Traitor, Book 1 of The Turner Chronicles

  Chapter 34

  Light pierced his eyes. Coolness ran across his forehead, and a young voice hummed a song that Aaron sometimes sang around the store.

  Slowly, unbelieving, he opened his eyes.

  Cathy sat beside him, humming gently while sunlight streamed through the open window. Her face was turned away as she did something to the side of his bed. Golden bars of daylight surrounded her, lighting up her hair, making her features glow sweet and lovely. At that moment when he first knew he would not die, Aaron realized beyond doubt that he still loved her with all the passion that was left to his scarred soul.

  She turned back to him, a damp cloth rising in a hand that headed towards his forehead, and then she saw his open eyes. Her expression became sweetly concerned. Her lips parted in a smile of pleased surprise. Aaron longed to rise from his bed, to place his lips over hers. Old memories surfaced: memories of rides, laughs, and quiet times when he and Cathy and Sarah spoke of their shared future. Memories of when times were good and when he was a man entire. His heart stirred, fluttered in his chest, and he knew that it was no longer dead inside him.

  "You are awake." She spoke in a whisper.

  "I suppose I am." His voice was low and weak. It did not sound like him at all. It sounded like the voice of a man who had seen too many years and too much life. "The question is whether or not I'm going to live."

  Leaning down, Cathy gently kissed the corner of his lips. "Oh you will live," she said, suddenly speaking in a normal voice while she tentatively dampened his forehead with hands that were nervous flutters. "Doc says you will come out of this in fine shape now that he has had his hands on you." Her lips turned down in a concerned frown. "Mister Turner, you had us all frightened. When you appeared inside the smithy you were a real mess. Fortunately, Mister Bran was in there, and he did not waste any time at all. He ran to Doc's house and literally carried him to you. Doc operated on you right there on the floor of the smithy while Mister Bran kept the curious out. I assisted him even though I had no idea what to do."

  Aaron tried to chuckle, but that turned out to be a bad idea. Absolutely everything hurt.

  "You have to lay quiet," Cathy admonished. "Doc used his Talent Stone on you, or you'd be dead now. He had to operate to pull bone shards out of your lung. Mister Turner, your lung was collapsed. You had broken ribs and a ruptured intestine, and you were bloody all over and Doc, said lots of small bug type thing got into your leg because you had an open wound that had been in foul water. It was horrible. Both your arms are broken, and so is your leg. What did you do to yourself?"

  "Didn't Kit say?" Aaron whispered weakly, finding it hard to speak. His voice had a catch to it even with those few words.

  "Mistress Turner hasn't been here to tell us anything. I'm afraid nobody thought to tell her you were here until this morning. In fact, Mistress Golard didn't send a rider out to the Manor until just a few hours ago."

  Oh Gods, Kit would be furious.

  "So?"

  "Hmmm."

  "What happened?"

  Aaron tried to speak, only nothing but a gurgle came out of him. He tried again, cleared his throat as the unreality of just what he had done struck him.

  "I did Beech," he finally managed, "but I guess he did me too."

  "Beech!" Cathy's voice rose to a squeak. "The Talent Master Beech?"

  "Yeah." He searched back in his memory. Events were fuzzy. He knew what had happened, what he had done, but part of him was not sure it wasn't all a nightmare. "I think I killed him. I must have killed him." Feeling weak, he closed his eyes and allowed weariness to wash over him, allowed it to pull him away from the waking world and draw him back into sleep because Beech was dead and nothing would ever make losing Sarah and his son any easier.

  "By the lady!" Sounding incredulous, disbelieving, Cathy's faint voice came to him through his drifting mind. "You killed a Talent Master. Mister Turner, you killed a Talent Master."

  The part of Aaron that was still aware did not blame her for doubting because he was not sure exactly what had happened anymore. He only knew that he was tired; he was sore; he was broken, and he was just plain sick of it all.