Page 45 of Kingdom of Death and Hope

My mother thinks the candy is just as delicious as I thought it was, I tell Kieran.

I figured you were going to give it to her and not keep it for yourself. He chuckles. I’m glad you both like it though.

Tell her thank you again. It definitely brightened up both of our days. Though, my day was already brightened just by seeing you, I mumble.

I look away from my mother as my cheeks heat up.

Adeline, he says huskily.

I shouldn’t have said that in front of my mother.

Kieran growls and I take a deep breath, slowly letting it out before I look back at my mother.

“Are you alright?” Mother asks.

I nod, not trusting my voice. Does she suspect what Kieran and I were talking about? How could I have been so naive to say that in front of my mother?

“Are you running a fever?” Mother asks as she walks closer to me. Before I can say anything, she places the back of her hand on my forehead. “You don’t feel hot. Did one of your wounds get infected?”

I shake my head. “No, they haven’t.”

“Let me look at the one on your thigh,” she demands.

Sighing, I pull my dress up and look away, not wanting to see the cut on my thigh. While I haven’t been diligent about putting the salve on it, I have looked at it every once in a while to make sure that it was doing okay.

“When was the last time you looked at it?” Mother asks. “When was the last time you put the salve on it?”

“Last week,” I mumble, wincing.

I haven’t been paying attention to it now that I’m slowly starting to do things again and meeting Kieran.. But I still know it’s there because of the pain I’m in whenever I walk.

It’ll take forever to heal if I continue to neglect it and push myself, but I want to see Kieran. I want to get better as soon as possible so I can forget about everything that happened to me and move on.

Lie.

I’m never going to forget about what happened, but maybe if I try hard enough I won’t think about it as often.

“Adeline Duvall,” Mother scolds me. “You need to pay better attention to your wounds.”

“It’s doing fine,” I say without thinking.

“Adeline, look at it,” she demands.

Clenching my jaw, I look down at the cut.

Shit.

“Oh,” I whisper. “I didn’t realize it was⁠—”

“That’s exactly right. You didn’t realize because you weren’t paying attention to it and making sure that you were healing properly. Last week when?”

“I don’t remember,” I say, closing my eyes to get the horrible sight away from me.

But it’s already engraved in my mind. Red. Swollen. Almost puffy.

My cut is infected.

“Adeline, you need to take better care of yourself. If you don’t then what are you going to do later down the road?” she asks. “You need to think about the future. What if it gets so infected that you have to have part of your thigh cut out and you won’t be able to walk normally? What then?”