And Azmar flees.
Fueled by that last reserve of strength, he runs. And I run after him, because I cannot let him fall before he reaches help. I cannot carry him. This is all I can do.
And so I chase him, across the basin floor and up its side, into a battlefield strewn with bodies, swallowing him in fear, sobbing, knowing that I am destroying everything we had.
Chapter 27
Cagmar feels colder than I remember. Even after Perg brought me a change of clothes and a fur, I can’t get warm. I’m starting to forget what warmth feels like, and I returned less than a day ago.
The lights in the infirmary gleam too pale and shine with a strange sort of exhaustion I never noticed before. Casualties fill every bed, and any extra space has been stuffed with cots for the higher-caste injured. Others have been placed in their apartments, or even in the market. Azmar lies on a center bed on his stomach, his back stitched and bandaged and swollen. He lost a lot of blood, especially during his run. I know the medicine they’ve given him keeps him asleep, but I wonder if he would have awakened by now if left to his own devices. If the pain would keep him conscious.
With the doctors attending other patients, I dare to take his hand and hold it in mine. Is his skin too hot, or is mine too cold?
I want him to wake. I need to know he’ll be okay, that he’ll live. And yet I want him to sleep forever. If he never opens his eyes, he’ll never look at me that way again, like I’m a morbid ghost, a repulsive monster, a living nightmare.
I lower my forehead to the cool bed frame. Ritha already treated my own injuries, but they come alive again. Pulsing reminders. If you weren’t like this, you wouldn’t have these bruises.
Azmar called my ability a gift. I don’t think he could say so now. Not when it’s been wielded so violently against him. But I didn’t know what else to do. It was the only way to help you. Oh, Azmar, please forgive me.
My throat constricts. Gods above and below, I’m so tired of crying. I’ll need my strength if I’m to prove to the council that I belong here. That I’m useful. I haven’t spoken to any of the council members yet—they might not even know I’ve returned. But they kept their word; they have not yet revealed what’s transpired between Azmar and me. If they had, I don’t know if Azmar would have been treated.
I trace circles in his palm, watching his back rise and fall with each deep, quiet breath. Is he dreaming? Am I the subject of his nightmares?
I release his hand to wipe my palms over my eyes, banishing tears. I don’t know what I’ll do if he hates me now. I don’t know if I could bear staying in Cagmar. But if I leave to seek out Tayler’s township, I’ll never be able to return. And if I never find Tayler, I’ll die from exposure.
I don’t know. I just don’t know.
“Lark.”
Startled, I whip around to see Unach behind me. She has a bandage around her left bicep but no other injuries. A sigh slips from me. “Unach, you’re safe.”
But her expression flattens. She glances at the other patients. Half are awake. “Come. Now.”
Biting my lip, I spare a glance to Azmar. I don’t want to leave his side, but I can’t be here when he wakes.
After rising from the stool, I follow Unach out of the infirmary and toward the tribunal, which is presently empty. We pass through a dark, narrow corridor before she wheels on me.
“Why did you leave?”
I’m taken aback by her question. I hadn’t considered explaining myself. My thoughts had been only for Azmar. “I . . . My father is the leader of one of the human battalions. I told Qequan I could get him information on their strategies.”
Her gaze narrows. She hasn’t regarded me so coldly since I first arrived. No, even then, her behavior wasn’t laced with this sort of malice. “And that’s why they threw you in the dungeon? Because you could help them?”
I shrink back. “H-He’s my father, Unach. They thought I was a traitor.”
She hums low in her throat. Steps to one wall of the corridor, then the other. “It’s a funny thing, Lark. My brother was so beside himself when we heard you’d been arrested. I thought it peculiar. You weren’t his servant, after all.”
We’re friends, I want to say, but the words stick to my throat like flour.
“And then he insists on speaking to the council himself.” Her voice takes on a low timbre. “And then you leave. And he is miserable. Uncharacteristically so. Azmar is a level-headed trollis. It takes a lot to rattle him.”