Chapter 9: Proof

"That's not possible," Brunhild said.

They were alone on the wall walk, an hour before dawn, with the torches burned low and the wounded carried below.

Yui had not let go of the bare arm.

"I watched it happen," she said. "Forty times."

"You watched a coincidence. The curse spreads on me every night. I told you."

"It spreads exactly like the one I just healed. Every one. Same fork, same curve."

"Then it is the ward." Brunhild pulled her arm free. "It takes the shape of whatever curse is near."

"Then let me prove it."

Yui turned and called down the stairs, and Greta limped up with a lantern.

"Sergeant, I need a small cut. Your finger. I'll fix it right away."

Greta looked from one to the other, shrugged, and pricked her thumb with a pin.

A bead of blood welled up.

"Brunhild, watch your wrist," Yui said.

She laid two fingers on the little wound.

White light, a flicker, and Greta's thumb was whole.

On the inside of Brunhild's left wrist, in the lantern's glow, a single short black thread appeared.

It was the length of a fingernail.

It lay just under the pulse, perfectly formed.

Nobody spoke.

Greta turned the colour of the snow.

"Oh no," she whispered. "Oh, Commander, no."

Brunhild looked at her wrist for a very long time.

Her face did something Yui had never seen.

It did not crumple.

It went blank and far away.

"Nine years," she said, quietly.

"Brunhild..."

"Then stop." She lifted her eyes. "Stop healing. All of it. Do not touch another man."

"If I stop, they die."

"Then they die. They were always going to die."

"Brunhild!"

"I will not be the reason you cut yourself on me!" Her voice cracked across the quiet wall. "I will not be the thing that bleeds for everyone!"

She turned and strode away along the walk, a tall figure in the cold, with the cloak snapping at her heels.

Yui ran after her.

"Brunhild, stop!"

At the end of the wall stood the old lookout hut, a stone box with a shuttered window and a straw bed that the sentries used in summer.

Brunhild pushed the door open and went in.

Yui followed and shut the door behind them.

The wind howled outside.

Brunhild stood with her back to her, both hands braced on the wall, shoulders heaving.

"Every scar," she said hoarsely. "Every black line. All of them are other people's."

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