Page 65 of The Summer Pass

“They don’t really ‘run around,’ as a rule, Zashian princesses.”

Vanu snorted. “This one does.”

“I can’t wait to meet her. So, ‘To Her Gracious Highness Artamiya Daughter of’—Would you like me to write it?”

“Would you? I’d get Atari, but she’d do it like it was for a princess in one of her books. And I write Zashian about as well as I speak it.”

But he’d been writing the letter himself all the same, which Lill liked. And it would have been a good letter; Vanu was so competent about everything he put his hand to.

“Of course I’ll write it for you.” Lill struggled, embarrassingly, to sit up. Vanu assisted him by scooping a hand under his back and gently pushing him upright, as if he were an infant.

“So what do you want to tell her?” Lill balanced the tablet on his own knee and wrote out the formal greeting for the princess. “Don’t talk out loud,” he added. “You’ve got both hands free now.”

Vanu brushed his knuckles down Lill’s cheek, a tiny touch, and Lill shivered.

“I missed your fussing,” Vanu signed.

“It’s just … earlier, you sounded a bit … ”

“Yes. My throat hurts. Yesterday I had to get Gurti’s attention from the other side of that fucking thick door. I’m surprised I can talk at all.”

“You had to … ” Lill stared at him.

“You don’t remember it. You were dying in my arms.” He signed the last sentence very quietly.

Lill knew what he wanted then. The need to climb into Vanu’s lap and kiss him was so overwhelming he almost did it, in spite of all the people in the cellar around them. But it wouldn’t have stopped there; he didn’t want it to stop there.

He looked back down at the tablet where he had written the formal greeting to Princess Artamiya. “Right. So … ”

“Tell her we’re still looking for her father,” Vanu signed, “and we plan to take back the fortress. Also ask her to tell Mikhi that everyone is here and safe.”

Lill began writing. “I could add a postscript for Mikhi in Hawada,” he offered.

Vanu looked doubtful. “Wouldn’t that be insulting to the princess when she couldn’t read it?”

“Oh. True.” That was the kind of attention to protocol that Lill felt he should have thought of, not Vanu. “Silly of me. I … wanted to show off that I can write in Hawada.”

“Consider me impressed.”

Lill bent his head and went back to writing, aware that he was blushing. Vanu watched the progress of the letter over his shoulder. That didn’t help.

“Your writing’s pretty,” Vanu whispered, close enough to Lill’s ear that his breath stirred Lill’s hair.

“It’s just regular Zashian court script. Also: hands.”

“You weren’t looking at me,” Vanu signed innocently.

“I am terribly sorry to interrupt,” Padunu interrupted, not looking terribly sorry. He had appeared out of nowhere with a wad of cloth and a bowl. “It is time to change Lill’s bandages.”

“I’ve almost finished this,” said Lill. “I offered to write it,” he added, before Padunu could make any critical comment about using your injured wife to do your correspondence.

“I daresay you did,” the shaman muttered.

The letter finished, Lill lay back with his head in Vanu’s lap so Padunu could change his bandages, washing the wound liberally with the substandard local wine. Vanu took Lill’s good hand in his and stroked his thumb firmly over Lill’s palm. He probably meant it as a distraction from the pain of Lill’s injured arm being handled and moved. It was distracting. Lill closed his eyes.

“This looks good,” he heard Padunu say. The wine stung as it touched the arrow wound, but then it just felt cool. “No sign of infection.”

He was rewrapping the bandages now and repositioning Lill’s arm in a looser sling. Vanu brushed his fingers through Lill’s hair again.