My nerves stitched themselves together. She moved onto my wrist. I watched the splotchy bruising fade. The inflammation deflated. The gouged flesh closed. I leaned my head into her matted hair and marveled at her power. I’d been a matter of days from losing my hands, and now there was no trace of that agonizing pain and rot.
“Do you need anything from me, darling?” I murmured.
She wasn’t responsive. What she’d had to do to survive muted that usually sassy mouth of hers, but I knew the fire was still alive within her somewhere. I would fan the flames as she recovered. Re-learned she could trust me. Felt secure in knowing she would never need to do those horrible things again. That wasmyjob now.
Ihatedthe empty feeling of her moving away from my chest to tend to my ankles. I brushed my fingers along the back of her battle-dyed arm. She would be okay. There’d been enough of her left to glare at me and tend to my needs. Vivian was in there still.
I offered the back of her head a soft smile. “Thank you for taking care of me. Let’s take care of you now. Starting with a bath."
I'd done my best to hide Vivian's gruesome handiwork from her view as we made our way to the waterfall. But I’d caught her gazing at the heads on spikes in the distance as we cleaned up. Her stare a mile long.
I hurried us through bathing. It wasn’t intimate or even particularly gentle. I used two hands to wash myself and twoto wash her so we could get back inside as quickly as possible. Afterwards, I scooped her into my arms and tucked her face into my neck while I carried her back to the cabin.
She stood in the kitchen now. Naked, hugging her arms, and dripping on the floorboards as I dug through what food she had left. I threw roots, greens, spices, and water into a pot and covered it to boil. I chopped blackberries finely and scraped them into a bowl. She was catatonic. Her skin looked pale, sickly. When did she eat last?
“Do you want me to talk to you? Or be silent?” I asked as I pumped water into a jug.
She didn’t respond.
“Sorry,” I frowned. “Nod if you want me to talk to you.”
She nodded.
“Okay,” I inhaled, bracing myself. “I’msosorry. I should have never—”
She shook her head.
“No apologies?” My gut twisted in regret. Ineededto apologize.
She nodded.
Alright. If that was whatsheneeded. “Want me to avoid… recent events?” How did I even go about summarizing everything that had gone wrong.
She nodded.
“Sure, darling.” My head bobbed in understanding. I had some trauma education from my time with G.P.O., not to mention a host of communication skills from a decade of bartending. I could do this. I could use my words to heal her. “Can I tell you a story?”
She nodded. Her fingers relaxed slightly from their iron grip on her arms.
My own stories might be triggering right now. I figured the best I could do was struggle through remembering a fairytale instead. Graysen had gone through a phase of reading them—presumably after meeting Faeryn—and left a few books laying around the pub. Sometimes I'd skim them to pass the time when work was slow.
“Alright… Bear with me. Where do I start…” I inhaled; this wasn’t natural to me. “So, Quadmos didn’t always have horns. They were soldiers for the Eastern Kingdom…”
I looked at her for approval to continue. Were soldiers and wars a safe enough topic? She didn’tseemtriggered. And modern “wars” were very different from what they had been all those millennia ago. They shouldn’t be too similar to the current situation.
Breathe,Theo.
Thisanxietywasn’t natural to me, either. I was good at conversation. The moment was just so fragile, and my words felt like a hammer swinging around, threatening to shatter something precious. But there was the slightest twinkling in her eye as I talked. I would keep going to keep that spark alive.
“The Eastern Continent is politically different from the Western Continent. It’s divided into three territories, each ruled by a king. The kings work together now, but there were wars between their ancestors. Mostly over land ownership. Quadmos were good soldiers because they can hold shields in one set of arms and swords in the other.”
I paused to make sure “sword” wasn’t a triggering weapon. She seemed fine.
“The ruler of the coastal territory pushed his army inland. The King of the Gardens, named after his lush kingdom, didn’t want war on his land. He was a Thornian who valued peace.” I internally cringed. Maybe there wassomeoverlap between this story and ours. But her eyes were increasingly attentive and that was enough encouragement to push me forward. “It’s a cultural virtue for their species.”
“Instead of giving each Quadmos soldier two swords and two shields, he gave them each four shields. They lined the border, creating a wall of metal and strength that nobody could penetrate. They held their position for years, food and water was brought by the villagers three times daily. Then one day, the opposing king died of old age. It was over. So, finally, the Quadmos soldiers—nowmucholder and weathered—were able to break apart their barricade and go home.”
I peered at my goddess. I wouldn’t be nearly as pacifistic when protecting our land. Then again, this wasn’t a fairytale war from olden times. This was a covert operation of ruthless strategy, with the lives of the innocent at stake.
