His eyes widen marginally at my reaction, but he seems to shrug it off in the next instant.
“We’ll lower you down the same way we got you and Soren up the tree,” Iric offers. He opens the door in the floor and ties a loop at the end of the rope hanging from the pulley already positioned there.
I look from one boy to the next. “Thank you,” but I don’t really feel the words. I’m too concerned about what is about to happen, how there will be nothing between me and a fifteen-foot drop except two almost strangers.
If they’d wanted to hurt you, they would have done it when you were unconscious, I assure myself. It doesn’t make the discomfort go away.
I suppose there’s something to be said for pain. As soon as my full weight is pressing into the loop, I forget all about my fears. I can’t think of anything except the pulsing bruise below my heart, the rope digging into my thighs.
When my feet blessedly hit the bottom, I untangle myself from the sling. Two more sets of feet hit the ground as both boys join me.
“Do you already have a spot?” I ask, certain they must.
“Down that trail.” Iric points. “Can’t miss it.”
“Will you be able to”—Soren gestures below my navel—“by yourself?”
My face heats up. “I’ll manage.”
I stride down the trail, and behind me I hear a smack.
“Did you really just offer to help her piss?” Iric whispers loudly enough for me to hear.
“No! I was just making sure she could. Why would you hit me?”
“Because you’re behaving like an idiot.”
I miss the next exchange because I’m too far. I find the latrine. Any sort of bending is extremely painful, but I manage to relieve myself without getting anything on my clothes.
When I make it back to the house, Iric and Soren are still having a quiet argument. They cease as soon as I’m in view.
“Something wrong?” I ask.
“No,” Soren says at the same time Iric says, “Yes.”
I wait for an explanation, but neither boy is forthcoming. Soren is watching Iric, and Iric is grimacing at the ground.
“I doubt you’re about to start helping with the chores again anytime soon,” Iric eventually says to Soren, “so I’d better get to it. You stay here to play manservant.”
“That’s not necessary,” I say. “I’ll leave as soon as one of you retrieves my armor and ax.”
“All right,” Iric says, before pulling himself up the branches leading to the house.
But Soren yanks on his foot and pulls him back down to the ground. Iric barely manages to catch himself on his other foot.
“We talked about this,” Soren says to him.
“Fine,” Iric says with a sigh. He turns his gaze to me. “We’d like to invite you to stay with us until you heal.”
Was that the cause of their argument? Soren wants me to stay but Iric wants me gone? Well, then. I’ll make it easy for them. “Thank you, but no.”
“Rasmira,” Soren says, “if you lie down, you won’t be able to get back up again, and you need someone who can monitor your wound. Let us help. Please.”
He’s asking me to trust them. To willingly put my safety in their hands. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. But he has a point. I won’t make it on my own. Not if I can’t get up to feed myself.
Soren has been nothing but kind and even helpful despite everything. Iric, I haven’t seen nearly as much, but he seems tolerable. Logically, I know staying with them is the smart thing to do, but I can’t change how I feel. The desire to take my chances on my own is almost overwhelming.
But physically, I’m spent.
Even now, standing and moving have taken their toll on me. My abdomen throbs, and I feel light-headed, ready to collapse again.
“Maybe one night,” I finally say, trying to sound stronger than I really am.
“Great,” Iric says, and his voice doesn’t quite match the word. “And I’m off. Since Soren is feeling so extra helpful today, I’ll let him get you situated.” Iric shoots a glare at his friend before taking off down a trail—one that leads in the opposite direction as the latrine.
Soren rolls his eyes after him.
CHAPTER
11
“The floor is fine,” I say once Soren gets me back up the tree.
“Nonsense, take my mattress. Iric and I can share.”
“You’ve saved me as it is. I don’t need to steal your bed.”
“You’ll heal faster this way. Don’t you want to be on your way?”
He couldn’t have said anything that would cause me to take the bed faster. I manage to lower myself to my knees and then flop onto my back. The impact sends a gasp of pain through my lips.
“You’re not one to ask for help,” Soren notes.
“You’ve just now realized this?”
A small smile brushes his lips.
“What was all that about back there?” I ask, jerking my thumb toward the window. I pull a blanket over my naked abdomen. It’s not like both boys haven’t gotten a good look at my bare midriff, but I feel more comfortable covered.
“All what?”
“The arguing. Iric’s strange behavior.”
“Iric has opinions.”
“Many people do,” I say.
“Sometimes he gets caught up in his own problems instead of thinking of others.”
“And I’m one of those problems?”
“You’re not a problem. It’s just that, well, you’re a girl.”
“Noticed, did you?” A ball of irritation forms in my gut. “And Iric doesn’t think a girl should be a warrior, is that it?”
“What? No! That’s not it at all.”
“You’re not explaining very well, then.”
“I just don’t think you’ll like the answer.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Soren sits on the other mattress and laces his fingers together in his lap. “All right, let me explain it this way. Iric has already mentioned Aros.”
“His man back home.”
“Yes. He hasn’t seen him in a year, but they still exchange letters. Aros leaves him one every time he goes out with the hunting party. I’ve tried to tell Iric he needs to end it. He’s banished, and he’ll never see Aros again. Dragging it out like this will only cause him more pain.”
“I fail to see how this has anything to do with me.” I do feel sorry for Iric, though.
“It’s only ever been the two of us out here, but now a girl has joined us in the wild. Iric thinks that because you’re the only option for me and I’m the only option for you that we’ll end up … together. We’ll get together, and he’ll still be alone.”
Huh. That, I didn’t expect.
Maybe I would feel some sympathy if I had any faith in real relationships, but I’m certain they don’t exist.
I say, “You’re assuming I like boys.”
This finally brings his eyes back to mine. “Do you?”
I don’t know the answer to that. In one way, it’s simple: I am attracted to men. That is what Soren is asking. But right now, with my broken heart and trust, I don’t see how I could like another boy ever again.
So I say, “I did.”
After a beat of silence, I add, “It’s a ridiculous notion.”
“That’s what I tried to tell him. We wouldn’t get together because we’re the only options for each other. We’d get together because you’re a wickedly talented warrior woman who doesn’t let anyone get close to her, and I love a challenge.”
He laughs at the look I give him. “I’m kidding! Sort of. Okay, mostly not, but would it really be so terrible to give me a chance?”
“Yes.”
“Why? What happened to you?”
Ziken cackling. Sharp teeth. A flash of red. Torrin’s and Havard’s laughter—all of this flashes through my mind in the time it takes me to blink.
“You can tell Iric,” I say, “that he has nothing to worry about. Besides, I won’t be here long. Just until I’m healed.”
Soren watches me for a moment, and I can tell his mind is turning, thinking … something. I think he comes to some conclusion, and I really hope it’s him accepting the fact that we are not a possibility.
“Won’t we at least see more of you now?” he asks.
“Now?” I repeat.
“Now that we’re friends.”
I scoff at the word.