I try to speak, but soreness pinches my throat. My voice comes out in a rasp. My mind returns to me, painting the schoolyard on the back of my eyelids. I gasp. It feels as though someone hammers a wooden shim into my chest, just above my sternum. I reach for it, but there’s nothing there.
Perg clasps my hand. “Don’t worry, Lark. We’ll get you a healer.”
Unach snorts. “Who will come for a human this time at night? Why was she even out of the apartment?”
“I don’t think the injuries are life threatening,” murmurs Azmar.
“Ritha.” Perg steps back. I turn my head to follow him, wincing at how stiff my neck is. “She’s in the enclave. She knows some healing.”
Unach grumbles; I feel it through the mattress. “Go, then.”
Perg ducks out of sight, and I close my eyes once more.
I wake up to a sharp pain in my hip. My eyes flutter open. Two large candles flicker near my head. The ceiling arches. Wooden supports. A bed, too large. Walls modestly adorned. A side table with an old tome and a stack of papers on it.
I’m in Azmar’s room.
Looking down, I see a human woman—Ritha—pressing something against my hip. Her dark gaze meets mine.
“It will help with the bruising,” she says, and I realize she’s applied a poultice.
Tears blur my vision, but I blink them away. Ritha wasn’t there. She wasn’t one of the humans who hated me. She’s safe. “Thank you.”
She leans back, pulling the blankets up to my ribs. My body is a spattering of aches and pains. I lift a hand to touch the swell of my cheek. A cut splits my lip as well.
“When you’re ready, drink that.” Ritha tilts her head toward the side table. A cup of something rests behind Azmar’s papers.
I swallow to wet my throat, and ask, “Do you hate me, too?”
She frowns. “Why would I hate you, Lark?”
“They hate me,” I whisper, forcing each heavy word over my tongue.
“They are fools.”
I close my eyes. Somehow, it makes the pain worse. I cling to Ritha’s words for stability. Ritha is here. Ritha will help me. It’s not over yet.
“Lark.” Ritha’s soft voice is a caress. “What is your last name?”
I blink against blurry vision. Thellele. “I don’t have one.”
She purses her lips and studies me, but she accepts the lie.
I think our conversation finished. Ritha’s thoughts have obviously led her somewhere else, and she doesn’t talk for several minutes. Then, as she’s gathering her things, she says, “Rest for a day. It’s not so bad.”
I shift on the bed, wincing at the bruises. Not so bad. Nothing broken. I remember how this goes. My father never broke anything. I was too useful to be broken.
“I’m sorry they did this to you.” Ritha pulls a tattered bag over her shoulder. “But, Lark”—she looks at me pointedly and lowers her voice—“it’s not them you should fear.”
She glances toward the door.
“Unach and Azmar have been kind to me,” I rasp, though I’m not sure she meant them.
Ritha excuses herself without another word, and I fall back into oblivion.
Chapter 5
I can’t gauge the time without a window; I can only guess at its passing by the melting of the candles. When the wicks nearly drown in their own pools, I force myself to sit up and groan against two dozen aches. But Ritha was right; they’re not so bad. They will fade in time and with movement.
I pray she is wrong about the trolls. But just in case, I want to vacate Azmar’s room as swiftly as possible.
I slide off the too-high bed onto the floor, then nearly collapse as pain zings up my left leg. I gasp and spit loose hair from my mouth. I steady myself and pull up my skirt and look at the damage. A purpling bruise the size of my open hand forms there, hot and hard. It will darken over the next day. I don’t think Ritha saw that one, for the one on my hip, which she treated, is not nearly as dark.
I search for a mirror but find none. Likely for the better. Though it hurts to raise my arms, I rebraid my hair and fix my clothes, trying to look presentable. Then, leaning against the wall, I make my way out into the main room.
Unach crouches by the fire, where water boils, running a sharpening stone over the long, curved blade of a sword.
I need to be useful. Taking a deep breath, I hobble for the broom. Unach looks up and barks a laugh. “I don’t know what’s more funny,” her low voice resonates, “the fact that your face looks like a marmot liver or that you’re trying to sweep.”