2 #3

“Clean it and keep it.”

Kaoran nodded.

Enna washed the wound until the liquid ran clear. The new stitches pulled at inflamed skin. Isolde lost count after the third. When Enna finished, she placed a thin drain beside the edge and covered everything with clean bandages.

“The next night will decide,” she said.

“Decide what?”

“Whether we can bring the fever down and stop the wound from seeping.”

Isolde looked for Kaoran. He was washing the forceps; he looked up when he heard her.

“I want someone here when I wake.”

Enna brought a chair to the bed and gathered her instruments. Before closing the basket, she unwrapped the pendant with two fingers.

“I’ve seen this hawk on Caleryon’s banners.”

Kaoran stayed beside the window. Isolde rested her hand on the knife.

“Silversmiths make them too,” she said.

“The silversmiths in Nydel do worse work on the edges.”

The woman covered the piece again.

“The town crier says the heir fell at Cendral. My daughter was there when the guards brought the order. She says the river gave back bodies for two days.”

“What will you tell her?”

“That Kaoran made me climb a hillside to treat a stranger incapable of staying in bed.”

“Why?”

Enna fastened her basket.

“My daughter works in the mine. Varek has sent men to assess every vein and every sack of coal. The people giving orders from Caleryon count our lives as though they were weights on a scale. I won’t give them another.”

Isolde wanted to ask how many men had come, what orders they carried, and who signed the records. The sleep brought by the poppy closed her jaw.

Enna leaned over her.

“If you wake tomorrow, you’ll drink the broth this stubborn man makes you. If you wake the day after, you’ll sit up a little. Next week, you’ll have more strength to hate us.”

“I have enough already.”

“You say that because you haven’t tasted his broth yet.”

Kaoran’s laughter came from the window.

Isolde fell asleep as Enna went downstairs.

For two days, time narrowed to bowls, bandages, and breaths.

Kaoran woke Isolde to make her drink. Enna returned at dawn and dusk, always by a different path. The fever climbed with the darkness and eased a few hours after daybreak. Whenever fire appeared beneath her nails, Kaoran sat outside the circle and counted.

Isolde began counting before he did.

Three in.

Hold for one.

Five out.

On the third dawn, the sheet was dry.

Enna removed the drain. The swelling around the stitches had gone down. The color of the skin still worried her, but she let Kaoran open the window all the way.

Mountain air came in, smelling of pine and distant snow.

Isolde turned her head toward the light. From the bed, she could see a slope covered in dark grass, the edge of the stable, and a line of mountains. There were no towers or banners. A path descended between two stone walls and disappeared into a birch wood.

“What’s your name?” Enna asked.

Kaoran stopped cutting bread.

Isolde watched the path. In Caleryon, her name opened doors and silenced rooms. In Cendral, it had served to sign a sentence. Beneath the water, it had been useless.

“Iria,” she said.

Enna held her gaze.

“That name will do in Nydel.”

“And here?”

“Here, you can use whichever one lets you sleep.”

The woman left before noon. Kaoran accompanied her to the first bend.

From the window, Isolde saw them stop beside the stone wall. Enna set her basket down. She said something the wind broke apart. Kaoran answered with a nod. The woman persisted and pointed toward the house.

Isolde pushed the blanket aside.

She could reach the knife, go downstairs, and listen behind the door. The plan had one difficulty: her legs still lay beneath her as though they belonged to someone else. Even so, she swung her right foot out of bed.

A gust brought the voices to her.

“…if she is who I think,” Enna was saying, “the decree will bring men here.”

“The decree is already bringing them,” Kaoran replied.

“I have family in Nydel.”

“That’s why I told you that you could refuse.”

Enna looked down the path she had climbed. The staff cast a straight shadow on the grass.

“What does she expect to do?”

“Survive today.”

“The young always think that’s very little.”

“Sometimes it fills a day.”

Enna picked up her basket.

“Tomorrow I’ll leave the herbs at the split oak. If I see uniforms, there’ll be a yellow ribbon on the lower branch. A red one if they ask about you.”

“Don’t come back up until we remove the signal.”

“I’ve known you since before you had all that gray hair, Kaoran. Spare me the commanding tone.”

The woman continued downhill. Kaoran stayed beside the wall until she disappeared among the birches. Then he walked all the way around the house. He checked the stones, crouched beside the well, and stretched an almost invisible thread between two stakes. His preparations had the calm of habit.

Isolde remembered the straps, the confluence veins, and the short sword he hung within reach. This house had spent years waiting for danger.

Kaoran entered the stable. Bruma poked her head through the door and snorted when he saddled her. Then he brought out two saddlebags and began filling them with blankets, food, and jars.

The message was clear. If a ribbon appeared, they would leave.

Isolde thought of the room where he had kept objects gathered over a lifetime: a carved box atop the wardrobe, a longsword covered in cloth, three books beside the hearth, a clay cup repaired with staples. Kaoran was willing to lose them for a woman found beneath a mountain.

The debt made her uncomfortable in a way close to fear.

She looked for the water pitcher. To reach it, she would have to lean over. She tried with her left hand first. Thumb and index finger caught the handle. The other fingers stayed open. The pitcher tilted, and a line of water fell onto the floor.

Isolde persisted.

The handle slipped.