15

DAMAGED

Awake. I blearily cracked open my eyes, blurred colors and vague shapes coalescing into existence. Pain, that’s all I knew for a long while. Lights flooded into my swollen eyes and that light poured directly into my brain and scorched it, set it on fire, left me groaning and whimpering. I was naked, and covered by a blanket. I was conscious enough to piece those two fragments of information together. I was laying on a bed.

I was surely dying.

My skull was shattering, splinters of bone tearing up my mind. That’s what it felt like. Still, I hated to complain. I tried to sit up, pushing through the agony and the overwhelming desire to cover myself with that blanket and be dead to the world. I forced my eyes to work, to see, and attempted to make as much sense of the room I found myself in as possible.

Keterlyn’s cabin. I remembered dragging myself through the snow, collapsing on the ground.

Someone had gotten me into bed. I sat up more, found Husir curled up at the end of the bed, laying across my feet. She turned her head to look at me.

“Hey, girl,” I croaked. “How do I look?”

Husir laid her head back down. I took that to mean that I looked terrible.

I peered out through one of the windows. The sun appeared to be rising. How much time had I spent in bed? Had I slept for days? Sudden panic surged through me. What if I’d slept through Islana’s execution? I threw back the blanket, swung my legs off of the bed, and stood.

I didn’t stay up for long. Everything spun, my vision blurred, and I threw up.

The door opened and then Keterlyn was by my side, easing me back down onto the bed, saying, “Stay still. Just take a moment. Sigmund, you’re a stubborn bastard.”

“How long?”

“What?”

“How long have I been here?” I hissed.

Keterlyn blinked. “A day, just about.”

I gritted my teeth. A whole fucking day. A day closer to Islana dying and I was no closer to a solution. I looked around, searching for my clothes, and found them piled up on the ground at the foot of the bed.

Keterlyn had a strong hand on my shoulder, keeping me in place. “Sigmund, I get it. I understand. But just stay still for a moment, okay? You need rest. I don’t think you understand how close you came to dying.”

“What’s the damage?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Extensive.”

“Just tell me.”

“Your left eye,” she said slowly, “does not look good. The bone surrounding the eye is broken. I could try to fix it, but I’d need to cut into your face, and…well, you’ll be in bed for more than a day. I assumed you wouldn’t want that. Can you see out of the eye?”

“Somewhat.” I didn’t particularly feel like explaining that, through my left eye, everything was doubling up. When I looked at Keterlyn, I saw a second, blurrier version of her overlaid with the original, and the same went for everything else. Haloes encircled all lights, and when my left eye moved about within its sockets, the pain was intense.

“Well,” she said, “you also seem to be missing a tooth or two. Lips are all busted up, your face is swollen beyond belief, and you may have a broken rib. Hmm, what else? The cut above your eyes was deep. I’ve stitched it shut. And your nose is completely ruined, but then, you already know. Honestly, I’m mostly concerned about the hits you’ve taken to the head. I hope that your skull isn’t fractured, though it might be. Even if it’s not, sometimes the brain can become swollen within the skull…” she frowned. “How does your head feel?”

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Like a thousand hammers are pounding against it. Like knives are stabbing into my brain. “Just fine,” I said. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Uh huh.” She didn’t look like she believed me. “Ordinarily I’d command you to spend the next few weeks in bed, but…” a sigh. “Considering the circumstances, I’m not sure you can afford to rest. Anyway, I won’t pretend as though you’d listen to me, anyway.”

“The world waits for no man,” I managed to say between gritted teeth. I got back up to my feet, staying completely still until the room stopped spinning around me. Husir whined, as though begging me to sit back down. I shook out my aching hands. “Superficial injuries. Nothing that will kill me.” I said that more to myself than to Keterlyn.

Unsteady, I wobbled to my pile of clothes, managing to bend down without throwing up.

“You need some help?” Keterlyn asked.

I shook my head. If I couldn’t dress myself, then what chance did I have against the Vald? I tried to pull on my trousers, nearly falling, saved only by Keterlyn, who steadied me with her hands. I was conscious of my nakedness for only a second— it was the least of my concerns.

“I heard about what happened,” Keterlyn said.

“You missed out on a real show.”

“Sounds like it. Sigmund, where are you going to go now?”

“I think it’s finally time that I paid Avokis a little visit.”

“Revenge?”

“In part. But mostly I just have a feeling he’s involved in what’s happening. He’s whispering in Lukan’s ear. By the way, did you hear that Lukan recently demanded that people make sacrifices to the Vald?”

“I was there, Sigmund.”

“Right. My memory is a little rough right now. Can’t be a coincidence, though.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I think that Avokis is either one of the Vald, or at least on their side. I think that he’s manipulating Lukan, that he asked the king to demand those sacrifices as a way to feed the Vald and make them stronger.” I paused. I knew I was making a lot of assumptions but at the same time, it felt right.

Keterlyn placed her hands on her hips. “And what are you going to do once you find Avokis?”

“Ask him a few questions.”

“And?”

“What do you want me to say? Does it even matter? I’ll find out what he knows.”

“I’ll come with you.”

I paused again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Keterlyn shook her head. “You should hear yourself. Your words are slurring. You can barely stand. I bet a child could knock you over right now. And I hope you realize that once you get out there and you’re moving around the palace and the city, Lukan will just throw you into another duel and I highly doubt that even you, First Blade, will make it out of another fight. You look absolutely dreadful. You need me with you. Let me help.”

“You have other things to do,” I said. “Mushrooms to find.”

“I’m working on it. But who’s going to take them if you’re dead?”

I patted Husir. There was no point in further argument with Keterlyn. I knew she was right, and I also knew when someone had made up their mind about something. Stubbornness which was something I was quite familiar with.

“Before we go,” Keterlyn said, “may I ask you something?”

“I’m an open book.”

“Are you and Islana in love?”

I froze. Even after everything that had happened, the question filled me with terror.

“You’re a very blunt woman.”

Keterlyn showed me her teeth, straight and white. “I know.”

It felt as though we were suddenly on the same side, as though there even were sides, as though we knew anything about each other. I didn’t like it. I still couldn’t be sure that she was trustworthy, that she actually cared a damn about what happened to me in the end. Call it a certain phobia of being used— I’ve been used a lot. Tends to happen when you excel at one thing and that one thing doesn’t involve the use of intellect.

“Why do you want to know?” I said.

“I always liked the queen. I can’t say we’ve ever been particularly close, but I thought she was a good, strong woman. I…always wanted to be like her.” Keterlyn blinked, as though surprised by her own confession. “Anyway, I’m just curious. I want to know why you’re doing this.”

“Isn’t stopping the Vald a good enough reason?”

“I don’t think so. Because we don’t even know if we can stop them. And because you could always just run away.

Run away. How many times had I contemplated doing that throughout the long years? Even during the height of my affair with Islana, I’d seriously thought about it. The world was a big place. There were opportunities out there for a man like me, a man who knew his way around a blade. A proficiency in violence was always in demand. And there were other women, women who would return my affection, who I could see more than once a month. Even now, there was nothing stopping me from turning tail and retreating.

There was nothing stopping me, yet I’d never do it. I couldn’t explain why. Perhaps I was just a fool who didn’t know when to call it quits.

“I love her,” I said simply.

Keterlyn considered this answer. She opened her mouth as though to ask another question, to demand elaboration, but then she closed it and nodded and reached for her coat, apparently satisfied,

“Alright,” I said. “If question time is over, let’s go get Avokis.”