Page 68 of Red Demon

“Ow!” I unfurled the unfamiliar fabric to see an oversized set of drawstring pants, worn and moth-eaten, but clean. But unlike what I had on when I challenged her, these were loose enough to fit over the splints on my legs.

“What do you mean ‘ow’? It’s just flax,” she said.

“So are riding crops, and I’d prefer those off my groin.”

She snorted. “As masochistic as you were when you fought me, that’s a surprise.”

My mouth fell open at the bemused twinkle in her eyes. “There’s something really wrong with you.”

That crushed her smirk. “I know.”

My hand covered my heated face.

“I’m terrible at talking to people. I’m sorry.” Her words tumbled out. “Just keep reminding me how much you hate me, and I’ll remember to say as little as possible.” She let out a nervous chuckle and wiped the hair out of her eyes. “I’m going to go look for some more herbs. See if you can get your pants on without breaking a bone. Then stir that stew, please.”

She gathered her weapons and moved toward the door. I got a twinge of a headache just looking at her. The fear, anger and hate I once thought limitless sputtered in the space between us, replaced by a sharp sense of who-the-fuck-knows-what.

“Thank you,” I said, failing to keep those words caged.

Chapter 30

Field Station

This was not the body I remembered. Here I was, five days after a punctured lung, breathing fine. And although my legs throbbed under my splint, I knew a broken leg should take at least a couple months to mend. Yet that dawn, I woke with my muscles itching for their daily exercise.

The doorknob rumbled, and I could hear Faruhar murmuring to herself. I’d noticed her talking to herself from time to time, but I still couldn’t say that was the strangest thing about her. She walked in with a canvas bag slung over her shoulder, then shrugged out of a damp cloak.

“Did you sleep at all?” I asked.

She’d insisted on sleeping on the floor by the fire and giving me the bed. I’d hated her enough not to argue, but I also hated that she’d offered, since that made it more difficult to hate her.

“Just up early,” she said, hanging up her cloak.

She caught my stare and a flicker of something crossed her face—annoyance? Discomfort? Confusion. Ah.

“You’re Faruhar and I’m Jesse. Neither of us are killing each other today,” I said. “Did you find your journal?”

She sighed. “I looked through it when I woke up. You just smell different.”

“That bad, huh?” A smile ticked up on the corner of my mouth before I could stop it. I’d washed myself with a wet rag, but hadn’t risked a full shower in my state.

“Sweat and wood smoke—nothing bad.” She threw her bag on the table and studied me again. “But you also smell restless.”

“I didn’t know restless was a smell.”

“It is. Why do you smell that way?”

I closed my eyes tight. Even though I was stuck here, I had thought some things through last night. If I wanted to know who she worked with, and who was responsible for these deaths, I could not treat every conversation like an interrogation. If I opened up a little about safe things, made small talk without giving her anything she could use against me, maybe I’d get closer.

“Just … anxious to bury Galen; my friends,” I said, his name catching a little in my throat. “If soldiers sweep in, they may burn them like they did for Chaeten in the Bend. Asri would find that disrespectful.”

She leaned across the table, pulling out a gutted rabbit and some mushrooms. “The soldiers haven’t moved in yet.”

I held my breath. The barrack was so close that this couldn’t be right. “How do you know that?”

“My sister looked around. Too many ruren-sa.”

I gripped the edge of the bed. “So your sister is out there foraging with you in the forest?”