Evrane sniffed dryly. “Are you injured from your … sparring?”
Safi ignored the question. “Tell me what’s wrong with Iseult. Why does she need a Firewitch healer?”
“Because there is something wrong with Iseult’s muscle, and that is a Firewitch healer’s domain.” Evrane plucked a glass jar from within her cloak. “I am a Waterwitch healer, so I specialize in the fluids of the body. My salves”—she flourished the jar at Safi—“are from Earthwitch healers, so they can only heal skin and bone.” Evrane set the salve on the pallet. “There is inflammation in Iseult’s muscle that is bewitched. Either the cut on her hand or the arrow wound in her arm was cursed. I … cannot tell which, but it is undoubtedly the work of a Cursewitch.”
“A Cursewitch?” Safi repeated. Then again, “A Cursewitch?”
“I’ve seen spells like this before,” Evrane continued. “I can keep the curse clear of her blood, but I fear it will still spread through her muscle. As we speak, it moves for her shoulder. If it gets much closer, then I will have to amputate—but that is risky to do on my own. It is best done with an Earthwitch healer and a Firewitch healer to help. Of course, even if we had such witches available, most Earthwitch healers are Cartorran. Most Firewitch healers are Marstoki. Merik would never allow such enemies onboard.”
“They are not enemies now,” Safi muttered, her mind still reeling from the idea of amputation. That word seemed so strange. So impossible. “The War ended twenty years ago.”
“Tell that to the men who fought in it.” Evrane gestured toward the main hold. “Tell that to the sailors who lost their families to Marstoki flames.”
“But healers can’t hurt.” Safi pushed her fingers against the wood until her knuckles cracked. “Isn’t that part of your magic?”
“Oh, we can hurt,” Evrane answered. “Just not with our power.”
Safi said nothing. There was nothing to say. Every breath that passed, the deeper into hell she tumbled and the less likely Iseult was to survive.
Yet even though Safi was chained, she wouldn’t give up. Merik’s treaty, her uncle’s plan, and even her own future could be damned and thrice-damned again. Safi would find a way to get off this ship and she would get Iseult to a Firewitch healer.
“So you are a noblewoman,” Evrane said, “yet you clearly know your way around a blade. I wonder how that happened.” She carefully reached for her healer kit at the foot of the pallet. Then, with precise movements, she untied the bandage on Iseult’s arm. The drum pounded and pounded and pounded.
“In Nubrevna,” Evrane continued, “we call our doms and domnas ‘vizers,’ and my family’s land—the Nihar holding—was southeast of the capital. A crap holding, to tell you the truth.” Evrane threw Safi a wry smile as she ever-so-carefully peeled back the bandage. “But crap holdings tend to breed the most power-hungry vizers, and my brother was no exception. He eventually won the hand of Queen Jana, and the Nihars were inducted into the royal snakes.”
The Cartorran nobility is the same, Safi thought. Vicious, cutthroat, lying. While a man like Merik might feel duty-bound to his land and his people, Safi had never suffered that loyalty. The Hasstrel people had never wanted her, nor had her fellow doms and domnas. And as Uncle Eron had so succinctly put it, Safi wasn’t exactly cut out for leadership.
Evrane set aside the dirty bandages and reached for her jar of salve. “Politics is a world of lies, and the Nubrevnan court is no different. Yet, when my brother became King…” She frowned and opened the jar. “When Serafin became King and Admiral of the Royal Navy, he became the worst snake of them all. He puts vizer against vizer, son against daughter—even his own.
“I stayed a few years after the family moved to Lovats,” Evrane went on, “but eventually I gave up. I wanted to help people, and I could not do so in the capital.” Evrane replaced the tub in her kit and then waved her Witchmark in Safi’s direction. “It is part of being blessed with Waterwitch healing, I suppose. I need to help and when I am idle, I am unhappy. So years before the Truce began, I gave up my title and traveled to the Sirmayan Mountains to take my Carawen vows. The Wells have always called to me, and I knew that I could help others with a white robe upon my back. Where do you come from, Domna?”
Safi sucked in tiredly; her chains shook with the movement. “I’m from the Orhin Mountains—in central Cartorra. It was cold and wet and I hated it.”
“And Iseult is from the Midenzi settlement?” Evrane laid the new linen over Iseult’s arm and, with almost painful slowness, eased it around her bicep. “I remember it now.”
Safi’s lungs compressed. Silver hair. A healer monk. “You,” Safi exhaled. “You were the monk who found her.”
“Hye,” Evrane answered simply, “and that is a very significant thing.” Evrane angled a grim look Safi’s way. “Do you know why it is significant?”