“I am, sir.” She looked up at him and tried to smile.
His mouth crooked up at one corner. He glanced at her before turning away to pick up a towel, hanging from a peg near the basin. “I’ve got a problem with your story. No one would send a slave that was hurt as badly as you out to run a message. That’s insane.”
Amara flushed. “He didn’t . . . exactly know.” That much was true, at least. “I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.”
“No,” Bernard said. “Girl, you don’t look much like most slaves I’ve seen. Particularly pretty young women in service to a man.”
She felt her face heat still more. “What do you mean, sir?”
He didn’t turn toward her. “The way you hold yourself. The way you blushed when I touched your leg.” He glanced back and said, “Very few people disguise themselves as a slave, for fear they won’t be able to get back out of it again. One has to be either foolish or desperate.”
“You think I’m lying to you.”
“I know you’re lying,” the Steadholder said, without malice. “It just remains to be seen if you’re foolish or desperate. Maybe you need my help, or maybe you just need to be locked in a cellar until the authorities can collect you. I’ve got people to look after. I don’t know you. I can’t trust you.”
“But if —”
“This discussion,” he said, “is over. Now shut your mouth, before you pass out.”
She felt him move closer and looked up just as he lifted her up again, keeping her unwounded arm against his chest. She didn’t mean to, but she found herself laying her head against his shoulder and closing her eyes. She was just too tired, and it hurt too much. She hadn’t slept since . . . had it been two days ago?
“. . . going to be in here fixing dinner,” Bernard was saying, “so we’ll move you to a cot by the fire in the great hall. Everyone will be in here tonight, because of the storm.”
She heard herself make a small sound of acknowledgment, but the ordeal of having her wounds cleaned, coupled with her exhaustion, left her in no condition to do more. She leaned against him and soaked in his warmth, his strength, drowsing.
She didn’t stir until he began lowering her onto the cot. The door to the hall opened, somewhere behind him and out of her sight. Footsteps came toward them, but she couldn’t see who they belonged to and couldn’t work up the energy to care. Frederic’s nervous voice said, “Sir, there’s some travelers asking for shelter from the storm.”
“That’s right, Steadholder,” said Fidelias, his voice even, pleasant, using a relaxed Rivan accent as though he were a native. “I hope the three of us won’t be an inconvenience.”
CHAPTER 16
Isana woke to the sounds of wind groaning over the valley and the hollow clanging of the storm chimes hanging outside.
She frowned and rubbed at her eyes, struggling to orient herself. Her last memories were of being carried to her bed, after tending to Bernard. She must have slept for hours. She didn’t feel thirsty, which was no surprise; Rill often tended to such matters on her own initiative. But her stomach growled and roiled with an almost painful need for food, and her body ached as though she’d not moved for days.
Frowning, Isana pushed aside the purely physical sensations, until she reached something deeper, more detached. And once she had isolated that feeling, she focused on it, closing her eyes to shut out the miscellaneous emotional noise she always felt around her.
Something was wrong.
Something was very wrong.
It was a quiet, nauseating feeling deep down, something that made her think of funerals and sickbeds and the smell of burnt hair. It felt familiar, and it took her a moment to track back through her memory, to realize when she had found such a sensation within her before.
Isana’s heart lurched in sudden panic. She threw off the covers and rose, drawing a robe on over the shift she’d slept in. Her hair hung down past her waist, loose and tangled, but she left it so. She belted the robe and stepped toward her door. Her balance swayed, and she had to lean against the door for a moment, closing her eyes, until she regained her balance.
She opened the door, to find her brother moving quietly out of his room across the hall. “Bernard,” she cried, and went to him, gripping him in a sudden, tight embrace. He felt warm and solid and strong in her arms. “Oh, thank all the furies. You’re all right.” She lifted her eyes to his and asked, anguish making the words tight, “Is Tavi —”
“He’s all right,” Bernard said. “A little banged up, not terribly happy, but he’ll be fine.”
Isana felt sudden tears blur her eyes, and she pressed her face against her brother’s chest and hugged him again. “Oh. Oh, Bernard. Thank you.”
He hugged her back and said, voice gruff, “Nothing I did. He’d already taken care of himself and was on the way home.”
“What happened?”
Bernard was silent for a moment, and she could feel the discomfort in him. “I’m not sure,” he said finally. “I remember setting out with him yesterday, but beyond that . . . nothing. I woke up in bed about an hour before sunrise.”
Isana forced the tears back and stepped back from him, nodding. “Crafting trauma. Memory loss. Like when Frederic broke his legs.”
Bernard made a growling sound. “I don’t like it. If what Tavi says is true —”
She tilted her head to one side. “What does Tavi say?”
She listened as Bernard recounted Tavi’s story to her, and she could only shake her head. “That boy.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t know whether to hug him or scream at him.”
“But if we were attacked by one of the Marat—sis, this could be very bad. We’d have to take word of it to Gram.”
Isana bit her lip. “I think you should. Bernard, I’ve got a bad feeling. Something’s wrong.”
He frowned down at her. “What do you mean, wrong?” She shook her head and knew that the frustration she felt showed in her voice. “Bad. Wrong. I can’t explain it.” She took a deep breath and told him very quietly, “I’ve only felt like this once before.”
Bernard’s face went pale. He was silent for a long minute before he said, “I don’t remember any Marat, ’Sana. I can’t take word of it to Gram. His truthfinder would know.”
“Then Tavi will have to do it,” Isana said.
“He’s a child. You know how Gram is. He’ll never take Tavi seriously.”
Isana turned and paced a few steps, back and forth. “He’ll have to. We’ll make him.”
Bernard shook his head. “No one makes Gram do anything.” He shifted his weight a bit, so that more of his body fell between Isana and the door to his room.
“This isn’t anything to trifle with, or to let Gram’s stiff neck—” Isana frowned and leaned to look past her brother. Without changing expression, he moved a bit more to block her view with his body. Isana let out an impatient breath and shouldered her brother a bit to one side, looking past him.
“Bernard,” she said. “Why is there a girl in your bed?”