Allegiance (River of Souls 3)

“When did you become a nurse?” Ilse whispered.

“Since my brother took ill and our mother could not spare any attention from the harvest. You did not know I had a brother. I did. A horrible mischievous brother. Also, two sisters and a dozen or more useless cousins. My father remains a mystery, alas, though we considered him a valuable source for the stories we told on winter nights.”

Nadine prattled on about her brother and sisters, and her life in the hill country of Veraene’s northern province of Ournes. She kept her voice pitched low and soft and soothing, while she broke up pieces of bread and soaked them in the broth. “You must eat,” she said, when Ilse objected. “Eat so that you can be strong.”

“But Raul.”

“Hush. Let me poke our Lord Grand Physician.”

A short whispered conference took place between Nadine and Benno Iani. Ilse could overhear enough to know the extent of Raul’s injuries. Two broken ribs, several others cracked or bruised. Markus Khandarr’s cold magic had seared Raul’s face, leaving it raw and bleeding. The deepest wounds were gashes, delivered with the precision of a surgeon’s knife, one over Raul’s left eye, another on his thigh. He suspected internal injuries as well, which accounted for the gray pallor and weakness. And then there was a fever …

“Is he dying?” Ilse said.

Benno’s gaze jerked up to meet hers. “No.”

“Then what is wrong? What is not possible, as you called it?”

Benno glanced to one side, clearly uneasy. “He’s lost a great deal of blood. Khandarr might have killed him outright, but he did not.”

His lips pressed together, he gestured toward Raul. Ilse waved away Nadine’s hand and crawled to Raul’s side. It took her a moment before she could focus properly and another moment before s

he could take in the significance of what she saw.

Raul’s cheeks were rough with an unshaved beard. A soft down of fur covered his chest, what little she saw of it. When she at last understood the import, her breath came short with shock.

Oh. Yes.

There was one injury, chosen by Raul when he was too young or headstrong to understand the consequences. The reason he never returned home, after Baerne of Angersee died and his grandson Armand dismissed his inner council. Raul had spent thirteen years reinventing himself as the man who spoke as a woman, and pretending it did not matter.

“Khandarr has changed him,” she repeated in a whisper. “Yes. Now I understand. Oh, my love,” she whispered, and pressed a kiss upon his feverish lips.

Raul’s eyelids fluttered open. “My love.”

His voice was harsh and deep, at once strange and familiar.

“My love,” she said. “You are—”

“An ugly man, from what Benno said.”

She tried to laugh, but could not. “Oh, no. You were much uglier that other time, when we nearly died in Tiralien. Do you remember?”

His mouth, swollen and discolored, quirked into a smile. “Which one was that? There were so many, as I recall.”

She heard a muttered exclamation from Nadine, but she paid no attention to anyone but Raul, who lay before her transformed and yet the same man she loved from life to life. “You must remember,” she said. “It was the time Markus Khandarr lured you into the streets with a false message. Dedrick and I ran to warn you. We were nearly too late.”

“Ah, that time.” His tone was pensive. “I remember. I led my people to death. And Dedrick. I failed them all.”

His gaze went diffuse, as though he had lost sight of this world, and now gazed upon the souls of those dead men and women. Ilse gripped his hands within hers, willing him to remain in this life, in this moment.

“If you remember that, do you remember what you told me?” she asked fiercely. “You told me not to grieve. We make mistakes, you said. But we shall not make the same ones ever again. You live, my love. You and I live. Let us rejoice.”

She leaned forward to kiss him, but Raul turned his face away. “Do you know what Markus did to me?” he said.

“I do. Does it matter?”

“I don’t know. I feel … as though he stole my body and set a stranger in its place.”

Now they had come to the crux of the matter.