Starside novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Tilda's Star

The healer's tent smelled of crushed mint and burned root.

Tilda sat up on the cot with a strip of linen tied over her eyes.

"Don't cry," she said as soon as I came through the flap. "I can hear you getting ready to."

"I'm not crying."

"You breathe different when you're about to. It's a very annoying habit."

I sat on the edge of the cot and took her hand.

It was cold, and the nails were still faintly blue.

"The healer says the poison took my sight," Tilda said. "She says it won't come back. She says it fast, like she's said it before."

"Tilda."

"I've talked to her about it for a whole hour. I've decided to be angry later, when I'm stronger."

She made herself smile.

I had never hated anyone as plainly as I hated the man who had put that cup in her hand.

"I'm out, aren't I?" she said. "I can't cross a glass bridge when I can't see it."

"The goddess lets a withdrawn challenger stay in the tents. Your Warden told me. Your star stays up."

"Then I'm out, and I'm alive." She squeezed my fingers. "That's better than a lot of people. Go and win my mother's cure, Sorrel."

"I'll win your eyes back too."

"Don't promise things you can't do."

"I'm promising it anyway."

Her mouth wobbled, and then she laughed, and it cracked in the middle.

I kissed her forehead and went out into the grey light.

Dain was waiting twenty paces off with his hands behind his back.

He said nothing, because I had told him to say nothing.

I walked past him and he followed.

The Pool lay on the far side of a gorge, and across the gorge ran a bridge of glass.

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