"Out."
"Nay."
"Lady Matilda."
"I said nay." She moved past him to the table, her voice low and dangerous. She didn't raise it, she didn't have to. She looked at the wound, at the dark, spreading stain across Ivar’s tunic, and turned toward the supply shelves. "Where is yer linen?"
Oswin stared at her and for a heartbeat he didn’t answer.
"Yer linen," she repeated, her tone a sharp edge. "And the needle. And the spirits.Where?"
The pause stretched, heavy and still, as Oswin watched her face. He was a sensible man. He must have seen the heat in her eyes and realized he was standing in the path of a storm, for he didn't argue. He simply gestured to the shelf on the left wall and stepped back, clearing her way.
She pulled Ivar’s tunic up, her fingers trembling only once before they stilled. She pressed a clean cloth against the jagged mouth of the wound and leaned her weight behind both hands. She refused to look at his face. If she saw the unnatural stillness of his features, her hands would fail her.
The important thing, her anchor, was that he was breathing. She felt the heavy, rhythmic thrum of it against her palms. It was what she needed to calm down even if just a fraction.
Oswin worked with grim, silent speed. She kept the field clear for him. Wiping, pressing, and holding the other side of the wound as he threaded the needle. When the first stitch pierced the skin, Ivar’s muscle jumped beneath her hands. She pressed harder, her body a shield, keeping him anchored to the earth.
He was still unconscious. For that, she offered a silent, desperate prayer of thanks.
Torvald remained in the doorway, a silent sentinel. He didn't speak. He simply watched with the eyes of a man who understood his own helplessness. Matilda appreciated that more than she could put into words.
Oswin placed the final stitch, knotted the thread with a sharp, precise tug, and sat back.
The quiet that followed was a different kind of silence. It wasn't the frantic, focused hush of the work, but the hollow, aching quiet of waiting for a verdict.
He took a cloth and wiped his hands. He did it slowly, his fingers tracing the stained fabric, and she understood the delay; he was hunting for the right words to tell her how much of Ivar was left.
"The blade was clean," he said.
She didn't look at the healer. She kept her eyes fixed on Ivar's face, on the hard, pale line of his jaw and the way his lashes lay dark against his skin. "What daes that mean?"
"Nay rust. Nay grime carried in by the steel." Oswin set the cloth down on the wooden bench. "The wound itself is nae the primary danger. It missed the vitals, by less than I'd like, but it missed them."
He paused, his gaze moving to the heavy bandaging at Ivar's shoulder. "The bleeding has stopped. If he wakes in the next hour, that’s a good sign."
"And if he daesnae?"
Oswin looked at her steadily. She felt him measuring her, recalibrating his answer based on the stillness of her posture and the lack of a tremor in her hands. He was deciding how plainly she wanted the truth.
She kept her face plain, a mask of cold Highland resolve.
"Then we wait longer," he said. "And we watch fer fever. That’s the enemy now, Lady Matilda. Nae the wound. The wound I can manage with a needle and poultice. The fever," He exhaled a long, weary breath through his nose. "The fever daes what it likes. If it comes, it’ll come taenight, in the dark hours. That’s when the tides turn."
She said nothing for a moment, the weight of the night pressing against the stone walls of the infirmary.
"What dae I dae?" she said. "When it comes."
Oswin looked at her again, his eyes softening just a fraction. "Ye’ll ken it by the heat first. His skin will go past warm to something else. A dry, burning quality that feels like a hearth gone wild. His breathing will change, faster, shallower. His color will flush." He paused, his voice dropping. "Ye’ll ken."
"And then."
"Cool water. Clean linen. Keep him still if he wakes fevered, because a man waking in a fever daesnae ken where he is or who has him, and he’ll fight ye." He looked at her hands, noting the way they rested in her lap, motionless. "Talk to him. Loud and clear. His name first, then yers. Give him a voice to find in the dark."
She nodded once, the motion sharp and final. She was storing the instructions away, locking them into the same place she kept the memory of the dagger and the smoke.
"And the arm," Oswin said.