Page 8 of A Song of Air
“Go ease some of the patients’ anxiety,” she ordered quietly. “The camps had them so screwed up that they think I’m going to be just like those ‘doctors’.” There was open disgust in her tone, and Bryson understood.
She herself had only been evaluated by a doctor once when she’d been at the camps. It had been to have her eyes looked over. They hadn’t been aware that she had magic because they couldn’t overlook her bleeding eyes and then lack of sight. Like because she had one fatal flaw, it meant she couldn’t possibly possess talent. People couldn’t see past what was right in front of them, and because of it, Bryson always felt like she was underestimated.
They’d taken one look at her and declared her defective, then tossed her into an iron cage. It’d been the reason she hadn’t properly healed, why she now had to squint to see colors and shades and figures and details, but at least she could stillsee. She hadn’t been so fortunate at the time.
Malika had had it worse at the camps.
Sometimes, Bryson could still hear the screams. Like the pain and suffering had followed her in her dreams.
“Okay.”
Bryson walked over, stopping just shy of the people to avoid startling them. She could see them recoil away from her as she got down to her knees in front of them. They made soft, whimpering noises that tugged at the strings of her heart.
She’d been there.
She knew the fear of the unknown, had lived it as profoundly as they had. It was one thing she realized about life; that even if they didn’t suffer the same experiences, they could still relate to the trauma.
Bryson didn’t understand the extent of Malika’s suffering at the hands of human doctors. But they’d endured camp together, gripping one another’s hands tightly through the tears and echoing shrieks of others.
Together they’d been abused, together they’d been tossed into an iron-barred carriage and taken away, uncertain of their futures. And together, they’d been saved.
She recalled it now. The way it felt like she was being choked within the confined space. The way the horses screeched and jerked to a halt, causing the wagon to teeter on its wheels. The sound of a door bursting open. The sound of death.
And then Arlo Blackwood, with blood dripping from a sword and the scent of a vegetable garden and pine clinging to his skin.
So she said to them what Arlo had said to her. “You’re safe now.” The words rasped out of her throat.
“Are we?” someone in front of her snapped.
She didn’t know with absolute certainty. Humans were everywhere, and it wouldn’t be long before they caught on to what was happening there in Ielwyn. Before someone realized that the Fae they sent away were missing, the soldiers as well. Would they be safe then?
She wondered if those thoughts had gone through Arlo’s mind as well when Malika asked that same question right before they were pulled out to the light.
“I don’t know,” Bryson confessed. “But you’re safefor now,and unless you want that iron to embed itself so deep into your bodies that you end up—” She cut off what she was about to say, biting her tongue so hard she tasted blood. She hated that she was often invaded with cruel sentiments about herself, despite her self-confidence. She hated that she stooped herself so low.
But that was what Arlo wanted. He wanted her to lie, even if she didn’t feel the words that were spewing from her mouth. He wanted her to degrade herself, to act like she was ashamed of her poor eyesight and the scars marring her eyes and cheeks. He wanted others to see it. To say,“Poor, half-blind Fae. I don’t want to end up like her.”
It was Arlo’s favorite form of manipulation. Or rather, his way of convincing the Fae to stay in camp.
And because he’d gifted Bryson with her own freedom, she did what he bade.
There was silence as the Fae in front of her seemed to contemplate what she said—or rather, what she didn’t say.
“Does it hurt?” they whispered.
Her smile found the one who asked. “Not anymore.”
It hadn’t for a long time, but that didn’t mean that memories couldn’t ache. And hersburned. More than the scars ever could.
“Will you hold my hand?” the voice asked again.
Bryson expelled a breath and held her hand out. “For however long you need.”
It took minutes, though she didn’t count them, until a rough, withered hand closed over her own. It was wet and clammy, with disjointed fingers and missing stubs. And yet relief invaded her body through every crevice as she closed her palm over theirs.
The motion felt like a big step, but there was still so much more they would need if they wanted to heal. And it didn’t matter that Bryson’s stomach churned, or that memories of the past invaded, or that sometimes she felt like this was harder than killing.
Bryson had a job to do.
