. I knew we hadn’t retraced our steps—not today, not yesterday, not the day before. And yet again, Dorian stopped us when we neared the thornstalker corridor.
We backtracked. And this time, something clicked.
We always approached the corridor from the same direction. Never on our left—always on our right. Which might mean we couldn’t go around it.
“Dorian,” I said as we walked, “when do you suppose is the least dangerous time to investigate that corridor?”
He didn’t even look at me. “Absolutely not.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“We’re not going out there.” He walked faster, then his steps slowed as if he’d had a softer thought. “The morning, just after dawn. But it’s suicide.”
“And why’s that? I thought thornstalkers came out at night.”
“It’s a hive, Eury. Their nests are there. Their younglings are there. If there’s ever a time they’d break pattern and stir by day, it’d be if we step foot inside that corridor.”
“Don’t you find it strange, how long the corridor is? We’ve come up against it three, four times now without ever crossing it.”
His next step faltered. He kept walking a few more paces, then stopped.
We stood in silence, his back to me. Then he nodded and turned back the way we came.
“Tomorrow morning I’ll have a look.”
