“Good.”
His dark-flame eyes are unwavering on mine. I cannot read the emotion in them. I do not know him well enough to decode the way he’s watching me in this moment. But I do know, for whatever reason, snapping at him calms me. Brings me back to myself. Slows my racing heart and stills my shaking hands.
I’m ready.
I look down at Farley’s bruised leg, exposed from the knee down. I take firm hold of his ankle. And, with a deep breath, I begin the meticulous process of bonesetting.
The door cracksopen.
So do my eyes.
I stare up at the log ceiling, instantly alert. I’ve been asleep only minutes, judging by the exhaustion still infusing my limbs with lead. After the ordeal with Farley, I made it up the stairs and into the sparsely decorated chamber on the top floor with Marta’s aid. She said little as she helped me into a loose-fitting white nightgown and tucked me into bed, dousing the candles and stoking the fire with a fresh log before she shut the door. I’d barely heard the latch catch when I tumbled into unconsciousness.
Heavy boots pound on the floorboards, crossing toward me. I sit up in a flurry of blankets. The dagger on my nightstand—which I’d retrieved from Edwynna before she confiscated my old dress for burning—is in my hand in a heartbeat.
The footfalls stop.
“Planning to stab me?”
Penn.
I blink into the dark. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?” His voice is amused as I’ve ever heard it. “What’sholding you back? That intractable sense of morality you tote around like a war medal?”
“I’m surprised you can even recognize morality in others, seeing as you possess none of your own.”
“Trust me, I can recognize a great many shortcomings I myself am not afflicted with—naivety, for instance.”
“Did you come here to hurl insults?”
There is a marked pause. “No.”
“Then what are you doing in my room?” I grumble grouchily. “I was sleeping.”
And I was. In a bed, no less. The first one I’ve been lucky enough to utilize since I fled my own in the cover of night. Sure, it’s lumpy and smells faintly of mildew. But it is a bed. One that, until his rude interruption, I’d been thoroughly enjoying.
“By all means, carry on,” he mutters, crossing to the dressing table by the window, where a shaft of moonlight slants through the pane.
As my sight adjusts to the darkness, I’m able to make out the finer details of his tall form. He is dressed in black, as usual, but not his Commander Scythe garb. These are a Northlander’s clothes—the fabric thicker, sturdier, built to cut the wind and blunt the chill. There is nothing fancy or frilly about his attire, but it is clearly well made, crafted with care by a skilled seamstress. The shirt has a row of black buttons down the front. His heavy leather boots are to the knee, and recently polished. As I watch, his hands reach down to undo the laces.
I jolt. “What are you doing?”
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“I can’t sleep with you in here!”
“Then you’re in for a long night.”
He pulls off his boots. They hit the floor one by one. Each thump makes me flinch.
“But— You— I—” My voice is hoarse with panic. “I cannot believe this!”
“Believe it.”
The weariness of those two words makes me overlook their inherent arrogance. He sounds tired. Exhausted, in fact. Maybe even more so than me. And, though it shouldn’t, it catches me by surprise. Because until this point, he’s seemed so tireless. So inexhaustible. The formidable Commander Scythe. Never sleeping, never at ease. Never succumbing to mortal failings like hunger or fatigue.
I’ve been with him nearly a week now and had never once seen him rest—not even when we made camp at night. If he wasn’t nursing me back to health from the throes of fever, he was hunting to keep us fed or chopping wood to keep our fires burning. Riding hard through each day, holding watch through each night. Battling men and monsters alike in his unflagging determination to get us north.