Healer's Touch (15 page)

He cursed again.
I’m getting soft.
What did he care if Jonas was upset? What had Jonas cared when he’d been born, taking all their father’s and Aris’ attention? Braph hadn’t needed to be anyone special, but it was hard not to covet it when everyone thought your younger brother was. And what did Jonas ever care about that, huh?

He gave you his knife.

And I gave it back
.

He rocked back on his heels. Watching. Waiting. Was she her mother’s daughter?

* * *

Jonas could have chased and killed the fleeing swordsman, but he was just a man caught up in a family feud he had no part in. He wouldn’t return, not without significant backup, anyway, which would take time to muster.

He turned back to Llew. She was still sitting in the grass, but there was something wrong. A black stain spread across her white shirt and she held a hand in front of her. Then she toppled to the ground. He ran to her, his heart in his throat.

“Llew!”

He gathered her to him. So alive moments earlier, now limp. All he could see was blood. It covered her hands, soaked her shirt and pooled on the ground. He clasped her chin, turning her to him. The touch sent a tingle through his fingers even as more blood gushed from her open throat and he jerked his hand away, letting her head fall back. His eye was drawn by movement in the grass. One of Llew’s hands had fallen to the ground and the grass around it was dying in an ever increasing circle.

Jonas swallowed down his revulsion and dumped her unceremoniously on the ground, jumping to his feet. In a daze, he reclaimed his knives from the corpses, taking them to the water’s edge to clean with vigorous sweeps of his fingers down the blades. He berated himself for even toying with the idea of getting involved with her. What did he really know about her? He knew her name. And now he knew all he needed to know.

He wiped the half-clean blades on his thigh, sheathed them in his vest and drew the big knife at his hip. He cradled it in his hands, watching the moonlight fly off as he tilted it back and forth. There was one purpose to this knife’s existence: to kill the unkillable. And there was no safer time to make an attempt on the life of an Aenuk than when they were already half dead.

Jonas turned from the water. The meadow was now like a hayfield. Each blade of grass, each leaf of clover, each dandelion had given its all to provide but a tiny fraction of the energy – jin, as it was known in Turhmos – needed to bring a person back from near-death.

She lay unconscious, but her breathing was steady now. He had limited time to act. He crouched beside her, knife hovering over her back right where her heart should be, assuming Aenuks had a heart. But this was Llewella. She wasn’t like the Aenuks he had faced on the Turhmos killing fields. She wasn’t trained to fight, to continue to fight, and to take the enemy with her when she faced final death. She was merely a girl doing what she had to do to survive.

Her back rose as she breathed, her spine beneath her shirt pressing into the point of the knife. Jonas wavered, cursing softly. He shouldn’t have got involved with her. Llew. Llewella.

He needed to hit something, something solid. The nearest tree was a hundred yards away, and while he could run there and back in seconds, the exertion would replace most of the relief one good punch would achieve. Swapping the knife to his left hand, he crouched and punched the ground below him in one smooth movement, leaving a fist-deep crater and filling the air with a cloud of dead grass, roots, and dirt.

Standing once more, he looked down at her. One of her fingers twitched. She would wake soon. She was Aenuk. But she was Llew.

He rammed the knife into its sheath and turned away. It was tempting to leave her there, to wake the others and get out of Stelt. But that would leave an Aenuk free, and that wasn’t something he could live with. He should have killed her already. It was what the blade was designed to do with its core of Ajnai wood, a tree once abundant in ancient Turhmos, coated in the hardest steel.

He was growing concerned that she hadn’t stirred yet. It had been a grievous wound, certainly, from the amount of blood, and she must have almost died. He knelt by her again.
Had
she died? She couldn’t have. Even Aenuks didn’t come back from death. But she was taking a long time. He peered into the dark again. Their side of the river was pale in the moonlight as dead, yellowed grass spread out from where she lay, while the other side was dark with lush green grass. Was there enough life within the perimeter of these dusty roads to bring her back?

Cursing even as he made the decision, he knelt and took up one of her hands. There was the gentlest of squeezes back. Then her grip tightened with the involuntary Aenuk reflex. If he was anyone else, he might lose his fingers before pulling free. As a Syakaran, he wasn’t so trapped, but he didn’t fight it; he also had more to give than others. The tingle that began in his fingers wasn’t a result of her grasp, and it soon spread up his arm, across his chest, and from his heart, radiated throughout his core.

And then she stirred.

* * *

Llew’s face was itchy. It took a minute to recall where she was and how to communicate to her limbs that she wished to right herself, but eventually she managed to pull an arm from under her and, balancing herself on the forearm, raised her head. She took in the state of the meadow. It had been lush green. Now there might as well have been nothing living for miles: if there was, she couldn’t see it, nor hear it. The meadow was eerily silent. She could still feel ghi pouring from the ground through her exposed skin. Her head was clearing slowly.

She brought one hand to her throat. The blood was sticky and thick, but her skin was smooth. She didn’t know what she had expected. Looking down, she saw strings of blood stretching from her shirt to the ground below. Not quite as disturbing as being attached to a dead body by strings of her own blood, but still disgusting. She must have lost nearly all she had. Memories of the dead Renny merged with memories of having been here with Jonas and she was sickened at the thought of what she might have just done.

She rolled to a sitting position. The bodies of the fallen swordsmen lay nearby. She turned her head and started fearfully. A dark silhouette stood over her. Expecting another attack she brought an arm up over her face, only to recognise Jonas just before she blocked him from view. His shape was unmistakable with the glint of knife handles around his middle and that big knife at his hip.

Joy and fear washed through her. Since she’d left Cheer, he was the closest thing she’d had to a real friend. But now that he knew what she was he was going to kill her. Yet the knife was still in its sheath. She looked up, trying to see his face, but it was in shadows.

“You didn’t kill me.”

“I’ll probably regret not doing so. Get up.”

It was fair that he should be angry with her, she hadn’t told him what she was. But how could she after he’d told her he killed her kind? She gathered herself to rise, but when she wasn’t up fast enough, Jonas grabbed her elbow and pulled her up. He wasn’t gentle.

“I said get up.”

“And I was doing it.” She scowled at him, brushing herself off. Her hands came away sticky with blood. She poked out her tongue in distaste and searched out a dry patch of her trousers to wipe her palms.

Without another word, Jonas began striding back to town.

Llew didn’t know if she should follow or not. Did he want her to? Or did he intend to leave her behind? But he hadn’t killed her. She ran to catch up.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, but after you said you killed healers, I
couldn’t
. Don’t you understand?” He kept striding ahead and she had to run to keep pace with him. “I didn’t even know what I was till you were telling me about your knife. And I never died until just before I met you. It’s all so new to me, and then I met you, someone who would kill me if you knew what I was, and I would’ve told you, I really would have–”

He stopped, spinning to face her, and she ran into him.

“Like you were goin’ to tell us you were a girl?”

Llew swallowed. “I would have,” she said in a weak voice. She had never intended to, but neither had she intended to care what any of them thought of her other than that she was useful to have around. No, she wouldn’t have told them. She peered up at him and knew that he knew it, too. “Would you have let me go with you if you’d known?”

“I never wanted you.” His words stung. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “You’ll have to ask Aris, and he won’t be happy.”

“Please don’t tell him.”

Jonas laughed.

“I already kept one secret from him.
Your
secret.” He leaned into her. “I opened up to you, and what did I get in return? A name? A stupid name!”

“Stupid?”
How dare he?
“You told me nothing! Everything I know about you I learnt from that man at the bar tonight. You expect me to tell you what I am, knowing what you would do to me? You didn’t even have the decency to reply in kind. And
you
didn’t have the fear of death clamping
your
mouth shut.”

They stood, barely an inch separating their noses, breathing heavily.

“I gotta tell him.”

“Why?”

“I told you.” He stepped back. “One secret was one too many. He’s my Captain.”

“What will he do?”

Jonas laughed again. “He’ll ask why you’re still alive, for a start.” He turned and carried on walking back to the inn, hands deep in his pockets. Llew followed, keeping her distance. It must have been well past midnight. She knew it took a long time for her to heal from death and was surprised not to see the glow of dawn.

Jonas pushed against the inn door, but it was locked.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“They lock it? What do we do now?”

Jonas looked up then along the front of the building. There was one bench seat on the porch. “Try to get some sleep.” He swept his arm out, inviting her to take the bench. Llew gave him a small smile and curled up on the seat, pulling her blood-smeared jacket tight about her. Jonas sat on the porch, leaning against the wall by her feet.

“The others will wonder what we were doing out here.”

“That’s fine. We’re gonna tell ’em.”

“How does Aris feel about Aenuks?”

Jonas laughed – his usual brief, explosive laugh that subsided as abruptly as it began. “I’m tryin’ to reconcile, Llew, with the fact that you are not like the Aenuks that killed my folks.”

She lifted herself up, supporting herself on her elbow and looked at him.

“I hate the Aenuks who took my family,” he said. “And I’ve killed a lot of Aenuks since. I killed my uncle who thought he’d take advantage of a small boy who didn’t know his own strength yet. I hate my own brother. And one day I’ll likely kill him, too. It’s what I do.” He turned to her in the dark. “I hate. I kill.” He shifted his weight against the wall. “But Aris . . . He’s a good man. He grew up in a Quaver ravaged by war like I haven’t known. When Quaver and Turhmos were both stronger, they fought constantly. He saw victories and defeats and destruction like you wouldn’t believe. He saw a future he didn’t like the look of, and decided to do somethin’ about it. He started to build somethin’. And Turhmos, and its Aenuks, tore it down.”

Jonas rested his head against the wall behind him with a light thud. Llew lay back down and closed her eyes, wondering if she should allow herself to sleep so near this man who should have killed her by now. But she was so tired. She wondered how much sleep she would get before the sun’s rays lit the sky, anyway.

“Aris just hates Aenuks. It’s all he’s got.” Llew’s eyes flew open. She couldn’t believe how close she had been to sleep.

So Aris hated Aenuks. And by his side was Jonas, who killed Aenuks.

She waited, listening for a change in his breathing. Was he waiting for her to fall asleep? Or was he going to drop off, and give her the chance to run? He’d already let her live once.

“And if he wants me dead? Is that your job? You and your knife?”

Jonas didn’t reply. Either he really was asleep, and she was fine for now, or he couldn’t answer, which could mean several things. Maybe he didn’t want to tell her
Yes
. Maybe he couldn’t tell her
Yes
. Maybe the answer was
Yes
, that was his job, but maybe he would refuse.

He could have killed her by the bridge.

While Llew’s mind tried to unpick it all, the relationships between her and Jonas, Jonas and Aris, and Aris and her, somehow she slipped into sleep.

* * *

Llew hadn’t been aware of the increasing brightness. It was the sudden shadow across her face that woke her. She opened her eyes to Aris standing before her, arms folded. It took her a moment to clear her head, to remember where she was, and why. Time to face the music, to find out if she was going to be abandoned or murdered. Sometime since she’d fallen asleep it had begun to rain in a light drizzle, but they remained dry under the porch roof.