Page 15

brITT

T he night passed in erratic bursts.

In the predawn hours, when Britt studied Henrik, she saw echoes of a vulnerable little boy in his weary features. A quick frown, worried lips. Anglerfish might have been a more apt description, considering the deliriously messy state of his face. Bruising everywhere. As if the swelling wasn't grotesque enough—his lip, his eye, and faintly along his jaw—the groans that accompanied every movement were worse.

Sighing, Britt stood.

"I suppose," she whispered to Denerfen and Tesserdress, "it's a good sign he’s sleeping? He might be in a death spiral, with all that body slamming.”

The thought of his half-naked body made her breathless, but compassion soon followed. He’d been pulverized through each fight. Denerfen blew smoke in Henrik's direction, thumping his tail on the table.

She giggled.

Tesserdress, perched on her other shoulder, gave a drawn sigh. She slumped down Britt’s neck. Britt fought a wave of anxiety. Though Tesserdress had her potion this morning, color change hinted across her scales in a sweeping reminder. She refused to romp and play with Denerfen after Britt and Henrik returned.

A robust night faded outside, washing the blue-black dome into a brilliant pink and yellow visible through the windows. A breeze twined through the open cottage door, shuffling strands of her hair. Distant market sounds steadily rose with sleepy tones. Not even Stenberg wanted to let go of the beautiful sunrise and launch into the day.

With her hair masking Tesserdress from sight, Britt leaned against the doorframe. She stared out at the distant seascape, visible above the sloping angle of Stenberg. While her mind wandered over Malcolm, and the Archives, and Henrik's search for his lost mother, a moan drew her back to the cottage. She spun, not surprised to see Henrik blinking one eye awake. The other had swollen shut.

He jerked upright.

Britt slipped Tesserdress off her shoulder, deftly tucking her into her pocket. “Calm down, soldat!” she cried as Henrik almost vaulted off of the bed. “My goodness. No one is here to kill you. Just yourself, and you’re doing a fine job of it.”

Henrik flinched when she put a quelling hand on his shoulder, though no visible wound displayed there. He jerked away from her touch and lowered back to the mattress with a grimace. His hand probed his face, lips first, then puffy eye. He couldn’t open the left, but the right fluttered without restraint. As he probed the excoriated skin, she grabbed his wrist.

“Ah, ah,” she sang. “No you don’t. It took me a considerable amount of time to put salve on that wound without waking you up. I won’t have you marring my work now. You’re alive,” she said with a forced lightheartedness. “That’s saying something.”

He mumbled unintelligibly.

She reached for a glass of water. “Here. Try a small drink. I can’t imagine you have a great taste in your mouth. You’ll be lucky if you kept any of your teeth.”

He sent her a wry look coated with something like disdain, maybe exasperation, but obeyed. She helped him sit and take his next sip. He winced, then painstakingly finished the entire glass.

“Better?”

With great hesitation, he nodded. She pressed him back down. “Rest,” she insisted. “You’re not going to improve by sitting up.”

He licked his lips. His words were only slightly muffled and thick when he asked, “What did you put in it?”

Britt chuckled. “You noticed, eh? Just a little tincture.”

“Kapurnickkian?”

“Yes.”

“Yours?”

“Mm hmm.” The tincture, Jollymolly, was bright green, smelled salty, and had a faint sheen to it, like a glow. The briny scent wasn’t unpleasant and it had a habit of inducing sleep. “Are you in pain?”

Henrik’s reply took so long she realized he was having a hard time keeping his thoughts aggregated.

Eventually, he nodded.

Relief that he’d woken up led to equal parts relief that he managed to speak and swallow. What was the cost of last night’s outpouring of energy?

Was it worth it?

Britt retreated from the bed, holding out a hand to Denerfen, who perched at the edge of the table, exploring an amalgamation of fruits she’d bargained for at the market. Ten in all, with various forms of color, lumpiness, and texture. She’d only tried one. A purple-rinded fruit with a soft interior that reminded her of the melons that grew wild in Kapurnick mountains.

Reaching for the closest piece, Britt sliced into half of the purple rind, separating a bright orange segment from a round, black seed in the center. The cool, squishy interior should help Henrik’s teeth.

She cast a quick look over her shoulder to check on him. Stubbornly, Henrik glowered, now sitting, his feet firm on the ground. Exasperated, she put a hand on her hip and whirled.

“Really? You can’t just lay down?”

“No.”

He kept one hand cupped around his swollen cheek. With a roll of her eyes, Britt held up the sliced fruit.

“You want it?”

He mumbled something, but held out his other hand. She sashayed closer. “Agnes stopped by early this morning with some tea that she said should help a headache. Einar has already checked on you twice. He left a note for you, too. You have . . . quite a friendship with him.”

In fact, this had been the first stirring of life around Henrik and any potential friends. Quite a late show, in her opinion. Still, Agnes’ and Einar’s offerings meant something . Something sad, in Britt’s estimation, that those two were the only ones who checked on him.

“Thanks,” he grumbled.

Britt set her other hand on her hip. Henrik lifted his gaze, dropped it again. It was an oddly revealing, sympathetic gesture, as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to meet her eyes. He said nothing.

“Congratulations,” she offered, but it felt pitiful. “I mean . . . it was quite the accomplishment.”

He mumbled something that sounded like grappling is different , but didn’t speak with enough volume to induce her curiosity. A don’t-get-near-me warning radiated off him, and she had no desire to act against it.

Actually, that was false. A too-large part of her wanted to sit at his side and coax his head into her lap. Those soft and gentle hairs at the top of his head needed a good stroking, and he could use soothing.

At least, that’s what she’d want.

It’s what her older brother, Pedr, had done when she was sick as a child. His soothing touch, the baritone of his rumbling voice, had been all the center she needed to get through the seasonal illnesses that plagued their emerald mountains. General Helsing had always been too busy.

Then again, a battle-hardened soldat might be offended at the suggestion of nurturing. Deep thoughts appeared to stall Henrik, and she couldn’t hazard a guess as to what they might be. His attention flickered to the pita bread on the table, the inner pockets stuffed with soft, white cheese and herbs.

“Have you been to the Archives already?” he asked.

“No, because it’s early yet. Barely dawn. Why would I when you’re half dying on the bed, anyway?”

Henrik matched her frown with an equally confused glower. The shadows and swollen distortion made it hard not to notice. Perhaps he didn’t try to look mean, but he achieved it. A slight sheen above his right eyebrow—a salve that Agnes brought by with her tea, as if this sort of thing happened every day—glimmered.

He didn’t answer her question. She had the feeling he didn’t know how to answer her question.

“Are you feeling well enough to stand on your own?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said, a bit too tightly.

Tetchy devil.

“Well . . .” She tilted her head from side to side with an indecisive bite of her bottom lip. “Let’s not go that far.”

A flicker of what might have been amusement created a grimace. He was hard to read when his face resembled a beaten boar.

Britt lowered her hand to the tabletop, and Denerfen stepped onto her palm. He scampered up her arm, winding in a fast, zipping motion until he perched on her shoulder, safely tucked under the curtain of her hair. When his tail swished back and forth along her shoulders, she felt rightness and relief.

Ah, sweet dragul.

Henrik tracked Denerfen’s scampering body to the top of her arm with a contemplative gleam that left as quickly as it came. Fleeting, whatever it was. Henrik carefully tipped his head toward the door.

“I’m fine. You can go to the Archives, search for . . . whatever.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.

“Go, Britt.”

“But—”

His voice resembled graveled stones sliding downhill. “I don’t need you. I need to speak with Einar. Show myself to the other soldats.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he ground out, wincing. “It’s one thing to win the fight. It’s another thing to have to recover for days. It removes the . . .”

“Pride?” she offered, unable to hide her scathing judgment.

These fools!

He hissed, “Yes. There’s little victory in it if I’m hiding in my cottage afterward. They’ll call me an old man and question the title. I have to prove it, all right? It’s probably why Einar stopped by twice already.”

Her cheeks burned. What an absurd man! Here she sat all night, and most of the morning, brewing him teas and combining tinctures and shopping for him at the market so he’d be comfortable and pain-free after a ridiculous night knocking his head into other heads . . . and all he wanted was to be left alone.

Last night, she thought . . . when he saved her from the crowd and . . . so close . . . his breath on her cheek . . .

She scoffed inwardly.

She should have known. The only fool here was her. Sensing he wouldn’t capitulate, she nodded once. Meeting his gaze asked too much. The way he kept his head down, it wouldn’t have been worth it, anyway.

Britt grabbed her cloak and headed into Stenberg’s marketplace with one dragul in her pocket, the other hidden in her hair, grateful to leave his irritating obsession with maintaining appearances behind.