“I can speak on her behalf.”
The crowd parted to reveal Keegan. The stars pinned on her uniform shone in the fading light, and her face was stern. Her voice was powerful, and her stance was one that didn’t threaten but commanded respect. She carried no gun and held up her hands when the Graveyard swung their rifles toward her.
“I am unarmed,” she called. “I want a peaceful discussion, as do the soldiers in my brigade, some of whom call Oath home and are your fellow citizens who have been fighting in this war for months. People who have bled and gone hungry and have given up time with their families. They deserve to have a say in what happens to their home in the coming days, as well as to lend their voices to what happens to the soldiers who fought for Dacre, who—given the laws of the realm and the mere decency of humankind—should be taken as prisoners and treated humanely. So do as Iris Winnow politely asked of you. Lower your guns and let us engage in an intellectual, democratic discussion about what is moral as it is just, and how we are to move forward to begin healing from this.”
The Graveyard leader was displeased, but he handed the letter back to Iris before motioning for his followers to drop their weapons. As Enva’s soldiers moved forward through the crowd, breaking up the executions, Iris hurried to Roman.
He was on his knees, gasping.
She knelt before him, touching his pale face with her hand. He felt so cold, like he was carved from marble. Fear struck her heart when she saw the bloodstains on his sleeves, the wounds on his wrists. She didn’t know what had happened since the last time she had seen him, but she sensed that his story would tear through her like rusted steel.
“You’re safe, Kitt,” she whispered, drawing him into her embrace. She wanted to weep, feeling how he shook and wheezed for air. She caressed his hair. “You’re safe with me.”
He pressed his face to her neck. When he wept, she felt empty of words, like they had been scraped clean from her bones. There were only her hands, her arms, and her mouth, pressed to his hair.
And she wept with him.
* * *
If Roman was being honest, he didn’t remember much after that moment when Iris had come between him and death. The hours that followed were strange ones, slipping by like he was in a fever. He felt lost in a swirl of storm clouds and smoke, and while he could hear and see, he couldn’t take those moments into his memory.
But when he fully came to again, he found himself lying in a hospital bed, an intravenous needle in his hand.
He stared up at the ceiling, listening to the quiet bustle of nurses and doctors, the click of wheels, a whimper from two beds down. He was afraid to fully acknowledge where he was until a svelte older woman with short gray hair and brown eyes stopped at his bedside.
“How are we feeling, Mr. Kitt?”
“I’m not Mr. Kitt,” Roman ground out. But then he realized how rude he sounded, and he sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” the doctor said with a hint of a sad smile. “Do you want to tell me the history of your symptoms, starting when they began?”
Roman hesitated, his chest tightening when he remembered Avalon Bluff. But he let his hands relax at his sides, realizing that he was safe here. And he needed to open those old scars so they could heal.
He told the doctor everything. How long he had been feeling his symptoms, and what made them worse. How he had breathed in the gas at Avalon Bluff.
The doctor listened and recorded it all down on her clipboard, but then she placed her stethoscope on his bare chest and asked him to breathe. Roman did as she requested, anxious to look at her face. When she drew back, her expression was inscrutable, but there was a hint of sorrow in her voice.
“I would like to take an X-ray of your chest,” she began, “but I can tell you what I believe it is, due to the dozens of patients I’ve already seen and treated today for conditions identical to yours.”
“Tell me honestly, Doctor,” Roman said.
“Your lungs have scar tissue, which was created by the gas you were exposed to. The scarring makes it difficult for you to breathe, as you described, and it has also created stress on your heart. There’s no surgery or medicine that will fully treat this condition, but there are things you can do to help ease your symptoms when they worsen. Most of all, you will need to make adjustments in the days ahead, to ensure you are taking care of both your lungs and heart. Otherwise, this condition can be fatal, leading to cardiac arrest or making you susceptible to consumption.”