Amid the Winter Snow

  Sitting up a little, I drank more water and the fever tea, hoping they’d stay down this time. Then, while she was gone, I felt around for the pieces of the minor arm bone. Splintered all right, and I couldn’t set them. By the feel of it, there wasn’t enough of it left. I should be grateful the major bone was intact. If I lived through this I’d have to train myself to wield a sword with the other arm. This one would never have the same ability to grip again.

  The door opened and Ami entered, a basket over her arm. “I brought broth and bread, too, in case you can keep it down,” she said.

  I’d need the strength. “If you don’t mind, I’ll eat that first.” I should be honest with her. “It’s possible I’ll pass out when you hit it with the alcohol. Don’t stop. Douse all of it.”

  Pale, she firmed her lips and nodded. She poured soup from a tall container into a bowl and handed it to me. I cupped it in my hand and drank, the warm broth salty and intense with marrow, my bones feeling as if they drank it up.

  “Should I stitch it up again?” she asked.

  I shook my head and held out the bowl for more. Pursing her lips dubiously, she refilled it. “Not unless anything is really gushing blood. Just, if you can stomach it, try to line up the loose flesh again so the edges match. Then loosely wrap up the whole thing and let it seep.”

  “I wish I was better at this.” She studied me. “It feels so wrong that you’ve healed so many people—saved their lives—and there’s no one to help you. I tried to send for someone, but…”

  “Snowed in?” I cocked my head at the howling wind. “You got your Mornai storm.”

  “Don’t laugh about this.” She clenched her fists. “I know how stupid I am that I caused this. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

  “Ami,” I tossed aside the empty bowl and caught the sleeve of her robe before she could flee. She looked surprised that I moved so fast. “There’s nothing to forgive.”

  She firmed her pretty mouth. “Maybe not for you, but I have a great deal to reconcile with myself. Anything else before we do this?”

  “A couple of shots of the alcohol might be good.”

  “On a virtually empty stomach and you with a fever still?” She frowned at me.

  “Hard to screw myself up any more at this point,” I pointed out. “And it’ll dull the edge, at least a little.”

  She poured some of the liquor into the empty mug and I tossed it back, hissing at the harsh burn. “Branlian whiskey?”

  “The closest thing we had to what you asked for.” Ami shrugged. Then poured herself a draught and drank it. “For courage,” she said with a grimace.

  “You don’t have to do this,” I told her.

  “Yes, I do.” She handed me a wooden spoon for stirring stews and I took it. Paused before setting it between my teeth.

  “No matter what, don’t stop,” I said.

  “I know.”

  “I mean, even if I’m screaming.”

  “Oh.” She considered. “Even weakened you’re so much stronger than I am—should we tie you down again?”

  Much as I hated the thought, I grimly agreed. She retrieved the rope and secured the upper part of my wounded arm to the bed post, then tied my good hand to the headboard. I wrapped my fist around the binding rope, hanging on. That would help, too. She picked up the spoon and I opened my mouth to bite on it, but she hesitated, eyes a stormy blue.

  “Last chance to back out.” I said it as gently as I could.

  She gave me a long look, then smiled. Not all that nicely. “If you scream, I’ll just consider it payback for all the times you’ve pissed me off.”

  That’s my girl. I clamped my back teeth on the spoon and lay back.

  ~ 9 ~

  I must have lost consciousness early on, because I awoke to daylight, not remembering much beyond a haze of burning agony. The spoon was gone, I was untied, and my injured arm lay across my belly, lightly swathed in bandages. It ached, but with a fierce bright pain I actually welcomed. It was the crawling, stretching kind of pain that meant healing had begun.

  Thank Glorianna. And Her avatar.

  I was hungry, too—another good sign—and the fever had lessened. It still buzzed at the edges, making me feel a little chilled, but my vision had lost that too-acute sharpness. The wind howled outside, but from a direction that didn’t rattle the shutters as much. The white light filtered through the cracks in them, and showed through the glass-sealed clerestory windows that ringed the room near the ceiling. Nothing to see but snowflakes dashing themselves against the glass, like beasts starving to get in, but I frowned at them. I didn’t remember the windows.

  The door creaked open, and Ami peeked in. “You’re awake? Are you up for small, tremendously annoying visitors?”

  Stella had already stuck her head around Ami, wedging her small body through the space. “Ash!” she shouted, popping through like a cork and racing toward me.

  “Slowly and gently!” Ami commanded, her voice as steely as any general’s. Stella froze, then stepped toward the bed with exaggeratedly slow, prancing steps. Ami had caught Astar by the back of his sweater, swooping him up and carrying him over. She’d bathed and changed clothes, her hair in loosely spilling curls and her eyes bright. “Be careful, both of you. Anyone who jostles Ash and makes him hurt loses all their Feast of Moranu presents.”

  The kids exchanged wide-eyed looks and nodded. Ami set Astar next to me on the bed, then lifted Stella up. She stuck her small fingers in her mouth and stared at me. I tried to keep my emotions calm, in case she could sense them.

  “Does it hurt?” Astar asked, pointing at my arm.

  “A little bit,” I answered, not sure how honest to be.

  “You killed the wolf before it could eat us,” Astar informed me.

  I glanced at Ami who made a face. No telling them what they saw wasn’t real. It might have been nice to keep them innocent of the more vile aspects of the world a little longer though. “I did,” I agreed, “and now it can never hurt either one of you again.”

  “I don’t ever want to be a wolf,” Stella popped her fingers out of her mouth to say. “And you hurt a whole lot. It stinks.” Fat tears began to roll down her face.

  Not an easy magic to have, Stella’s gift of empathy. “It’s not a real smell—that’s the magic’s way of showing you emotion. And it feels stronger to you than to him,” Ami consoled the girl, stroking her dark curls. “Ash is very strong and tough. He can withstand more pain than anyone I’ve ever known. Look at him—he’s smiling.”

  Stella eyed me tearfully, stuck her fingers back in her mouth and jumped off the bed, turning into a mountain lion cub on the way, and tearing out the door as if her tail were on fire. Ami sighed and watched her go. “I was afraid that would happen, but she insisted on seeing you. She could feel your pain, so there was no lying to her about it. And what Nilly wants, Willy must have, too.”

  “I want to learn to use a sword,” Astar announced, blissfully unbothered, “so I can kill wolves.” He jumped up to demonstrate with an invisible sword, thrusting it wildly in the air and bouncing the bed.

  “No jostling.” The lash of Ami’s reprimand caught him mid-bounce and he tucked his hands behind his back, pasting on an angelic smile the mirror of his mother’s.

  Then he turned back to me. “Will you teach me to use a sword, Ash—will you?”

  Ouch. I glanced at Ami, who wouldn’t meet my eye. “Maybe someday,” I told him.

  “Does that mean tomorrow?” he asked hopefully.

  “That means someday,” Ami corrected crisply, “and that’s enough visiting.” She scooped him up, but he struggled, reaching for me.

  “I want to stay!”

  “Ash needs to rest. Go find Nilly and make sure she’s not being naughty.”

  He brightened at that and tore out the door, shouting, “Nilly Nilly Nilly!”

  Ami shook her head and sighed, giving me a rueful smile. “Sorry about that and thank you—they were driving me crazy, worrying
about you.”

  “That’s all right. It was good to see them.”

  “Yes. Well.” She studied me. “How do you feel, really? I know it must be bad if you reduced Nilly to tears inside of a minute, so don’t bother lying.”

  “I really do feel better. The arm is improved and the fever not so high. It hurts, sure, but it’s healing.”

  She pursed her lips, then poured some of the fever tea and handed me the mug. “Well, your color is better. And your eyes are back to your normal bright green, not glowing like a cat’s in the dark.”

  I paused mid-sip. “They were glowing?”

  “Shapeshifter magic or something, but I could see the light on my skin, even.”

  I contemplated that, not sure what it meant. So much I still didn’t know about my heritage. “I’ll have to ask some of the Tala healers about that.”

  “When you go back to Annfwn,” she said, matter-of-fact, no question in it, busying herself with laying out some soup. I didn’t bother to correct her that I hadn’t decided where I’d go. She brought the soup over on a tray, setting it on my lap and taking the empty mug. “After you eat, we’ll look at the arm.”

  “You don’t have to wait on me, Ami. You’re a queen, not a servant.” I knew I sounded irritable, but I hadn’t quite expected her to be so ready to have me gone. Silly, as I’d been meant to be long gone before this.

  She flashed me an opaque look that didn’t fool me. I’d annoyed her with that. “We’re snowed in at a virtually empty castle—believe me, the calls to hear petitions and attend social engagements have gone way down.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” I rubbed my forehead, where the fever made it throb, regretting that I’d spoken.

  “I know what you meant, but you’ll have to put up with my company for a while longer. Though now that you’re reasonably lucid, if cranky with it, I might get some of the maids or men at arms to spell me.”

  Lucid. I frowned at her, remembering those nightmares.

  “Now that you aren’t saying things you wouldn’t want anyone else to hear,” she clarified, pointedly, still expectant.

  I wasn’t sure how to ask, certain I didn’t want to hear the answer. But I knew Ami and she had that look about her, like she had her teeth into something and wouldn’t be dropping it. “Did I—” My throat caught and I coughed, swallowed some broth to ease it. “During the fever, was I…”

  She raised her finely arched brows, waiting for me to finish. When I couldn’t think of any words, I stared at my soup. It held no answers either.

  Ami sat on the bed and covered my good hand with hers. “Ash,” she said, and the hesitation in her voice, the sympathy, had me wanting to crawl away. “What happened to you in that prison?”

  “I’ve told you about that,” I said.

  “Not really.” She tightened her hand on mine. I knew she wanted me to turn mine over, to lace our fingers together and return the grip, but I couldn’t make myself. More than anything I wanted her to go away, to leave me alone and not ask these questions. Not something I could ask for without driving her away forever and I wasn’t ready to face that. Still too sick and weak. I’d walked away from her before and it had taken all I had. I couldn’t do it again, not yet.

  “Ash,” Ami said with more asperity. “Don’t do this. Don’t retreat inside that silence. You can talk to me.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. You know everything already.”

  “You told me about the staged matches. How the old Tala man taught you to fight, how to channel the beast inside to grow strong and fast. You said the guards would whip you when you disobeyed.”

  I laughed a little, the grate of it painful in my chest. “Or just when they felt like it. Disobedience is in the eye of the beholder.”

  “But there’s more, isn’t there? You said you were in there ten years and you were twenty-three when you got out, which means you were little more than a boy in there.”

  “A lot of us were young. Uorsin’s law didn’t discriminate based on age.”

  “I’m naïve about a lot of things, Ash, but not about everything. Some of the things you said—”

  They do terrible things. It only makes them want more when you scream. When they can make you cry and plead.

  “Don’t speak them,” I grated out. Glancing up at her lovely face, I saw what I’d dreaded most. That pity.

  “Ash, I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice full of compassion.

  “Don’t be,” I said, harshly enough that she physically flinched. I pulled my hand from hers on pretext of eating more soup, but it shook too much to hold the spoon, so I picked up the bowl and drank. Not smart because I dumped half of it down the front of my nightshirt. Growling in frustrated rage, I hurled the bowl at the wall, where it shattered with a crash, the ceramic pieces raining to the floor.

  Ami didn’t look, just stared at me, lips pressed together tightly enough to make them go white as snow, eyes shadowed blue pools. Then she stood and shook out her skirts. “I’ll just get a broom and—”

  “Leave it.” It came out as a barked command, making her jump.

  “Fine,” she bit out. In a flurry of rustling skirts and bouncing curls, she left, the faint scent of roses lingering behind.

  I hated that, hated that I’d frightened her. But this was better, wasn’t it? She should be afraid of me. She needed to see what kind of foul and twisted creature she’d taken to her bed. Then it would be easier for us both to say goodbye.

  As soon as I got my strength back, I’d go.

  ~ 10 ~

  I slept on and off all day. Ami sent Skunk to help me, the young guardsman irritatingly cheerful about his own injuries. Still, he had the strength to brace me to use the chamber pot—a good thing as I was weaker than I’d thought. Standing up nearly had me on the floor. Would have, if he hadn’t caught me.

  Preparations for the Feast of Moranu—already the following night—sounded to be well underway. And Windroven wasn’t as badly staffed as I’d feared, or as Ami had made it sound. Could be that had been a product of my fever-muddled brain.

  That first venture out of bed exhausted me enough that I crashed into sleep as soon as Skunk got me back in it. When I woke again, I remembered that I’d driven Ami off before she could unwrap my arm to check it. The light had dimmed considerably, likely late afternoon sliding into evening, the blizzard raging unabated. The sound had leaked into my dreams with its roaring and howling.

  It only makes them want more when you scream. When they can make you cry and plead.

  The worst possible time for those ugly old memories to rear their monstrous heads. I’d put all that behind me. Maimed and scarred myself to do it. Taken refuge with the monks and a vow of silence to quiet that howling within. Wretchedly unfair that they should return to haunt me now.

  Perhaps Glorianna had determined to punish me for my infidelity to Her. When I’d broken my vow, it had been—at least in part, I’d justified to myself—to help Her avatar. And the goddess had seemed to be in favor of that. But I’d strayed from Her exclusive service too long. Overstayed my welcome with Ami and tested Glorianna’s patience.

  The goddess had reminded me that I remained a savage, twisted beast in my heart, and there would be no healing from that.

  It was awkward to do alone, but I got the bandages off, studying the arm in the low light. A bruised and bloodied mangled mess. More purple and black now, and distorted with swelling. But I could at least wiggle my fingers, if not fully flex them. The movement pulled with agonizing tightness. No fresh blood welled, however—and no sign of pus or the black ichor. The flesh seemed to be knitting together well enough.

  The chamber door creaked, opening a hand’s width, and a mountain lion cub strolled in on too-big paws, surveying me with predatory eyes the same color as her mother’s. “Heya, little Nilly,” I said, surprised to see her back already. I’d figured she’d avoid me for days yet. “Have you been a cub all this time? You know that’s not good for you.” I wo
ndered if Ami knew.

  She padded over and leapt onto the bed, craning her neck to sniff at my arm, and I braced myself. Her muzzle wrinkled in feline disgust. But she climbed up onto my lap, nudging my good hand with her head, so I rubbed her ears. A purr welled up and she draped herself over my lap, nudging at the wounded arm, which I’d moved aside. She reached out a cupped paw, tapping my arm, trying to pull it closer.

  “Silly Nilly,” I whispered. “What are you doing?”

  She purred louder and determinedly wrapped both paws around my forearm, rolling onto her back and dragging it to lay across her furry fawn-colored belly. I winced in anticipation of her going into a feline attack of hind claws and biting, but she licked my arm, rubbing her whiskers against it.

  And the pain eased. So much so that the sudden abatement startled me. Drowsiness followed, irresistible and dragging. Unable to resist, I fell into a deep sleep.

  “Here you are. Bad kitty!” Ami was whispering, trying to be quiet. She had been—it was Nilly’s growl that brought me to instant alert. “I mean it, Stella,” Ami hissed. “You come here right now, young lady. You know you weren’t supposed to come in here.”

  “It’s all right,” I said, and Ami glanced up, startled. She had hold of two of Stella’s paws, trying to ease her out from under my arm. “Though she’s probably been a cub long enough. I’ve lost track of time.” I squinted at the clerestory windows, which had gone dark, white flakes hurling themselves against the glass and into the shadows again.

  “We’ve been searching the entire castle for hours.” Ami planted fists on hips, glaring at her daughter in exasperation. “Someone isn’t getting any dessert if she’s still a cub, I know that.”

  Stella popped into human shape again—wriggling and naked toddler—throwing her arms around my neck and planting a kiss on my cheek. “Ash,” she proclaimed.