Page 44 of Realms of Swords and Storms
"Sorry to inconvenience you," he gasped.
I lifted the cloth to check the bleeding. It was slowing. Good. I began to clean the wound properly.
"Where did you learn to do this?" Tarshi asked, his voice weak.
“Where else? The arena. When you’re a new recruit, Drusus didn’t bother to waste doctors’ fees on you till you’d proved you were worth the investment.”
I threaded a needle with gut string, my hands moving with a grim familiarity. Tarshi watched me, his dark eyes shadowed with pain.
I wrapped the bandages tight, my movements practiced and impersonal. I tried to keep them that way. It was easier than admitting that the feel of his skin beneath my fingers, the heat of his body, was doing things to me I had sworn to bury. His skin was hot beneath my fingers, the muscles of his thigh tensing at my touch. The air in the small room was thick with the scent of wine and blood and his sweat.
"You have gentle hands for a killer," he murmured, his voice rough. I pulled back as if burned, grabbing the bloodied rags. "Don't mistake necessity for tenderness."
"I'm not," he said, his gaze unwavering. "You could have left me to bleed."
"Don't think I wasn't tempted," I shot back, but the words were hollow. We both knew I would never have left him. “This needs to stop, half-breed. I won’t have you putting her life in danger, and in their eyes, you belong to her. She is responsible for your actions.”
“She knows what I am, and she understands,” he replied.
“And what is that exactly?”
"I'm Talfen," he said simply. "I can't forget that, even when I want to."
I tied off the bandage, perhaps more roughly than necessary. "And that justifies risking everything? Sneaking out at night to do the bidding of rebels?"
His fever-bright eyes fixed on mine. "What would you have me do, Septimus? Pretend I don't see what's happening? Pretend I don't care when my people are treated like animals?"
"I would have you stay alive," I snapped, surprising myself with the vehemence in my voice. "I would have you not bleed to death in the night."
Something shifted in his expression. "Why do you care if I live or die?"
The question caught me off guard. Why did I care? I should hate him. He was Talfen, he was a rebel, he was arrogant and insufferable and everything I'd been taught to despise. And yet...
"I don't know," I admitted, the honesty startling us both.
Tarshi's hand found mine, his fingers hot with fever. "Septimus—"
"You need to rest," I said, pulling away. "The fever will get worse before it gets better."
I moved to stand, but his hand caught my wrist.
"Wait," he said. "Thank you." His words hung in the air, a fragile truce in the war between us. I snatched my wrist back as if his touch were fire. “Don’t thank me. Just don’t get yourself killed. I’m not stitching you up again.”
I turned to douse the bloody rags in the water basin, needing to put my hands to a task, needing to break the pull of his gaze. I moved to the small basin, washing the blood from my hands, the water turning pink in the lamplight. My own reflection was a stranger's—a man with haunted eyes and a grim set to his mouth. The small room felt suffocating, thick with the heat from his fever and the ghost of something that had passed between us in another life, another night.
“You’re afraid of her finding out about this,” he rasped, his voice raw. “Or about us?”
“There is no us,” I bit out, my back still to him. “There were mistakes. Moments of weakness.”
“Were they?” He coughed, a dry, ragged sound. “Felt more like moments of truth to me.”
I slammed the wet cloth down on the small table and spun to face him, my control finally snapping. “The truth? The truth is you’re a reckless fool who will get us all killed. The truth is you are everything I was raised to fight, to hate.”
He met my fury with a weary, knowing look that only stoked my rage further. “And yet, here you are.”
He pushed himself up onto his elbows, the movement costing him a sharp intake of breath. The bandages on his thigh were stark white against his tanned skin. “You can’t stand to look at her because you feel like you’ve betrayed her,” he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “But you can’t stand to look at me because you know you haven’t.”
Before I could process the words, before I could build my walls back up, he reached out, his hand circling my wrist again, his grip surprisingly firm. “Don’t go.”
