Colsar had left to save Shalvar, and it had seemed reasonable then, something I had accepted without question, but now I was here without him, in pain, barely holding myself together, and he was not here to see it or stop it.
Time lost its shape after that. I could not tell if it stretched or collapsed, only that it moved without me.
At some point the pressure eased. The pain did not disappear, but it loosened enough that I could breathe again, my sobs quieting as my body continued to shake against the bed.
“It’s over,” Teorin said, his voice quieter now.
I lifted my head slowly, looking around as the room came back into focus. The weaver was gone.
“I hate crying,” Teorin added. “So stop.”
I almost said something, something cruel, something meant to wound, but the words never came.
I pushed myself upright instead, slower this time, my body still weak but no longer fighting me with every movement, and looked down at my leg. The wounds were gone, and in their place were...marks. Gold, faintly luminous, twisting and looping across my skin in shapes that didn’t hold still long enough to fully understand. They began just above my knee and moved upward, curling along my thigh and continuing higher, disappearing beneath the edge of my underclothes.
“What are those?” I asked.
“They call it weaver residue,” he said. “Whatever of your power wasn’t consumed by the infection rises to the surface.”
I traced one of the lines lightly with my fingers. It felt like skin. Nothing more. “Will they be there forever?”
“Probably.”
I nodded once. “You can leave.”
He didn’t move right away. A knock sounded, and he turned to open the door, returning a moment later with a tray in his hands. A covered bowl. Bread.
He set it down and lifted the cover, and the smell hit me at once, sour and thick, turning my stomach before I could stop it. Fraisah.
The memory came with it. That room, Sevrin’s voice, Yvara’s moans, the taste of vomit and the heat of anger, the list in my hands before Sevrin threw it into the fire. The loneliness. The hunger.
My hands started to shake, and before I could think, I grabbed the bowl and threw it across the room. It shattered.
“Get it away from me.”
“What are you, a fucking child?” Teorin snapped. “We’re stuck on this ship with minimal rations. The fraisah is good for pregnant women.”
“It’s disgusting,” I said, my voice breaking. “I want no part of it.”
The shaking worsened.
“You’re just like your sick brother,” I added, the words coming before I could stop them. “Trying to force me to do things I don’t want to do.”
He stared at me without moving, then turned, crossed the room in two strides, and slammed the door behind him hard enough to rattle the walls.
Silence followed.
I leaned my head back against the headboard, my eyes closing as the ache behind them throbbed in time with the pulse in my chest. My body still trembled, the fever not fully gone, the weakness dragging through my limbs in a way that made everything feel heavier than it should have been.
I missed Colsar.
The thought hit all at once and stayed, pressing in until there was no space left for anything else.
I brought my hand to my stomach, slower this time, more careful, as if I might miss it if I rushed. There was something there. Not movement, not yet, but a faint awareness, a presence that should have felt stronger than it did. It was too quiet. Too easy to doubt.
I swallowed, my fingers pressing a little more firmly as if that might make it real.
It was early. That was all. It had to be. But the thought would not go away cleanly.
