The three of us took a collective breath.
“Where is Yasha?” Havel asked.
“Gone to fetch Vilem,” she answered, intent on the steaming cloth she wrung out over the pot.
Havel nodded to himself. “Let’s clean you up, friend.” His Rivean strained in my ears. I stared at the compress the woman slid over Maren’s skin, carefully cleaning away dried blood down her leg, carefully avoiding Maren's wound, and it was only after she glanced over her shoulder at me that I realizedIwas the recipient of Havel’s words.
“I’m fine,” I said. His brows rose at my accent, and I felt him take me in with more interest than he had the moment before. A foreigner alone with a wounded woman in the foothills of Rivea.
“Are you from Calder?” he asked, switching to suspicious tones in my native tongue.
Aalto-fucking-above. My hackles raised, fingers curling into fists. But he was only an innkeeper, curious about the strangers he welcomed into his home. His gray eyes traveled over my face, swollen from Demyan’s tender ministrations. “We came to Riveato visit my uncle,” I said. “We were on our way back when we were attacked.”
Havel leaned into the wall. “Bandits don’t usually target people this close to the coast. They stay inland so they can run and hide in the mountains. And the ones that do attack don’t usually stay for a fight.”
I didn’t answer, though I slanted my eyes away from Maren’s form to gauge him.
“Where does your uncle live?” he asked.
“Havel,” the woman interjected. “I need more clean linen.”
“Vranna,” I replied.
“What’s his name?”
“Havel,” the woman hissed.
“I’m not leaving you alone with a foreign man, Simona,” Havel hissed in Rivean, gesturing vaguely to me. Simona grunted with impatience, pushing against the mattress to gain her feet. Havel watched his wife vanish through the door. “Are you outlaws?” he asked, voice dropping to a murmur.
“No.” I closed my eyes and leaned on the wooden wall. Blood rushed through my head, cracking against my skull. Every heartbeat pounded through my veins, thundering in my mind, and though I’d been able to ignore the slow waves of grogginess while riding, I couldn’t now. My stomach rolled as I rested against the wall, willing my pulse to ease the hammering in my head.
“If you’re running from the authorities—”
“We’re not.”
“Because the slave trade up north deals with exotic women—”
A sudden blaze ignited in my chest. I rounded on the man in an instant, pressing him into the corner of the room as I loomed overhead, leaning to avoid scraping my crown against the low-hanging corners of the ceiling. “She’s mywife.”
Havel shrunk away, though to his credit, he held my seething gaze. “I don’t see a ring on her hand.”
Fuck this. “What do you want? Money? Horses?”
“I want my family safe,” he forced out, lifting his hands to shield himself from me.
“They’re safe,” I spat. Heel rotating behind me, I let myself lean against the wall once more, closing my eyes against the throb that threatened to split my fucking skull.
Havel cleared his throat. “Though our rooms are in high demand this time of year.”
My jaw clenched, though I’d expected he’d say as much. I wondered what I could offer the bastard. We had someúcetleft, but not much. I could barter Sero. Something told me that Maren would have my head if I tried to sell Kolibri.
Footsteps sounded against the wooden floor in the hall. Simona popped through the door, arms full of clean rags. Behind her came a short, wiry man, his gray hair sticking out in all directions as though he’d just woken from a nap. He crossed the room with a limp, a club foot shuffling behind him, and set a physician’s bag next to Maren on the bed.
“Come on, Havel,” Simona said, reaching for her husband’s elbow as the doctor began peeling back the rest of Maren’s bloodied wrappings. The innkeeper let his wife usher him to the door. “I’ll expect payment before the day is over,” he said softly enough, though he aimed a glare at me before disappearing down the hall.
Arms crossed as I leaned against the wall, I watched Vilem’s back as he assessed Maren’s thigh with a single interrogative finger. He wrung a steaming cloth out, wiping crusted blood from her open skin. “The boy made it sound urgent. When did this happen?” he asked in Calderian, his accent rough but his voice gentle.
“An hour ago. Maybe two.” Maren hadn’t moved since I’d laid her across the bed, though I’d kept a close eye on her chest. The steady breaths in and out brought me only a measure of comfort.
