2 #2

He answered without taking offense. That irritated Isolde for a moment, then left her tired.

“How many people know I’m here?”

“I do.”

“The guards saw me.”

“They saw a woman wrapped in a cloak. The officer may have seen your face. His post will get reinforcements at dawn.”

“Then we have to leave.”

“You wouldn’t make it to the stable.”

“You can carry me.”

“And leave a trail of blood all the way to the mountains.”

Isolde closed her left hand. Her thumb and index finger responded. Her middle and ring fingers barely bent at the first joint; her little finger trembled as it tried to follow. She concentrated until the effort made her forearm ache. The result was still poor.

Kaoran watched.

“The river may have compressed a nerve,” he said. “It could also come from the shoulder or neck. We’ll have to wait for the swelling to go down.”

“Give me a sword.”

“Tomorrow you can ask for a mountain. Tonight, try holding the bowl.”

Isolde threw the bowl.

Kaoran stepped aside. It struck the wall and fell onto the bed without breaking. A few drops remained at the bottom.

“The right hand works,” he said.

She wanted to curse him. The cough came first. Pain closed her throat. Kaoran approached when she began to choke and rested a hand between her shoulder blades. Isolde tried to push him away. Her body had no strength for either effort.

When the fit passed, she found her forehead against his shoulder.

Kaoran held her until she could breathe. Then he lowered her onto the pillow again and picked up the bowl.

“I’ll bring you another.”

“I don’t want another.”

“You’ll be thirsty in a while.”

“Then I’ll ask.”

“Good.”

The answer surprised her. Kaoran took the bowl downstairs and didn’t return.

Isolde stayed awake, waiting for him to come up with water, orders, or some form of pity. She heard him spread a blanket in front of the hearth. A few minutes later, the house fell silent.

Thirst came before midnight.

She waited until her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. The wound burned more fiercely. She could shout and wake the man who had promised to wait. The word formed several times behind her teeth.

“Kaoran.”

He appeared on the stairs with the full bowl. He must have slept in his clothes.

Isolde took it with her right hand. She drank in four stages and managed not to spill.

“Thank you,” she said, so softly that she could pretend the crackle of the fire had covered the words.

Kaoran took the bowl away without comment.

The fever worsened at dawn.

Isolde woke inside the mountain.

Her feet stood on damp stone, and her hands were covered in black scales. A vast chamber opened before her. Chains of blue light descended from the ceiling and encircled a neck she could never see in full. Each link pulsed with a human voice.

One repeated her father’s name.

Another spoke Maelia’s.

The third carried Darian’s voice.

An eye opened beneath the rock. In the dream, Isolde recognized Ydrael with the certainty she had lost upon waking after Cendral. She reached toward the imprisoned neck. The voices of the chains mingled, and one command always came in Darian’s tones.

She wanted to ask the dragon what she was seeing. The scene changed before she received an answer: the eye grew distant, the chamber narrowed, and Isolde’s fingers sank into a wet bandage.

Isolde moved toward him. The chains pulled at her fingers. When she tried to touch them, the blue light entered through the wound in her side.

Kaoran’s house burned.

She woke sitting up in bed, with the blanket in flames and the air warped by heat. The shutters banged against the wall. The circle of ash had disappeared beneath a red line running toward the floor.

Kaoran stood beside her. He wore a damp shirt over his mouth and held both her forearms away from the wound.

“Look at me.”

She saw the ceiling black with smoke.

“Look at me, Isolde.”

The use of her name opened a crack in the delirium.

“The chains.”

“You’re in my house.”

“They’re draining him.”

“Ydrael?”

Isolde felt the question as an intrusion. The fire grew around the bed.

Kaoran released her right arm. He showed her the stone beside the bed and slid a board toward her so she could rest her hand on it without leaning over.

“The ground takes heat. You did it yesterday with the wet earth.”

Isolde looked into the gap between the board and the flagstones. There was a red vein, barely visible through the smoke. She managed to follow it with her eyes.

“The shirt,” she asked.

Kaoran took the wet cloth. Isolde closed her fist.

The flame gathered in her palm. Kaoran wrapped her hand in the wet shirt and brought it slowly toward the stone floor. The heat traveled down through the red veins. The house creaked. A roof tile fell outside.

“Three in,” he said. “Hold for one. Five out.”

They breathed together.

The fire took a long time to obey. When the last flame died on the blanket, Isolde felt an icy emptiness beneath her ribs. She collapsed forward. Kaoran caught her against his shoulder and laid her on her side.

The bandage was dark.

The fifth stitch had given way.

Kaoran moved the cloth aside and touched the surrounding skin. His expression changed.

“What is it?”

“The infection has spread.”

“Close it again.”

“I need to clean inside.”

“Do it.”

“I need someone with a steadier hand than mine after a sleepless night.”

Isolde caught his wrist.

“You said no one knew I was here.”

“Yet.”

“It stays that way.”

“If it stays that way, you won’t see another night.”

“You can’t bring anyone.”

Kaoran looked at the hand holding him. Two fingers hung limp.

“I know someone in Nydel. She knows how to close wounds and keep quiet. I can bring her before dark.”

“What if she recognizes me?”

“She’ll decide what to do with what she sees. I can’t give you control over her will.”

“Then no.”

Kaoran laid the clean cloth over the bandage and pointed to the spreading stain.

“Enna knows how to find a fragment beside a bone. I need her hands.”

Isolde looked at the knife on the chair. The door was behind Kaoran. If someone else came, she would have to let them cross that threshold and approach while she was defenseless.

“What will you tell her about me?”

“That I found a wounded woman in Cendral.”

“She knows the decree.”

“She’ll have heard it. She may suspect when she sees you.”

Isolde pulled at his wrist. Pain filled her mouth with saliva; it took a while before she could speak again.

“If she tries to leave, you could lock the door.”

Kaoran stopped preparing the cloths.

“She has family in Nydel. She’ll have to decide whether to come up here and when to go back.”

Isolde clenched her fingers around the mattress. A few hours ago, she had demanded to be released. Now she was planning to lock in a stranger whose skill she needed. She watched the staircase until the impulse weakened.

“Tell her she’ll have to explain what she’s going to do.”

“I will.”

“And I want to see her before I drink anything she brings.”

Kaoran brought the water to her good hand. They agreed he would return by the stable wall and knock twice on the door before coming in.

“Go,” Isolde said.

Kaoran took less time than he had promised.

He returned in midafternoon with a short, broad-shouldered woman whose gray hair was gathered beneath a scarf. She carried a wicker basket in one hand and a staff in the other. The mud on her boots showed that she had come up without a horse.

“Enna Vael,” Kaoran said from the doorway. “This is the patient.”

“I can see she’s breathing,” Enna replied. “That gives us something to work with.”

The woman left her staff beside the bed and moved the burned blanket aside. Her eyes were dark, attentive, and little inclined to ask permission with words. Isolde raised the knife before she could touch the bandage.

Enna stopped.

“I want to know what you’re going to do.”

“Open two stitches. Take out the dirt. Look for metal with forceps. Wash it with boiled wine and bark. Close it again if the flesh will allow it.”

“How much will it hurt?”

“A great deal.”

“What can you give me?”

“Poppy. With that fever, a high dose could make you stop breathing. I can give you a little and wait for it to take effect.”

“How much control will I keep?”

Enna looked at her more carefully. Her eyes moved from the knife to the wrapped pendant, then back to Isolde’s face.

“You’ll know where you are. You may see things that aren’t in the room.”

“I already do.”

“Then you’ll recognize the way.”

Isolde lowered the weapon.

“Do it.”

Enna heated water, ordered Kaoran to clean the table, and examined Isolde’s hands while the infusion steeped.

“These two fingers aren’t receiving much of a signal,” she said, pressing beside the wrist. “Do you feel this?”

“Pressure.”

“Pain?”

“A little.”

“The nerve is angry. Give it time before you declare it dead.”

“I need to use a sword.”

“You need to be alive next week.”

Kaoran hid something like a smile as he laid out the instruments.

“If you’re getting along so well, I can go downstairs,” he said.

“You’re staying,” they both replied.

Enna gave her the infusion. It tasted of sweet mud and numbed her tongue. When the woman opened the stitches, Isolde felt the first incision precisely. The second came from far away. Kaoran set a board beside her right hand for her to grip.

The forceps went in.

Isolde returned to the river.

Water filled the room and made Enna’s hair float. Kaoran wore her father’s face. The lamp became Ydrael’s eye. The voices of the chains repeated numbers, village names, and quantities of blue stone.

“There’s something here,” Enna said from an impossible distance.

The forceps scraped a rib.

Isolde bit the board. Fire spilled from her hand and left a dark mark on the wood.

Enna drew out a triangular piece the size of a fingernail. She dropped it into a bowl. It rang like metal.

“Blade tip,” Kaoran said.

Isolde recognized the black gleam of Varek’s blade. He had driven the dagger beneath her ribs; afterward, Darian had pressed a bandage against that same wound and bound her wrists. Relief and restraint returned together whenever Enna moved the cloth.

“Keep it.”

“It’s covered in pus,” Enna said.