Page 246 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
We’d been doing this dance all night, checking up on them and praying when we thought nobody was listening.
The warriors’ wounds might not have been deadly now, but that forsaken passage ash had gotten into them.
I’d seen too many people laugh one day, then keel over, brought down by infections, and I was not losing a single life today.
When we’d arrived last night, in a flurry of shots and barks, they’d all been taken into rooms near the entrance, carried by their Brothers and Sisters. I insisted they be laid on beds with freshly washed sheets, of which Mrs. Thornbrew had a neverending supply. Apparently, she always boiled a new batchof sheets each time more than a dozen warriors left the fortress, even if just to visit the local bar.
“Drink always has the curse of firing up spirits,” she’d told me as we’d raced through the halls, carrying trays of foul-smelling tinctures to the wounded. “All of them have sharp weapons and fists they’re too eager to use.”
All of them had survived the journey back and the first night. It gave me hope in a time when it was all I could cling to.
Ryker was probably halfway across the continent, alone.
Dax’s palaver book, which I kept in the satchel, was deathly silent. None of my cousins had heard a word from him and nobody knew where he was.
Worry ate at my stomach and mind. It had kept me standing and rushing through the night, at least.
I headed toward Geryll and Nadya’s room once more. It had been a full hour since I checked up on them.
I barged in.
Death didn’t bother to knock, so neither did I.
Relief washed over me as I saw Geryll sitting up in his bed in the early morning light, offering me a faint smile–but then I noticed Nadya’s empty bed.
My lip parted.
“She’s gone out to get some fresh air,” he said quickly, cutting off my gasp.
“That girl,” I muttered, even as I thanked the gods for the stubbornness. It had kept her alive and probably would for a very, very long time. “Trying to give me a heart attack.”
Even as I said it, I felt thirty years older, like some concerned hen fussing over her brood.
But I didn’t care. I was concerned for them.
I might not have raised Nadya and Geryll like Ryker, but they’d nestled next to my heart. Even if they hadn’t, once I joinedRyker on the throne, I could become the ruler of this realm, responsible for all the lives within it.
“How are you feeling?” My tone softened as I approached the bed. Geryll needed a soft hand, both in sickness and in health. It was plain as day why Ryker wanted him to explore other options apart from the warrior line.
“Better.” Even as he said it, a cough wracked his body. All that ash had seeped deep into his lungs. “Abitbetter.”
He looked more alive, at least. The pallor in his cheeks hadn’t vanished, but the milkiness in his eyes had cleared.
“Let me see your leg,” I instructed, voice leaving no room for arguing.
Reluctantly, he shoved the perfectly pressed duvet aside. The gauze wrapped around his wound was untainted.
Good.
It meant his body was trying to keep as much blood in him.
I carefully unwrapped it, with a patience that felt very unfamiliar, but not unnatural. The bandage was reddened, but no sign of the ash or that dreaded green poison.
The tightness in my chest eased a bit. Geryll would be up and running in two weeks, if that.
“Mrs. Thornbrew told me this stings.” I dabbed a bit of the juniper-scented ointment onto a fresh bandage and gently pressed it against his wound.
Geryll’s entire body seized on contact. But he stubbornly clenched his jaw against the pain, gaze darting to the ceiling.
