Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64872 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
The room is a blur and a series of creaks as I storm across it.
Quin turns his head with a tight glare, spearing me to the spot a few feet from him. It’s the first time in months I’ve seen his face. That sharp nose, that brow, that defined jawline. Those penetrating eyes. I’m caught between the urge to curse those who dared touch him and the painful swoop of my stomach descending to the floor. His braids. They’ve all been hacked off.
“Who sent you?” Quin’s voice sharpens, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “If you’re here to finish what they started, you’ll regret it.”
My voice sounds foreign to my ears. “I’m your designated healer.”
“Leave.”
He turns his head away as if, with that, I’ll just go. My silly, arrogant king.
I huff, and when Quin looks back, his gaze is fiery.
“Enough,” I say. “Is your chest wounded?” I carefully touch his shoulder and peer down his bruised but less severely damaged torso. My gaze hitches on the flutette around his neck and I struggle to breathe. “Sit. Give me your wrist.”
“I don’t want your aid.”
He’s angry. Suspicious. He has every reason to be.
Placating words won’t win him over. There’s only one way to deal with him . . .
I laugh.
Dark, royal eyes flash.
“Excuse me. Sorry.” I laugh again. “I expected more. Someone who’d cling to life determined to make those who hurt them pay. Someone determined to rise from the ashes. I didn’t expect you to give up easily.”
He growls. “You insolent—”
“I don’t care how stubborn you are. Don’t care if you’re some reincarnation of a god. If your wounds aren’t treated you’ll have, at most, two days to live.”
His jaw twitches and he rips his gaze away from my veiled face. His back rises and falls with his frustrated breaths, and he steers himself into a sitting position on the bed.
I let out a quiet sigh of relief and perch beside him. My new voice is steady, but my hand trembles as I take his wrist and press to read his pulse. Without magic, it takes longer. There’s no light to guide me, no spell to magnify sensation. Just pressure, timing, instinct. I’ve studied hard to feel what I used to conjure. And I use it all now.
His pulse flutters, irregular. Too soft. A whisper beneath bruised skin.
I take out a vial from my supplies and tell him to drink it all. He sniffs it, side-eyes me, and knocks it back with a wince.
“And this one.” I hand over the other.
His brow furrows warily, and I help him uncork it. “Trust me.”
He grunts, but his shoulders drop slightly, and he pulls out a pill. A vein at his temple flickers as he swallows. “What do I call you?”
I pack the vial, cursing myself for not anticipating this.
Quin’s stare begins to narrow, and I blurt the first name that comes to my mind. “Haldr.” I wince. “I’m healer Haldr.”
He frowns at this, and I can’t help but hope that flash in his gaze is disappointment. I clear my throat and stand. “Lie on your stomach.”
I help him swivel and lower himself, feeling the twitches of pain under my fingers at each shift. I use cool water with solispine to carefully wipe away the dried blood around these angry crisscrossed welts. Grit loosens and peels away, but under it the skin is raw and inflamed.
With Quin’s back to me, I lift my veil so I can see better. He doesn’t turn. But a muscle in his neck tenses, as if he feels the shift in the air between us. I unravel my toolkit, take out one of the thin knives my aunt gifted me, and swallow hard.
“I have to cut away bad flesh. Bite down on—”
“I’ll be fine.”
I keep my breathing steady and my hands steadier. The sharp blade cuts into his skin and his muscles stiffen as he swallows a gasp of pain.
He starts counting the carved lines of runes in the timber frame of the bed and I’m hurtled back to saving ‘Nicostratus’ at the riverbank. I’d told him to count to stay conscious. He had.
It was Quin then. Quin who’d saved me from a wyvern, been poisoned, let me tend him; Quin who I’d curled against inside the violet oak.
Quin, who is under my fingers now.
I make precise incisions and stitch the wounds, and I tell him everything I’m doing so he knows what to expect, so that I can focus on facts and not . . . I let out a shuddering breath. “Stay a moment; needs to dry before I bandage you to support your rib.”
With an achy chest, I lean in and blow over his salved wounds. He shifts under the sensation, just noticeable enough to make my breath catch. A quiet inhale and a trembling exhale.
His fist curls into the bedmat.