Chapter 6: The Burn

The Healer cut the burned shirt away from Lucan's back and said, "Hold him, Rhea."

"He doesn't need holding," Lucan said, through his teeth.

"Then hold the basin."

I held the basin.

We had carried him inside and laid him face down across my cot.

It was the only bed long enough.

The children sat on the loft floor above us with their legs hanging through the rails.

Nobody had managed to make them go to sleep.

"Does it hurt?" the smallest girl asked.

"A little," Lucan said into the pillow.

"Mama says a little means a lot."

"Your mama is right about most things."

I looked at the Healer, who was pretending not to hear.

She dipped a cloth in the basin and began to wipe the burn.

The silver had cut a deep red line from his left shoulder to his right hip.

The skin around it was white and blistered.

Every wipe of the cloth brought a hiss of breath through his teeth.

"Silver doesn't heal clean," the Healer said. "It needs a hand with the right heat."

She looked at me.

"Rhea, you have the warmest hands in the pack. Press here."

She took my wrist and set my palm against the base of his spine.

I felt him go absolutely rigid.

His skin was hot, and under my hand every muscle in his back drew tight at once.

"Does that hurt?" I asked.

"No," Lucan said.

"Then why are you shaking?"

"I'm not."

He was.

A fine tremor ran from my palm up the length of his spine, and then he made a low, rough sound in his chest that I felt more than heard.

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