“It is a burn, Captain. It will heal on its own.” She pressed her fingers to her neck, hiding it.
“It is done.”
Her shoulders slumped. “You can’t keep doing that.”
“I can. And I will,” he retorted, covering his confusion with ire.
“I didn’t know your healing came with a cost,” she murmured. “I don’t want you to heal when you don’t have to.”
Realization flooded him. She didn’t want him to heal her because she thought it cost him. For every life he saved, he gave a day of his own. He didn’t know if soothing blisters constituted saving a life, but she was clearly upset by it.
“For all I know, I will live to be a very old man with more years on this land than I know what to do with. That is the one thing about my gift that has never bothered me, the possibility that I might be trading my days away.”
“You are kind,” she said softly.
“I am not kind,” Kjell scoffed.
“And you are good,” she added.
“I am not good!” he laughed.
“I have never known a man like you.”
“You were a slave in Quondoon! The men you knew were not trying to impress you.”
“Neither are you, Captain. Yet I am still impressed.”
“Then you have a lot to learn.”
She nodded slowly, and he was immediately remorseful. Her old master had told her she was simple. She was not simple. She was wise . . . and infuriating.
“Why do I make you so angry?” she asked.
“You don’t make me angry,” he argued, frustration making his hands curl.
“I do,” she insisted, looking at him steadily.
“You do not know me. You have no idea who I am. You think I’m a Healer, but I have slain more men than I have healed.”
She was silent for a moment, absorbing his confession. He began walking back toward the cave, expecting her to follow.
“You are wrong, Captain,” she called after him. “I do know you. I knew your face before I met you. I saw you more times than I can count. You have always given me hope.”
His heart tripped and his feet followed, and he stopped walking to avoid falling on his face in the shifting sand. He didn’t look back at her, but she had to know he heard her. With a lusty exhale, he resumed walking, minding his step.
There were serpents in the cave. Coiled in the dank corners, unaccustomed to being prey, and blinded by the fire starter, they were little match for lances and swords, and the men ate well for the first time since leaving Bin Dar a fortnight before. Sasha didn’t help them kill the snakes, but she didn’t balk at skinning them, and she ate the meat with the same relish as the men. It didn’t take long for someone to remind her that she’d promised them a story when the storm passed, and she nodded amiably and settled in for her tale.
“When Isak held the fire in his hands today, it reminded me of a story I once knew. In the beginning, there were only four gifts. Telling, Spinning, Changing and Healing. But as the years passed and the people multiplied over the land, the gifts grew and changed, and new gifts emerged. Power grew and evolved. In some of the Gifted, telling became seeing and healing became transforming. Some of the Changers began to shift into more than one animal, and spinning became more and more diverse. Some Spinners could turn air into fire, like Isak. Some turned objects into illusions. Some could even spin themselves into trees.”
“—but not animals,” someone inserted, and Sasha nodded.
“No. That would make them Changers.”
“But there was one Spinner who was so powerful he could spin thoughts into stars. They called him the Star Maker.” She was quiet for a moment, and the men all raised their faces to the stars, looking for the brightest light. The sky had begun to clear and the moon lurked behind the haze, glowing dully. Kjell raised his hand and moved his thumb across the muted swath, remembering Sasha’s golden freckles.
“When someone grew old and was close to death, the Star Maker would draw their memories into his hands and shape them into orbs of light, releasing them into the heavens, so they could live forever.”
Isak cupped his hand and created a flame, showing off for Sasha, and she smiled as he released it, tossing it as if he too were a Star Maker.
“Sometimes, he would call the star back, pulling it down from the heavens, so those still living could hold the memories of the ones they lost.”
The men chimed in then, naming the people they missed, the people they’d lost, and the oldest soldier, a man named Gibbous who had been in the King’s Guard for as long as Kjell could remember, called out the name of a woman, his eyes glued to the heavens.
Jerick hooted, surprised, and the mood was broken. Isak, determined to keep Sasha talking, asked her if she’d lost someone close to her.
“I am the one who is lost,” Sasha said. “And I don’t think anyone is looking for me.” The corners of her mouth lifted wryly, and Isak looked momentarily stricken. Kjell glowered at him. His men had become too familiar with the servant woman. It wasn’t good.
They unrolled their pallets in the mouth of the cave, leaving the horses hobbled outside. Kjell volunteered for the first watch, needing solitude.
He didn’t get it.
Sasha found him when the camp quieted, and she perched beside him, casting her eyes out at the empty expanse, mimicking his posture.
“You are angry again,” she stated softly.
He didn’t deny it, though anger was too strong a word. He was weary. Restless. Distracted. Intrigued.
“Having a woman traveling with a group of warriors is dangerous,” he said.
“Why?” The question was quietly distressed.
“Because if they care for you—and they all do—they will stop looking out for each other and they will all start looking out for you. It’s not your fault. It’s not theirs. It’s simply the way we are.”
“I see,” she whispered, and he ceased speaking, knowing that she did.
She stayed with him as the moon rose higher in the sky, sloughing off the haze and lighting the dunes around them. Before long, Sasha was curled on the sand beside him, her head on her scarf, her legs and arms drawn into her chest, and he sighed, knowing his men would think they dallied.
But he didn’t wake her. Not yet. He would let her stay a while longer.
The horses slept, his men dreamed, and he kept watch.
They entered Enoch ten days after leaving Solemn, dusty and dirty, longing for baths, wine, and beds that didn’t encourage sand spiders and stiff backs. There’d been no battles, despite Sasha’s warning, and their armor was dingy, their skin chafed, and their horses in need of grain and grooming.
The land of Enoch boasted the River Bale, the largest river in all of Jeru. It extended for one hundred miles, just below Jeru City all the way to the borders at the south of Enoch, and because of that, the province enjoyed trade with the kingdom and the Northern provinces, unlike its poorer neighbor, Quondoon.
Along one side of the River Bale, fine homes and respectable businesses lined the streets. Sheltered women and cherished children moved freely, and a cathedral erected for the first Lord Enoch overlooked the river and cast a disapproving shadow upon the opposite bank. Across from the safe and the acceptable—with only the width of the mighty river to separate the two—all manner of decadence and depravity had become well-entrenched.
The wealth was just as evident on the far bank of the Bale, if not even more so, the free flow of money and vice drawing the respectable and disreputable alike. Gaming and gambling drew the greedy and the bored. Taverns and teahouses enticed the hungry and the hiding. Elaborate public bathhouses, where washwomen would draw a man’s bath, clean his clothes, and keep him content while he waited for them, attracted the soiled and the lonely, and kept them coming back again. Luxurious inns boasted rooms that were fully stocked with food and fair company, and the drinks never stopped flowing.