Page 142 of Beds and Blades

Under ordinary circumstances, Skip would have argued with anyone who tried to put him in an infirmary bed. Now he lay back without protest. His eyes found mine.

Through the bond came no fear. No alarm. Only a deep, steady warmth. The quiet certainty of a man who knew he had reached safety and that I was still beside him.

I took his hand while Caen worked.

Her pendant shifted to the blue-white of active healing. Its light moved across his body as she assessed each wound and decided what required her attention first.

The cuts closed beneath her hands. The burns softened from raw red to tender new skin.

Then Caen faltered. Only half a step, but I saw it.

Her free hand caught the edge of the bed. The light in the pendant dimmed, and the color drained from her face. For one breath, her eyes closed as though the room had tilted beneath her.

“Caen?”

“I’m fine.”

A tremor moved through the hand resting over Skip’s chest. She drew a slow breath, steadied herself against the bed, and forced the pendant bright again. The deeper bruising would take longer.

The exhaustion was beyond the pendant’s reach. His body needed time.

So did Caen, though she gave no sign that she intended to take it. For once, time was something we had.

Skip’s eyes closed before Caen finished. The surrender of depletion.

His fingers loosened around mine, but they did not release me. Even asleep, he held on as though I were something he was not yet ready to lose. I stayed until his breathing deepened and evened, and Caen’s pendant returned to its steady blue.

“He will survive,” she said, a faint smile touching her face. “Because you brought him back.”

She set her instruments aside, turned toward me, and opened her arms.

I went to her without hesitation. Caen held me for a long time. I let her.

“I knew,” she said quietly.

This was not the voice she used to deliver information. It was a voice of truth.

“From the first morning. You sat in that chair and asked questions no one had asked me in twenty years of practice. I knew then.”

“You could not have known. I had been here for four hours.”

“I have been doing this for a long time.”

She drew back enough to look at me.

“The pendant helps. But mostly, it is the questions. The right questions, asked in the right order, by someone who already understands that the answers will require something of her.”

I met her gaze.

“I am proud of you,” she said.

The candles flickered around us. Behind me, Skip’s breathing remained slow and even. The pendant rested against Caen’s throat, glowing its steady blue.

She released me, took one steadying breath, and returned to the wounded.

***

I went to breakfast. The mess hall was already full.