Wren gave a strangled scoff. “Am I hurt? Look at you!”
Shrike glanced down at himself again. The black crust of dried blood over the blue-bruised lips of the wound did not appear too grave. The fresher stuff oozing through looked worse than it felt. The glistening scarlet of scored muscle under the skin gave him some pause, but the blade had not carved through to the vitals beneath. He lifted his eyes to direct another questioning look at Wren. “I’m alive, thanks to your sigil.”
Wren somehow turned a shade paler. “It doesn’t seem like it worked at all.”
Shrike gestured along the length of the slice and withheld a wince as the motion pulled at the wound. “His blow ought to have cleaved me in half. It hardly broke the skin.”
Wren barked out a hollow and disbelieving laugh.
Shrike dropped his gaze to the wound, considering. “Though I suppose there’s no way to tell if the sigil or the token saved me.”
“You’re saved,” Wren said firmly. “That’s what matters. And if you think I had something to do with it beyond pure luck, now’s not the time to argue it. What do you have to fix yourself up with?”
Shrike, who’d spent centuries doing all for himself, took a moment to answer. “Bring me that chest beneath the window.”
Wren leapt to fetch it. It was a stout thing carved from oak, fastened and hinged with leather straps, no longer than Shrike’s forearm in any direction. He’d crafted it himself some two centuries ago, though he’d had to replace the leather straps within the last decade and its contents still more recently. Bottles of white vinegar, honey, wormwood, rose and lavender water slotted into compartments beside silver needles, knives, and tweezers, spools of silk thread and catgut. Linen towels lay folded beneath long strips of linen bandages wound into a ball like yarn. A satchel of dried willow bark cushioned several dried poppy pods.
“You’re as well-supplied as any surgeon,” said Wren, a hint of admiration leaking into his dry tone. He picked up the green bottle with a crude image of a snail etched into the side. “What’s this?”
“Snail oil,” said Shrike.
“What.” The disbelief in Wren’s voice removed all trace of a question.
“It’s good for burns,” Shrike explained.
Wren did not appear convinced.
Shrike didn’t feel the need to convince him at that particular moment. “Hand me that vinegar jug. And the linen.”
Wren did so.
Shrike uncorked the jug with his teeth.
“Wait,” said Wren as Shrike moved to splash the vinegar onto his wound.
Shrike paused mid-gesture, keeping the jug suspended at an angle despite the burning pain in his side. He shot Wren a questioning look.
“Let me do it,” said Wren.
Shrike considered the insistent tone in Wren’s voice and the determined set of his jaw. He weighed this against the cold blood trickling down his side, the sharp stab of his cracked ribs with every breath, the ache settling into his back and arms as the fury of the fight wore off, and the burning throb of his wound. After a moment, he returned the linen and vinegar to Wren’s keeping.
“This might go easier if you sit down,” Wren pointed out.
Shrike conceded the point and settled himself on the rim of the hollow-stump tub.
Wren did not flinch from his duty. The vinegar splashed over Shrike’s side, colder than his blood, burning as it cleansed his wounded flesh. Shrike withheld a hiss of pain. It stung, true, but no worse than the initial blow—indeed, a good deal less. And it needed doing. He didn’t want to give Wren any indication to cease, however involuntary.
Another splash of vinegar went over the linen towel in Wren’s hand. Shrike braced himself for the second round of cleansing.
But Wren’s touch as he daubed at the wound astonished Shrike with its delicacy. Small, swift, sure strokes. Effective without being abrasive. And tender in such a way that touched Shrike’s heart as well as his wound. It had been too long since someone had treated his flesh as something worth protecting rather than an obstacle to overcome.
Some minutes later, Wren tossed the soiled linen aside.
Shrike held out his hand. “Needle and thread.”
Wren balked, but Shrike did not have to ask him twice. Though he did watch in open horror mixed with fascination as Shrike, having threaded the silver needle with silk, pinched the lips of the wound together and punctured his skin over and over to pull the thread through and close the bloody gash. It hurt, as it always did, yet it had never before occurred to Shrike that such hurt could mean anything to anyone—never mind how much it seemed to mean to Wren, whose brow grew still more furrowed and whose lips pressed into a thin white line.
Still, Wren said nothing.
