Chapter 6: First Touch

The hold's healer was a short, round woman who did not ask a single question.

She took one look at Hazel, put two fingers on her wrist and sent the guards out of the room.

"Sedative," she said. "Heavy, and given for weeks. She'll wake properly by morning, and she'll be angry."

"Good," I said.

"She'll need broth, and a window, and no visitors who smell like Silver Creek."

"I smell like Silver Creek."

"You smell like rain." She almost smiled. "Go to bed, girl."

I would not leave until Hazel was sleeping peacefully.

Then I let Lucan walk me out.

The corridor was long and cold, lit by iron lamps, and I had no idea which way my room was.

"Left," Lucan said. "Then the stairs."

"How do you know I can't read a map?"

"You've been walking into the wall for two minutes."

I had.

I stopped and put my forehead against the stone.

It was cool and it helped.

"I'm sorry," I said into the wall.

"For what?"

"I almost gave you a lecture about the hold's decor."

"It needs one." His voice was close behind me.

I laughed, and the laugh broke in the middle.

I held my fist to my mouth until it passed.

He did not say a word, and he did not touch me.

He waited, three feet away, and I could feel him waiting.

Something in my chest unknotted, a little, just from that.

"Thank you," I said, "for carrying her."

"She weighs nothing."

"I know."

"I'll put a guard on the cottage tonight," he said. "And one in the hold. Nobody leaves with her."

"Okay."

I pushed off the wall and turned for the stairs.

They were stone and curved, with no rail, and my legs had stopped listening to me about an hour ago.

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