Chapter 5: Healers Don't Burn

"I can't tell you," I said.

I pulled my hands out of Torin's and stood, and my knees nearly gave.

"Where I got it, what it is, any of it. Not yet."

He caught my elbow before I fell.

"I didn't ask you to," he said.

"You were about to."

"I was about to say I've buried forty men from ashfever in nine years."

He looked at the sleeping hall.

"And this morning I buried none."

His voice was rough.

"So I don't care what you are, Lark, and I don't care what the Marshal knows about you."

"You noticed that."

"I notice most things."

He steered me out into the cold stone corridor and shut the hall door behind us.

I leaned back against the wall because my body had decided it was done holding me up.

"You've given me my men back," Torin said. "I'll never ask for your name. You tell it when you want to."

I looked up at him.

He was close, and he was tired, and the scar through his brow looked almost soft in the torchlight.

I thought of the wedding night, of his weight and his mouth and the way he had said my false name like a prayer.

The fire in my chest turned over.

"Take me somewhere," I said.

"You're dead on your feet."

"I'm not tired."

"Lark."

"Torin." I took his shirt in both hands.

"I've just spent six hours giving my fire away. I want it back. I want it from you."

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