The Queen and the Cure (The Bird and the Sword Chronicles #2)(6)

“I live in Solemn, but it was never my home.” There was grief in the simple revelation, and he braced himself against it. He did not want to know her pain. He’d done what he could for her. Some pain was not within his power to ease. She said no more, but continued staring at the cliffs, as if her life had truly ended there, and she didn’t know what came next. She took a few steps toward the cliff wall, and he stepped aside, following her with his eyes. His gaze caught on a white cloth caught by the brush that grew in the cracks and crags about twenty feet from the base of the cliff. The woman—Sasha—moved toward it as if it belonged to her and scrambled up several feet before he realized she had every intention of scaling the wall to reach it.

“Come down. I won’t heal you twice.”

She bowed her head briefly, as if she knew she should listen, but then continued, scurrying upward several more feet and untangling the pale fabric from the branch while clinging to the wall with curled toes and one hand.

“It is mine,” she informed him—slightly breathless—when she stood in front of him once more. She wrapped the cloth carefully over her blood soaked hair and secured the edges around her waist. She was calm and composed, and her serenity made him wary. He’d healed her body, but a physical healing didn’t erase her memory or alter her experience. She had fallen. She had teetered between life and death. Yet she did not cry or tremble. She didn’t ask him questions or seek to understand—or explain—what had happened.

“There is a stream in the crevice between the cliffs. I will show you and your men,” she said.

“How did you know I was not alone?” he asked.

“I saw you,” she replied, repeating the first words she’d said, and his stomach shivered uncomfortably at her insistence. She’d been unconscious when they found her.

He whistled sharply, the sound piercing the darkness, sending a signal to his men. He waited, his eyes on the strange woman, until Jerick and several other men stepped out from the shadows and halted with stunned curses. A lance clattered against the ground.

“The woman knows where there is water. We’ll stay here for the night,” Kjell directed. “Gather the others and bring me my horse.”

“And Solemn?” Jerick asked, recovering quickly, as if he’d never doubted his captain’s ability.

The woman jerked like the word was a whip against her flesh.

“Tomorrow,” Kjell answered, and her eyes shot to his. “We’ll go tomorrow. When it’s light.”





Sasha was curled nearby, Kjell’s cloak tucked around her, the length of cloth she’d reclaimed from the cliff folded beneath her fiery hair. He could now see that the cloth was the palest blue, shot with streaks of white, like the sun had bleached it unevenly. When he’d fallen asleep, she was still huddled near the fire in his cloak, her simple, dark blue gown spread out to dry nearby. She’d clearly found him in the dark and lain beside him. She was closer to his feet than his face, but near enough that he would have stumbled over her had he risen before dawn. He didn’t know what to make of her proximity beyond the obvious: If he’d healed her, she had value to him. If he valued her, she was safer with him than with anyone else.

In the gathering light, the copper flecks on her skin were bolder, reflecting the warmth of her hair. The blood had left her dress stained in darker patches, but she was relatively clean, her hair free of gore and glorious in the yawning rays that stole across the plains from the east and collided with the crags. She’d been right about the water—a stream tumbled from a crevice and collected in a gulley between two jagged walls—and she’d lead them through a narrow canyon only minutes from where they’d found her. She’d waited until the men had filled their bellies and their carafes before kneeling beside the pool and rinsing her matted hair and soot-streaked skin. Her blood-soaked gown was another matter, and Kjell had left her with his cloak and a wedge of soap, withdrawing to a small clearing nearby with his men.

He found himself hoping she would slip away, back to the life she’d almost lost. But she didn’t. When she approached him, wrapped in his cloak, her hair dripping, holding her wet dress, he’d given her food and directed her to sit. He’d asked Isak—a soldier with a gift for fire—to start a blaze, and she huddled beside it, her head resting on her drawn-up knees. His men moved around her cautiously, keeping their distance and their own company, their wonder making them reticent, but he found them staring at him as often as they stared at her.

There was awe and more than a little fear in the looks they cast his way. They knew what he’d done, but they still couldn’t believe it. They’d seen him mend a bloody gash or a broken bone, but they’d also watched soldiers die in his care—gone before he could do anything for them but return their bodies to their families or bury them on a battlefield. All of his men had withstood the attack on Jeru City—though few had witnessed his singular part in it. But they’d all witnessed this woman—bloodied and lifeless—made whole once again.

Their awe made Kjell grind his teeth and snap at anyone who looked at him for too long. His head ached dully and the tips of his fingers were numb from holding on to his temper. He ate with purpose and no pleasure, attempting to restore his energy and plug the slow drip of patience from his chest. Unable to do either, he immediately retired far from the fire and his men’s itchy reverence, barking at Jerick when he tried to follow.