Page 26 of When the Sky Breaks

Sorcha bit her bottom lip, still looking anywhere except at me. Then she nodded.

It went like that for weeks. The longer we were on the road, the sicker Sorcha got. Not that it mattered. We had to keep moving. Eventually, we fell into a kind of awful routine.

She’d throw up her breakfast, try to keep down the pine needle tea, and get on the horse by dawn. Chuckles, loyal to a fault, fussed over her every time Sorcha was sick—ears flat, nosing along Sorcha’s spine. Well before noon, the motion and the altitude would have her nauseous again. She’d struggle through lunch, throw it up in the afternoon once she was back in the saddle, and pass out asleep well before she had a chance to eat dinner.

Nothing seemed to prevent it, so I just helped her clean up every time she vomited and handed her water when I could tell she was getting dizzy. Half the time she thanked me with eyes so wide and trusting I almost thought she was ready to forgive and move on. The other half she glared like a viper.

It was three weeks before the weather really warmed and we were over the mountains into Texas, tracking along the banks of the Colorado River. Texas spring, it turned out, was warm and humid. And very, very muddy. We spent the better part of two days trudging through the grass on foot. And when we made camp that night, Sorcha would not settle. She was trying to act calm, failing abysmally, fingers knotting in her skirts as she fidgeted in place.

“What’s wrong?” I asked eventually, crouching in front of her.

“Something bit me.” Sorcha pulled up her skirt and down her stocking—revealing an engorged tick embedded in her calf, bulls-eye rash already emanating around it. I felt panic flash across my face before I managed to compose myself, getting to my feet quickly but not frantically and going to search through our medical kit.

She was going to hate me for this. Hate.

“How long has that been there?” I asked.

“I don’t know? We’ve been walking through this grass for days,” she replied.

“Ansel!” I called. “You got that fire going yet?”

“Sure. Why?” Ansel asked, getting to his feet and coming over to join us.

“She’s got a tick bite,” I said. “I don’t want it staying in there.”

“So pull it out?” Ansel said, clearly nonplussed.

“Infection risk goes up then.”

“She’ll be fine,” Ansel said. “She’s an Elf. But if you’re that worried, do whatever you think is best. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“She’s twenty-seven. Have you seen the reports from Inner Court healers on how abysmal Elven infection resistance has gotten in the last century? She’s at risk for a dozen tick-borne diseases, would you like me to continue the list?” I said bluntly, slowly heating my knife blade over the fire.

“Eh,” Ansel shrugged, “fever won’t hurt an Elf.”

“We’re not risking it.”

Guilt knotted in my chest as I looked back at Sorcha. She was pale and shaking—clearly terrified. And now I was about to dig a tick out of her leg with a hot knife. I figured this little incident would set back any hopes of proper marital reconciliation by at least a few weeks.

“You’ll be fine,” I said, keeping my voice low, soft, reassuring. “Hold still.” Then I pressed a piece of leather kit into her hands. “Bite on that.”

My hands felt unsteady. I’d done this half a dozen times last summer—for the youngest son of the family I’d worked with in Bratislava. I knew how to be fast and clean. But I’d never done it for her.

“This’ll hurt?” Sorcha asked.

“This’ll hurt.”

I took a deep breath, steadied myself, and put the hot blade to her leg.

I flushed the burned area with water from my canteen, wishing I had an actual disinfectant and wasn’t relying on something I’d gotten out of a spring, and reached up to take the piece of leather tack Sorcha still had clenched between her teeth.

“I’m done,” I said, handing her a rag doused in cold water from my canteen.

“So why does it hurt more now?” Sorcha asked, dabbing the cold water on the back of her neck. She was sweating, shaking all over. I fought back the pang of guilt and anxiety in my gut, then the accompanying urge to pull her into my chest and hold her until it stopped hurting. Right now? If I tried that, she’d be livid.

“Because that’s how burns work,” I said instead. “I’ll get you some willow bark for the pain.”

“Laudanum,” Sorcha countered.