Windwitch (The Witchlands 2)

Then Zander returned too. With food—real food and real bread and real water to wash it all down. The smell seemed to rouse Vaness, and though the fish was too rubbery and so spicy it made Safi’s tongue shriek, she didn’t care. Neither did the empress. They wolfed down the meal, and then before Safi could even try to speak to the empress about, well, anything at all, Vaness was back on her side and asleep once more.

Meanwhile, Lev and Zander scampered off again, and Caden dragged the stool between the bed and the door. Then he removed his armor. Piece by piece. Layer by layer. Gauntlets, brigandine, chain mail, gambeson, and finally his boots. Each item he placed meticulously in a pile beside the washbasin.

The Hell-Bard commander shrank and shrank until he was half his former size and down to nothing more than his underclothes. Then even the undershirt was peeled off and added to the massive pile of gear, revealing someone Safi couldn’t recognize.

Caden was not a Hell-Bard now. That person had been grim and terrifying and quick to attack. Nor was he the Chiseled Cheater, who was sly, charming, quick to quip.

This Caden was lean and scarred and muscled. He was duty, he was darkness, he was … heartbreak. Yes, something about Caden seemed hollow. Lost.

Similar to someone else Safi knew. Her uncle.

With the full washbasin at his feet, Caden soaked a cloth, then scrubbed and hissed and scrubbed some more at the wound on his shoulder. All his blades remained sheathed but within easy reach. So though his pale chest was bared and his face screwed up with pain, Safi didn’t doubt for one moment that he could kill her.

Lions versus wolves, after all.

What would Iseult do? Safi thought numbly. Not get caught, for one. But Iseult would also learn as much as she could. Food might have made Safi more tired, but surely she could conjure something useful from this foggy mind.

She cleared her throat. It hurt, and her next words tasted of black pepper. “What happened to you, Hell-Bard?”

“I was injured.” Caden’s chest shuddered as he dabbed at the bloodied gash on his shoulder. It looked deep, and there wasn’t much depth on his frame to begin with. Ropy muscles were wrapped tightly to the bone.

It brought to mind a different chest on a different man. The first physical characteristic, really, that she’d seen of Merik as he flew through the air of a Veñaza City wharf.

Safi frowned, shaking away thoughts of the past. Of Merik’s bare chest. Those memories wouldn’t help her here.

“How did you get injured, Hell-Bard?”

“A blade.”

“Oh?” Safi’s tone was sharp now. The Hell-Bard commander was as good at dodging questions as she was at lobbing them. “And whose blade would that be?”

“My enemy’s.” For several long minutes, the only sounds were the splash of water when he dunked his bloodied cloth. The drip-drip-drip when he wrung it out. The huffing exhales when he cleaned a wound in need of more than just water to heal.

It turned out, Caden had more than just water. He pulled a clay jar from his pile of filthy gear, yet rather than apply it to his own wound, he soaked a fresh strip of cloth in the basin and crossed the room to Safi.

She refused to cower. Even when he trudged in close enough to grab her. She simply thrust out her chin and braced her spine.

He looked, as he always did, unimpressed. Or Un-empressed, she thought, doubting he would appreciate the joke any more than Vaness had.

“I know you think I enjoy this, but I don’t.” He dropped to his knees. “And I know you think that stubbornly ignoring pain is some kind of victory. But it isn’t. Trust me. It will only injure you more in the long run. Now, let me see your feet.”

Safi didn’t move. She couldn’t take her eyes off the glistening gash running beneath his collarbone. Red webbed out, a sign rot would soon be setting in. Yet that wasn’t what surprised her—it was the scarring below that wound. And above it too, and all across his chest and arms. Jagged streaks, no whiter than his already pallid skin, yet raised and vicious. They covered every inch of Caden’s body, identical to the ones on Lev’s face.

“Your feet,” Caden repeated.

Still, Safi remained frozen, her gaze trapped by the worst scar, at his throat. Just above the gold chain, identical to a chain Uncle Eron wore, this mark was as thick as Safi’s thumb and circled all the way around Caden’s neck.

“Good enough,” Caden said at last. “If you don’t want me to tend your wounds, I won’t. The empress needs tending too.”

“Yes.” The word slipped out. Safi gulped, forcing her eyes away from the Hell-Bard’s scars. “I do want them cleaned.”

“Smart.” He bowed his head, an almost gracious movement. Almost. “You know, I’ve been where you are, Heretic. All Hell-Bards have.”

“Then let me go.”

“So you can run away? Henrick wouldn’t like that.” Then slowly, as if he didn’t want to frighten her, Caden reached for her ankles.

Safi almost fainted from the pain. A punch of heat and light. The world swam. She crumpled in on herself.

She wasn’t stupid, though. She let the Hell-Bard clean her ankles because Caden was right that her stubbornness had served no purpose. It had only hurt her in the end. Though goat tits, it bruised her pride to admit that. Even to herself.

“Why did you run from the Truce Summit?” Caden asked as he dabbed at her wounds.

“Why,” Safi hissed through the pain, “not? Would you want to marry an old toad who would use you for your magic?”