“There you are! We were expecting the worst. It honestly didn’t occur to me that you might sensibly go and lie down after you were injured.”
Arvus appeared and poked Molun in the ribs. “What was it you did the last time you were injured?”
“I can’t hear you,” Molun lied cheerfully, turning deliberately back to Perian. “Sorry to wake you.”
Perian shook his head, sitting up. “No—thank you. I’m hungry again, apparently.” He rubbed his grumbling stomach. “And if I don’t get up for at least a few hours, I’ll be bound to wake at three in the morning. Give me a couple minutes to clean up.”
They nodded and went out to the sitting room. Perian wondered just how worried they’d been that there hadn’t even been a single off-color joke about finding him in bed or helping him get cleaned up or anything like that.
Perian used the toilet and peered at his face in the mirror above the sink. He straightened his hair, tying it back more neatly. He looked a little sleep-creased and a bit tired still, but overall, not too bad.
He washed his hands, splashed water on his face, and decided he was among friends and didn’t really want to struggle to change into a less-wrinkled coat. He headed out to the sitting room.
“Dinner?”
Molun was the only one there, but he nodded. “Arvus went to put in the order. Come on over.”
So they headed over to Molun and Arvus’s rooms, and in short order, they were eating a hearty meal that included a replay of what had happened that morning. It turned out that since Molun was Tertius, the highest ranking member of the Mage Warriors present in the castle, he had actually been present at the audience with the Queen.
Molun had therefore already heard versions from Onadal, the Mage Warrior who was a witness, and Fomadin, and he wanted to hear Perian’s.
Fomadin had apparently maintained that it had been a training exercise gone wrong, that he wasn’t really aiming to badly injure Perian and would have stopped short of him, only then Perian had moved his arm. He’d also cited the incident where Cormal had burned Perian in the Mage Warrior training as proof that these sorts of things happened.
Molun got visibly incensed just relaying it.
When asked, Perian admitted that Fomadin had been making comments since he’d started his training.
“But honestly, I ignored them. We actually had almost no interactions. It was such a ridiculous thing to be upset about, like he was taking myexistencepersonally.”
Molun looked really angry. “Have you ever suddenly understood why someone likes to throw fireballs?”
They both laughed.
“No, I’m serious,” Molun insisted. “Something about frying someone to a crisp suddenly seems a lot more satisfying than anything I can do.”
“I think getting him thrown out of the Warriors, the castle,andthe city is pretty satisfying, personally,” Perian pointed out.
Molun shrugged. “It’s not bad, I guess, if you don’t have fireballs.”
“I’m going to tell Cormal you said that,” Periantold him.
Molun pouted.
Perian was definitely not going to tell Cormal anything of the kind.
“How is the arm?” Arvus asked, perhaps trying to get them shifted off the topic of either vengeance or Cormal. Or both.
“A little sore, not too bad,” he admitted. “Oh, I almost forgot. I’m supposed to have another tonic, clean the wound, let it sit for an hour or two if I can, then put on more salve and bandage it up again.”
Molun was already standing. “On it.”
By the time he was back with the materials from Brannal’s room, Arvus had carefully eased Perian’s coat off. Perian had to admit he had not been looking forward to trying to do all of this on his own, and these two were so determined and careful that it seemed silly to ask if they were sure they wanted to help.
His shirt went next, and then Arvus carefully unwound the bandage and exposed Perian’s arm. They got a good look at the wound.
“It doesn’t look too bad,” Arvus said calmly. “Neat stitches.”
“It was an interesting experience,” Perian agreed. “I’ve never needed stitches before. She said it helps hold the skin together so it can heal, plus it keeps it from getting dirty and reduces the chances of it getting infected. It’s amazing, really. The doctor said the knife hit bone before it skidded up my arm, and that’s why it needed so many stitches.”
