Simus stood there, staring after her in astonishment.
Joden was coughing, talking and clearing his throat at the same time. “Thought you didn’t share during the Trials?” he choked and laughed. “Thought it made things complicated?”
“Show more respect for your Warlord,” Simus growled.
Joden just kept laughing.
Chapter Twenty-One
“You understand, I do not wish to trouble the Warprize?” Amyu asked anxiously, embarrassed to be seeking reassurance.
The stone walls of Master Healer Eln’s chamber were covered in shelves, filled with bottles and jars, more than she’d ever seen in a Xyian building. She stood by the large wooden table, glancing around. It made her feel even more nervous, all these things surrounding her. She felt hemmed in. Trapped.
Master Healer Eln sat on his stool by the table, his long grey hair braided down his back. He had a calm presence, a very quiet man. The braid was unusual in a city-dweller; for Amyu, it made him seem safer somehow. Like one of the Plains.
“It’s just that she, the Warprize,” Amyu hurried on, “she has other worries right now, with her kingdom, and her new babes.”
Master Healer Eln nodded, studying her. “You want to talk, as if under the bells, correct?” he asked gently. “That’s why you came here to see me?”
“You’d think they were the first babes ever born.” Amyu reached up and pushed her brown hair behind her ear. “They are good babies, mind you, but—”
Eln snorted with amusement. “But all new mothers are like that, even Master Healers.” He paused. “But that is not why you are here.”
Amyu dropped her gaze, glad that she’d made the journey from the Castle to his shop in the City. Far more private then any tent, with stone walls and closed doors. “The Warprize has said that Xyian Healers hold words told them to their hearts, yes? Like the Singers?”
“I will tell no one what you confide in me,” Eln said softly. “And that is the second time you have asked me that, Amyu. What troubles you so?” The concern in his voice was clear, and reassuring. She looked up when he continued. “Does it have to do with...” His glance fell on her left arm.
So he knew about her lack of tattoos, of her barrenness. Knew that to her own people she was still a child and a failure. Yet still he treated her as an adult, as a person of worth. Xyians were odd that way. It felt so strange, and yet, so wonderful at the same time.
“No, it’s not about that,” she said softly, and cursed the tears that welled up in her eyes when he just nodded, and didn’t press the matter. “It is—” Amyu tried to find the words. “Since the night of the pillar of light, I have—”
Raised voices cut through the quiet and the door to Eln’s chamber burst open. Amyu spun, her weapons in her hand.
“Wounded, Master,” an apprentice explained, holding the door open. Into the chamber rushed a group of four in the uniform of the City Guard, all talking at once, carrying an unconscious warrior face down between them. “Master Healer,” one of them grunted under his load. “Wyvern sting.”
“Here, quickly.” Eln was up, moving his stool to the side, gesturing toward the table. “Where’s the wound?”
“Lower back,” one said.
Amyu pressed herself against the shelves to make way. Jars and bottles rattled behind her. Eln called for his apprentices and the other healers.
The unconscious warrior’s lower back was a mess of torn leather armor, blood, dirt, grass, and sizzling flesh. Amyu wrinkled her nose as the stink of the poison rose from the wound. It smelled as rank as ehat musk.
“Two of the wyverns came swooping down as they rode out of the woods,” a guard explained. “Poor bastards didn’t know to watch for them. The others with her didn’t make it.”
The guards settled the warrior onto the table facedown, as gently as they could. “She’s breathing still,” one said. “We think maybe she’s from the Plains.”
Amyu sucked in a breath at that, and craned her neck to see the warrior’s face. “Eloix,” she said, recognizing the lax face. “She was with Simus of the Hawk.”
“Send word to the Warlord immediately,” Eln commanded, and one of the guards leaped to obey. “I need a few of you here,” Eln said. “In case—”
“Aye,” the oldest Guard said, nodding in understanding. “Best to be careful.” He reached over, and removed Eloix’s weapons from their sheaths.
Amyu slid toward the door, feeling in the way, but Eln stopped her with a look. “Stay.” He jerked his head into the corner near Eloix’s head. “You speak Firelander, and we don’t.”
Amyu obeyed, darting into the corner, and trying to make herself small as Eln called for supplies. “Wine,” he ordered his apprentices. “Water hasn’t worked before this. I need this armor cut away. Be careful not to let any of that venom get on you.”
There was another rattling of jars and bottles as they all moved about the room, getting into position. An older apprentice with leather gloves stepped forward, and started to peel back the shreds as another cut with a large knife. The sight of the wound got no better as the leathers and padding were removed.