“Good,” she said, sitting upright to watch more closely. “Now move them.”
He again appeared to concentrate and concentrate, and then—
Two toes curled. Then three on the other foot.
Yrene smiled—broadly, widely. Remained smiling as she turned her head toward him.
He only stared at her. Her smile. A sort of focused intensity falling across his features that made her go a bit still.
“How?” he asked.
“The—maybe when I got to you, when my magic blasted back darkness a little …” It had been terrible. To find him inside all that dark. The void, the cold, the shrieking pain and horror.
She had refused to acknowledge what it tried to show her at that wall, again and again: that terrible fortress, the fate that awaited her when she returned. She had refused to acknowledge it as she had struck the wall, her magic begging her to stop, to pull away.
Until … until she’d heard him. Far off and deeper within.
She’d blindly lunged, a spear-throw toward that sound. And there he’d been—or whatever it was of him. As if this was the core of the tether between man and injury, not the wall against the nerves far, far above.
She’d wrapped herself around it, hugging tight even as the darkness pounded in again and again. And in answer, she’d sent her magic slashing into it, a scythe of light into the dark. A torch that burned just a fraction.
Just enough, it seemed.
“This is good,” Yrene declared—perhaps uselessly. “This is wonderful.”
Chaol was still staring at her as he said, “It is.”
She became aware of the blood on her—the state of her.
“Let’s start with this,” she said. “Do a few exercises before we stop for the day.”
What she had admitted about her mother … She had only told Hafiza upon entering the Torre. No one else. She had told no one else, not since she’d staggered onto her mother’s cousin’s farm and begged for sanctuary and shelter.
She wondered how long his own story had been locked in his chest.
“Let me order food first,” Yrene decided. She glanced toward the wood screen shielding the bathing room from sight, then down at her blood-crusted chest and dress. “While we wait … I might beg to use your bath. And borrow a set of your clothes.”
Chaol was still watching her with that focused, calm face. A different one from any she’d seen on him before. As if in shaving off some of that darkness, it had revealed this facet beneath.
This man she had not yet met.
She wasn’t sure what to do with it. With him.
“Take whatever you want,” Chaol told her, his voice low—rough.
Yrene was light-headed when she crawled off the bed, taking his ruined shirt with her, and hurried for the bathing chamber. From the blood loss, she told herself.
Even as she smiled throughout her bath.
“I can’t help but feel neglected, you know,” Hasar drawled as she pored over maps Yrene didn’t dare inquire about. From across the princess’s lavish receiving room, she couldn’t view them properly—and could only watch as Hasar moved several ivory figurines here and there, her dark brows scrunched in concentration.
“Renia, of course,” Hasar went on, sliding a figure two inches to the right and frowning, “says I should not expect so much of your time, but perhaps I’ve grown spoiled these two years.”
Yrene sipped her mint tea and did not comment one way or the other. Hasar had summoned her here upon learning that Yrene had been healing Lord Westfall all day, sending a servant to fetch her to the princess’s rooms, with the promise of some much-needed refreshments. And indeed, the carob cookies and tea had pushed back the tide of her exhaustion just a fraction.
Her friendship with the princess had been purely accidental. In one of Yrene’s first on-site lessons, Hafiza had brought her to tend to the princess, who had returned from her seaside palace in the northeast to be treated for an unrelenting stomach pain. They were both of similar age, and during the hours that Hafiza went about removing a truly horrific tapeworm from the princess’s intestines, Hasar had ordered Yrene to talk.
So Yrene had, rambling about her lessons, occasionally mentioning the more disgusting moments of her year working at the White Pig. The princess particularly enjoyed her tales of the rather messier bar fights. Her favorite story to hear, which she’d ordered Yrene to narrate thrice during the days Hafiza had extracted the magically slaughtered tapeworm through her mouth—one orifice or the other, the Healer on High had told the princess—was of the young stranger who had saved Yrene’s life, taught her to defend herself, and left her a small fortune in gold and jewels.
Yrene had deemed it idle talk, not expecting the princess to remember her name once Hafiza had coaxed the last inches of the tapeworm from her body. But two days later, she’d been called to the princess’s rooms, where Hasar was busy stuffing her face with all manner of delicacies to make up for the weight she’d lost.
Too thin, she’d told Yrene by way of greeting. She needed a fatter ass for her lover to grip at night.
Yrene had burst out laughing—the first bit of true laughter she’d had in a long, long time.
Hasar had only smirked, offered Yrene some smoked fish from the river-rich lowlands, and that had been that. Perhaps not a friendship of equals, but Hasar seemed to enjoy her company, and Yrene was in no position to deny her.
So the princess made a point to summon Yrene whenever she was in Antica—and had eventually brought Renia to the palace, both to meet her father and to meet Yrene. Renia, if Yrene was being honest, was far preferable to the demanding and sharp-tongued princess, but Hasar was prone to jealousy and territorialism, and often made sure Renia was kept well away from the court and would-be contenders for her affections.
Not that Renia had ever given cause for such a thing. No, the woman—older than Yrene by a month—only had eyes for the princess. Loved her with unflinching devotion.
Hasar called her a lady, had granted Renia lands within her own territory. Yet Yrene had heard some of the other healers whisper that when Renia had first entered Hasar’s orbit, Hafiza had been discreetly asked to heal her of … unpleasantries from her former life. Former profession, apparently. Yrene had never asked Hasar for the details, but given how loyal Renia was to the princess, she often wondered if the reason why Hasar so loved to hear Yrene’s own story of her mysterious savior was because she, too, had once seen a woman suffering and reached out to help. And then to hold her.
“You’re smiling more today, too,” Hasar said, setting down her glass pen. “Despite those hideous clothes.”
“Mine were sacrificed to the cause of healing Lord Westfall,” Yrene said, rubbing at the dull throbbing in her temple that even the tea and carob cookies couldn’t chase away. “He was kind enough to lend me some of his own.”
Hasar smirked. “Some might see you and assume you lost your clothes for a far more pleasurable reason.”
Yrene’s face heated. “I’d hope they’d remember that I am a professional healer at the Torre.”
“It’d make it even more valuable gossip.”
“I’d think they’d have better things to do than whisper about a nobody healer.”
“You are Hafiza’s unofficial heir. That makes you slightly interesting.”
Yrene wasn’t insulted by the frank words. She didn’t explain to Hasar that she’d likely be leaving, and Hafiza would have to find someone else. She doubted the princess would approve—and wasn’t entirely certain that Hasar would let her leave. She’d been worried about Kashin for so long, yet Hasar …
“Well, regardless, I have no designs on Lord Westfall.”
“You should. He’s divertingly handsome. Even I’m tempted.”
“Really?”
Hasar laughed. “Not at all. But I could see why you might be.”
“He and Captain Faliq are involved.”
“And if they weren’t?”
Yrene took a long sip from her tea. “He is my patient, and I am his healer. There are plenty of other handsome men.”
“Like Kashin.”