Gilene cursed inwardly at the mistake of revealing her inner turmoil to him. He didn’t need to see her worry right now. She stood and faced him, close enough that he was eye level to her sternum and he could lean his forehead against her if he chose. She gulped when he placed the stick crosswise between his teeth and gave Vua a nod to begin.
His fingers curled into Gilene’s tunic as Vua and Saruke set to the slow and painful task of cleaning the wound. A low hum vibrated up from Azarion’s throat when the healer made the first puncture and drew the needle and catgut through flesh. His teeth clenched on the stick. He crushed Gilene’s tunic in both hands but made no other noise despite the obvious agony of the healer’s touch.
Gilene framed his head in her palms, his sweat-soaked hair slippery between her fingers. Azarion pressed his forehead into her midriff, the stick in his mouth a rigid edge against her skin.
Except for the twitch of his wounded shoulder every time the needle punctured skin, he held still. Gilene massaged his scalp and spoke to him in trader’s tongue, trivial things of little consequence to him but ones she hoped might provide the distraction he needed from Vua’s painful work.
“My brother Nylan is married to the most foolish woman in all of the Empire, but she is kind, with a great heart, and loves Nylan more than anything, and that’s saying something because he can be an ass sometimes. They have six children, all but one of them girls. I think Nylan saw his first gray hair after the third baby.”
Azarion’s hands clenched ever tighter in her clothing. Gilene stared at Vua’s busy, bloody hands, willing her to work faster and end this suffering.
“My other brother, Luvis, remains unmarried, much to my mother’s despair. He’s promised her he’ll seek a wife once our sister, Ilada, is safely married to a man who meets with Luvis’s approval.” She continued carding her fingers through Azarion’s hair. “As particular as he and Ilada are about potential bridegrooms, I think he’s found a way to avoid the marital trap without raising our mother’s ire.”
A lurch against her, and Gilene looked down at the top of Azarion’s head. Had that been a chuckle she felt from him or simply a pained cry muffled by her tunic?
The coppery scent of blood filled the qara’s still air. Gilene exhaled a slow sigh of relief when Vua tied off the last suture and cut the excess catgut with a small knife.
Her relief was short-lived when Saruke passed Vua a cloth saturated with a clear liquid poured from the flask Vua had brought. The astringent smell was the only warning before Vua pressed the soaked towel on the newly closed wound.
Azarion heaved forward with a tortured groan, hard enough to make Gilene stumble. She bent her knees and set her feet to hold steady. She could feel his heartbeat all the way into his scalp, a hard, fast thumping that matched his staccato breathing.
“It’s almost over, Azarion,” she crooned. Please let it be over, she prayed silently to any being that might listen and show mercy.
Saruke and Vua worked together to dry his back and shoulder before smearing a poultice of honey and herbs over the stitches. They swaddled his left side from shoulder to ribs, wrapping strips of woven cloth around his waist and under his arm before tying them in a knot at the top of his shoulder near his neck.
By then, his posture was no longer so straight, and he wilted into Gilene, his weight threatening to knock her over.
Tamura, who had guarded the qara’s threshold through the ordeal and glared murder at Vua the entire time, abandoned her post to help them lay Azarion on his stomach.
“Use a sop to get the tea and broth down him while he’s on his belly,” the healer instructed. She packed her supplies, accepted a payment of silver from Saruke, and bowed to Azarion. “It is right that the son of Iruadis leads Clan Kestrel. May Agna bless you, Ataman.”
Once she was gone, Azarion called to Tamura, who crouched beside him. “Be my eyes and ears while I mend,” he said. “Stay with Arita in the ataman’s qara until I’m on my feet. She and her children can then come here.”
She nodded. “What about Karsas’s burial? The clan will expect one of us there.”
“Attend in my name if I’m unable to go.”
Gilene watched the interaction between brother and sister with a touch of envy. They were close, even after a decade of separation between them. Azarion trusted Tamura implicitly, and her belief in him was strong enough to be called faith by most. It was a reciprocal devotion Gilene wished she shared with one of her siblings.
Saruke left the qara not long after Tamura in search of more willow bark. “Keep watch,” she told Gilene. “And give him the remainder of the tea when he’s feeling a little better and won’t retch it up. I’ll return after I visit some of the women to trade supplies. I need to see a few of the subchiefs as well and assure them the new ataman isn’t dead.”
Alone with Azarion, Gilene used the time to shed her clothes and indulge in a quick sponge bath by the brazier. The rustle of cloth made her turn. She discovered Azarion had shifted and now faced her, his head pillowed on his arms, his green eyes bright as emeralds. The fever flush that graced his cheekbones had spread, and his skin was rosy from scalp to neck.
“You’re very beautiful, Agacin,” he said in a voice slurred with weariness.
She cocked an eyebrow and casually slipped her tunic back over her head. “The fever is affecting your eyes, I think, Ataman.” She stepped into her trousers and slipped her feet into a pair of felt booties.
He didn’t reply. By the time she padded to him with another cup of tea, he was asleep. She sat beside him, content to admire him stretched out on his pallet, the furs and blankets bunched at his waist, his back a white wasteland of thick bandages dotted with spots of blood.
The only sounds in the qara were the crackling of the coals in the brazier and Azarion’s even breathing. Gilene was nodding off herself, caught in vague dreams of galloping across the Sky Below on a stolen horse with Azarion and a grotesquely headless Karsas in pursuit, when soft murmurings brought her fully awake.
Like her, Azarion walked in his dreams. He shivered with fever, and when Gilene felt his cheeks and forehead, he burned hot to her touch. She rose to soak a cloth in cool water so she could bathe his face. He jerked at the cold touch but didn’t wake.
Gilene combed the tangled locks of hair away from his features. “You must wake up, Azarion. You need to drink.”
His only response was a few more incoherent mutters before he said clearly, “Time to take you home, Agacin. In fact, it’s past time.”
His words made her stomach knot and her heart miss a beat or two. Gilene tried convincing herself it was excitement that sent her emotions tumbling off a cliff’s edge. Why then did she feel like crying?
Azarion still hadn’t opened his eyes, and he lapsed once more into unintelligible mumbling. Gilene stroked his head and face as she stared at the qara’s opposite wall, as if its felt expanse held all the answers to her questions and would reveal them if she just stared long enough, if she just blinked back the annoying tears that blurred her vision.
“I promised you, Gilene. I keep my promises.” Another perfectly articulate statement amid the delirious mumbles.
“Shh,” she said, gliding her fingers along the ridge of his cheekbone. “All in good time, Ataman, and then we bid each other farewell.”
She said no more, fearful that, if she did, she’d choke on the words and the tears they inspired.