I have the urge to cradle her in my arms, to burn this entire fucking forest down for hurting her, to fly her back to the castle and demand the best healer on Moon Isle attend to her.
“You can go,” she says, closing her eyes.
Not an order, this time. So, I don’t. I stay.
She looks surprised when she opens her eyes again to find me there. Did she really think I would leave? It makes me wonder if she’s been abandoned while in pain before.
It makes me want to burn anyone who’s ever hurt her alive.
I reach for her again. Her back is going to get infected, if the thorns aren’t taken out. She flinches.
I hold my hands up. She wants to do it herself. Fine. But she doesn’t have to do it alone. “The spines are all yours,” I say, eyeing the larger ones. There are dozens of tiny thorns in her back that she can’t see. She can’t reach them on her own. “I’ll get these smaller ones.” Shelooks like she won’t agree, like she’s so stubborn that she won’t accept any gods-damned help, so I add, “It’s faster. The sooner this is finished, the sooner we can resume our search.”
This, I hope, she can’t disagree with.
“Fine,” she says, and an ember of surprise ignites within me.
It’s a small gesture. But it’s one of trust. Of cooperation.
I’m gentle. I try not to do anything to make her change her mind, to make her demand I leave again. I don’t want to leave her, here, alone, wincing in pain, bleeding out on this forest floor. I don’t want to leave her at all. She never leaves me, really. She’s always in my damned head. She’s always in my damneddreams.
And the way she refuses help ... the way she assumes I’ll leave her here ...
It makes me remember that day in Moonling training when I assumed Calder would leave me to die.
It makes me remember the relief of opening my eyes and seeing a hand reaching out, offering aid. Does she have a friend? Does she want one?
She screams out, and this time I wince, as if her pain were truly my own. Her hand is wrapped around a particularly thick barb, right next to her spine.
I can’t imagine the pain. She’s strong.She’s so fucking strong. The fact that she’s stillconscious—
She pulls it out, biting her tongue hard enough to draw blood. I see it dripping from her mouth.
Without thinking, I offer my hand in place of her tongue. “Here,” I say, giving her something to bite on that won’t hurt herself. She accepts without even looking. Then her mouth is on my skin, wet and warm, coating me with her blood. “You’re going to bite your tongue off. I’ve seen it happen before; you have to have something in your mouth for something like—”
She bites down immediately. Hard. Right against my knuckles.
But I don’t feel the pain. No, the opposite. There’s relief in offering her comfort. In being any comfort at all.
She struggles with the last few barbs, her body slumping, then straightening. Stubborn. So stubborn. So strong. Finally, they’re gone, and she collapses against a tree. Only then does she open her eyes and see my hand. It’s covered in both our blood, in bite marks where her teeth pierced my skin.
Her eyes widen, then lift to meet mine.
She’s surprised, and I hate it. I’m gutted she thinks that I wouldn’t give her anything to make her feel better.
But of course, she doesn’t know all the lengths I would go for her. She’s right—I’ve been a miserable wretch around her this entire time.
It’s a defense. A shield I hold between us. I’m cruel to her as a reminder to myself that I should not care. I’m cruel because I want her to hate me—because if she ever didn’t ... if she ever wanted me a fraction of the ways I want her, I’m not sure I would be able to survive it. Not as king. Not as the person who is supposed to put everyone else above himself.
I grab the canteen of water and begin to heal her wounds. Not as well as the true Moonling healers, but I know for certain she would refuse any aid that isn’t my own. She doesn’t want the other realms to think she’s weak. She’s smart. So, it’s up to me, and I focus more than I ever have in my life, scraping for every piece of healing power, remembering every bit of training. I close every abrasion, every puncture from the forest’s talons, until she stops bleeding.
Later, I realize I never healed my hand.
I sit in bed, staring at the marks of her teeth. They form crescents against my skin. They will heal in time.
I don’t do anything to speed it up.
BETTER AIM
