"What did he look like?" Lurok asks, his voice deceptively calm.
"Grey scales the color of iron, black hair, and amber eyes with a heavy brow ridge."
"Your description could be one of several naga," Lurok says, his jaw tightening. "You would recognize him again if you saw him?"
"Absolutely."
He selects a small glass vial filled with pale blue liquid from the healer's kit. "This will clean the wounds," he explains, uncapping it. The sharp, medicinal scent reminds me of frost-mint and something deeper, more primal. "It will sting."
"I can handle stinging," I say, almost smiling despite everything. After what I've endured, a little sting seems trivial.
But when he pours the first drops onto the worst of the burns circling my wrist, I gasp. Stinging is too mild a word for the lightning bolt of sensation that shoots up my arm. I bite my lip to keep from crying out, tasting copper as my teeth break the scabbed split there.
Lurok freezes instantly. "I can stop."
"No," I manage through gritted teeth. "Keep going. Just... maybe a warning next time."
The ghost of something almost like a smile touches his severe mouth, there and gone so quickly I might have imagined it. "Warning: it will hurt more before it hurts less."
True to his word, the next application sends fresh waves of agony through me, but I'm prepared this time, breathing through it in measured inhales and exhales. Lurok works methodically, cleaning each burn with careful precision. His massive hands, capable of crushing his enemy, now move with surgeon-like delicacy over my skin, never applying too much pressure, never causing more pain than necessary.
I study him as he works, noting the intense concentration in his pale eyes, the careful control in every movement. Up this close, I can smell him, something mineral and exotic, like sun-warmed stone after rain, with undertones of a spice I can't name.
He selects another vial from the kit, this one filled with a golden liquid. "This will accelerate healing and reduce pain," he explains, unscrewing the lid to reveal a substance with the consistency of honey, glimmering with tiny flecks that catch the light.
When he applies it to the first burn, I nearly sob with relief. The pain vanishes instantly, replaced by a pleasant warmth that spreads outward from the point of contact. I watch in amazement as the angry red of the burn seems to fade before my eyes, the blistered skin smoothing slightly.
"What is that?" I whisper, transfixed by the near-immediate results.
"Nectar from a krystis bloom," he explains, his touch impossibly gentle as he traces each burn. "The plant grows only in the darkest caverns. Our healers harvest it when it opens once a season.”
His fingers move to a particularly painful burn high on my shoulder, requiring him to lean closer. His face is inches from mine now, close enough that I notice details I missed before. The tiny scales that edge his jawline, finer and more delicate than those covering his body, the faint vertical scar that bisects his lower lip, almost invisible unless viewed this close.
"This one is deep," he murmurs, his breath warm against my skin. "It will scar unless properly treated."
His touch is featherlight as he applies the golden liquid, his fingertips warm against my skin. I watch his face: the furrow of concentration between his brows, the careful press of his lips, the gentle exhale when he finishes each burn. These are expressions I've seen on our healer’s face when she dressed my childhood scrapes.
"Hold still," he says, reaching for a particularly nasty burn that disappears beneath the torn neckline of my dress. His fingers hesitate at the edge of the fabric. "I need to see how far this extends."
My cheeks flame with heat that has nothing to do with my injuries. With trembling fingers, I tug the torn neckline down just enough to reveal where the angry burn disappears beneath the fabric, curving dangerously close to the swell of my breast.
His expression hardens when he sees it, jaw clenching tight enough that I hear his teeth grind together. The air around us stirs again, a cold current that raises goosebumps across my skin.
"I should have been there," he says, voice so low I barely catch the words. "I should have protected you from this."
I meet his gaze, surprised by the guilt I find there. "It was not your fault. You were nearly dead yourself." My fingers hover near, but not quite touching his arm. "I'm just... glad you survived."
For a moment, neither of us speaks. The cavern feels suddenly smaller, the space between us electrified. His gaze holds mine, silver-pale and unreadable, yet somehow seeing too much. The moment stretches between us, fragile as spun glass, until he breaks it with a slight clearing of his throat.
He applies the salve with impossible gentleness, and I find myself leaning closer, drawn to the care in his touch, the safety it promises.
When he finishes with the burns, he moves to the raw rings around my wrists, cleaning away dried blood, applying the golden salve, and wrapping them in soft bandages. Then he notices the raw flesh on my palms. Wounds from gripping the wagon handle for miles through the underground tunnels, pulling his unconscious weight.
"These need attention," he murmurs, cleaning away dried blood and applying the golden salve before wrapping them. He hesitates, then gestures to my knee, where it is crusted with blood from when I fell while hauling him away from Clavenmoor. "That too," he says, voice rougher than before.
I nod once, and he tends to this wound too, his touch clinical yet somehow tender.
I lift the tattered hem of my dress, revealing my injured knee. I wince at the crusted and angry wound. Lurok leanscloser, one large hand steadying my calf while the other applies the golden salve with surprising gentleness, his clawed fingers barely grazing my skin as they work methodically around the circumference of the wound.
