He leans forward, and his hand rests on the table next to my plate.
"Then tell me."
I look at his hand instead of his face. His fingers are still, but they’re waiting.
"Nobody does something for nothing, Rythar."
"I am not nobody."
"I know." And that's what makes it worse. "You’re the one who’s in charge of my entire life right now."
His jaw works. He doesn't move his hand. He lets the silence sit long enough that I start to shift on the mat.
He finally speaks, carefully choosing his words.
"I will ask you a question, Elena. I would like you to answer it."
"What question?" I ask warily.
"In the jungle. When I was bitten," he begins.
I go still, not liking where this is heading.
His eyes don’t leave mine. "Why did you give me the antivenom?"
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
"You knew me as your captor. You knew I had carried you here and would not let you leave. You knew I was dying, and you were the only one who could stop it. You could have let me die." He pauses. "So tell me what ledger you were keeping when you knelt in the mud and saved your captor."
"That isn't fair."
"It is fairer than when I teased you about it."
I look at my hands in my lap. They are shaking again. I fold them tighter so he can’t see.
"I was a medic," I say. "It was reflex."
"You did not stop to calculate," he says. "You did not ask what would happen to you if I died. You did not ask what would happen to you if I lived. You did not bargain. You simply administered an antivenom from your medkit. Why?"
I shrug. We sit in silence in the sunshine, in a place so beautiful and deadly and wild. “I just did it,” I finally say.
"Drenz told me what he said to you afterward," Rythar says quietly. "About what would happen if I did not wake. About who would take the Reach. And you. You did not know any of that when you made the choice."
My throat closes.
"So," he says. "Tell me about your ledger."
I can't tell him that I cared about him as much as I would have cared about any human. The thought is so large and so unwelcome that I can't think about it right now. I look at the table.
"I don't know why I did it," I lie.
"You do."
"Rythar."
"Eat something," he says. His voice has gone gentler. He is letting me off the hook, at least for the moment. "Answers come easier with a full stomach."
He reaches across the table and turns a plate a quarter turn, putting a small mound of something pale and sliced thin closer to my hand. "This is another type of bread."
