Chapter 21: The Quiet Ward

The infirmary had forty beds, and for four nights Brunhild lay in the one nearest the stove.

Nobody else was put in it.

The Queen had given that order herself, in front of the whole ward.

She had added another: the bed at its side was the nurse's, and no one was to ask the nurse to leave it.

On the first night the black marks on Brunhild's arms were as dark as ink.

On the second, the thin edges had gone grey.

On the third, a hundred of the threads turned pink in a row.

Greta cried when she saw them.

By the fourth night the great line across her chest had drawn back from the breastbone, and the collarbone was clean.

Yui measured it with the white ribbon every evening and wrote the number in her notebook.

Then she shut the notebook and put it under her pillow, because tonight she did not want any more numbers.

It was late.

The ward was dark except for the stove.

The others had gone to sleep, or been sent away by the sergeant, who guarded the door.

Brunhild lay propped on three pillows, in a clean white shirt, with her eyes open.

She had slept fourteen hours that day, and she looked like a woman who had come up from the bottom of a well.

"You are awake," Yui said.

"I do not seem to need to be asleep."

"That's new."

"It is." Brunhild turned her head on the pillow. "May I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Will you look at my back?"

Yui blinked.

"I'd like to see," Brunhild said. "I have never seen it. Nobody has ever looked at it for me, except the Court Mage. And you."

She turned slowly onto her side, and Yui drew the shirt up.

The wheel was between the shoulder blades, as it had always been: a round brand, as wide as a plate, cut in fine lines.

It had been black and raised and angry.

Now the lines had gone a faint white, and there were places where they had vanished altogether.

"It's fading," Yui said.

"Is it?"

"It's almost gone. It's like a watermark, or the ghost of one."

She traced the edge, very lightly, with one fingertip.

"The Rite is dying, and it will be ended in the morning. It doesn't have anyone to hold it."

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