I look at her, finding the knight sitting up straight, her chin tilted haughtily, full mouth twisted into something sly. My heart does a strange little flutter in my chest. The Lupa Nox manages to make her dungeon chair look like a throne.
I am spellbound by her witchery—the long lines of her legs, the broad width of her shoulders, the gleam of her black hair in the candlelight. Hands lift the stool and healer’s kit away from me, and I barely even register the guardsman as he places it in front of the knight’s chair. Doubt skitters through me, teeth bared. It’s just as I feared—the sin embedded so deeply in me is reaching out with both hands for this creature of darkness.
“How did you draw the short straw?” the knight inquires, her eyes inquisitive as they meet mine.
“What do you mean?” I ask, because my mind is still so addled and reeling, because everything is too much and I am not nearly enough.
“To end up taking care of me?” she asks, one eyebrow arching. “How’d you end up with that shit job?”
Her use of profanity unsettles me further; improper language is frowned upon by the Church, particularly when spoken by women. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a woman speak like her.
I swallow hard, unfolding the healer’s kit across the wide surface of the stool. “I’m a foundling, and my mother was likely a heretic,” I offer up, though I have no idea why; it’s a truth I barely even allow myself to entertain. And yet here I am, extending it to our enemy like a bouquet. I lean onto my useless leg until my hip screams in pain. The abject misery razes my mind like locusts in an orchard, until no more sinfully ripe fruit hangs tantalizingly from the boughs.
When I dare to look back up, the knight’s eyebrow has arched even higher, something like amusement tugging at the edges of her mouth. “A heretic’s daughter,” she murmurs, something I can’t identify in her tone.
“May I begin the examination?” I ask, barely pushing the words out of my mouth. “It won’t hurt. I just want to check your wounds and bruising.”
The knight’s gaze dips down my frame, the feeling of it like amber honey—thick and rich and sweet. All at once, I am suddenly in my body, my soul slamming back into my bones so hard it leaves me breathless. My stomach somersaults and heat rises to my face, a bonfire throbbing low in my belly.
Her dark eyes return to mine, and the bonfire spreads up into my chest. “Who could refuse you?” the knight wonders aloud, head tilting to one side. The candlelight catches the black tattooing that spirals up the side of her neck in elegant loops like a labyrinth—disorientating and beautiful.
For some reason, I can suddenly feel every place my dress presses against me, all the places it tucks and restrains, the weight of my hair across my shoulders, every mark left by theflail yesterday and the cool, damp air on my skin. It is as though the world has magnified every sensation it might offer.
I clear my throat, not trusting my words, and approach. Touching her—even through gloves—feels so different now that she’s awake and speaking, now that she can look at me with those eyes. I do not know where to begin—her powerful hands, the expanse of her collarbone, the bruising on her muscular abdomen, the wound at the crown of her head? All options feel impossibly dangerous.
The knight looks at me, her mouth twisting into something unkind—like she knows precisely the reason for my hesitation and is enjoying the chance to watch me flounder. I straighten my spine and set my jaw.
“Your hand, please,” I ask, reaching my own forward. “I didn’t have a chance to bind and set your broken finger yesterday.”
For a long moment, she just watches me, those eyes glittering, and then she uncurls her hand—as much as she can, anyway, given her restraints. I force myself not to hesitate as I take it. Her palm is much larger than mine, fingers long and capable with calluses from anni of swordsmanship. Her fawn-brown skin is warm to the touch. I set to work, praying fiercely in my head all the while, addressing Saintess Lucia out of habit.
When I set the bone, I expect a gasp of pain, or perhaps a cry just barely bitten back; even the greatest Host warriors react in such a way. But the Lupa Nox only offers a sharp, deep inhale. Despite such a mild reaction, a strange kind of guilt consumes me. Some forbidden reflex demands that I comforther. The Lupa Nox. The murderer of my people.
I drop her hand like it’s burning me. With an exhale, I look up at her, heat racing through my insides as I realize exactly how close we are. Just as I feared, the knight’s attention hasn’tstrayed from me. Most of my patients avert their gazes by choice. Not this one. Not the Lupa Nox.
“I’m worried about internal bleeding,” I tell her, taking a step back, nearly tripping over my cane. “Would you be able to lift your blouse?”
By the Saints, shegrinsat me, exposing straight white teeth. My heart thuds against my breastbone. “Anything for you,” the knight murmurs in a low, husky tone that does something to me I cannot explain.
I stand there, suspended, every single vein in my body pounding, as the Lupa Nox’s hands—despite being bound together—move deftly toward the hem of her shirt. All at once, I remember that moment peering into the mirror yesterday and heat gallops across my face. She must notice, because her grin broadens just as she exposes her ribs and then her sternum, pulling the fabric up without a stitch of self-consciousness until nearly her entire chest is bare, minus a slim breast band that conceals little.
With the help of my cane and the stool, I lean closer, trying to ignore the way the blood pulses in my throat. My head feels like it is stuffed with cotton, and for a long moment, I can’t decipher between the tattoos covering her skin like an illuminated manuscript and the shades of bruising I was worried about yesterday.
As I begin to make sense of the designs inked onto the knight, my heart ceases its pounding for so long I fear I might faint. And then it all comes roaring back in at once—the candlelight and the knight’s rich skin and her glittering eyes and the flower tattooed across her chest. A tall, proud plant, its stem more like a sword, with a crown of star-shaped buds.
Asphodels.
Chapter 10
Iam at least half in the dream-world, my mother lingering just off-frame, the summer sun palpable on my skin, and I swear I feel warmed stone against the backs of my thighs. The perfume of those pale petals drifts across my senses—damp earth and honey, a sensual skin musk lurking beneath, all petrichor and spice.
My heart skips in my chest as I realize it is the Lupa Nox’s scent I am inhaling into my lungs, drowning in, like a fly caught in amber. The candlelight is low, the dark iron chandelier above our heads extinguished for the sake of not channeling more Mysterium that the knight before me might corrupt.
I step away from her, tongue thick in my mouth, bees buzzing in my skull. “Guard,” I say, wondering if I’m slurring my words, “is it possible to light the chandelier?”
“The Mysterium, Miss,” one replies with a shrug, gaze drifting to the Lupa Nox.
“How is she supposed to treat my wounds if she can’t see them?” she demands, her breath ghosting the side of my face as the words unfurl from her mouth.
