“Is it as swollen as it feels?” Iván mumbles into the rag.
“You look like a puffer fish.”
His grin becomes a wince before it can truly bloom on his face. “It really hurts to smile,” he says.
“I’ll do you a favor and be perfectly dull. Actually, you should stop talking entirely and let me keep up the pressure, or this will never stop bleeding. Beto got you good.”
“I got him better.”
“Yes. Now shut up.”
“Distract me.”
“Huh?”
“Tell me a story to keep me from talking. Like, how you got that white streak in your hair.”
I yank the rag away and prime my shoulder to punch him in the nose, but I stop myself. He’s not mocking me. He’s asking for true. Out of curiosity.
“Fine,” I say, reapplying the rag. “But after I tell you, you must truthfully answer a question of mine.”
“Deal.”
I take a deep breath. “It was Elisa.”
“The empress gave you that mark?”
“Stop talking! As I’m sure you’ve heard, she bought me while passing through the free villages toward Invierne. Hector had been taken hostage by an enemy, and she was desperate to get him back. We were in horrible danger the whole time; I know this now. But . . . I was just happy. I’d been bought by a fine lady, you see, and I was given warm clothes and kind words and the same food as everyone else. I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world.”
He raises an eyebrow as if to say, “Go on.”
“A few days later, we caught up to Elisa’s enemy, and we attacked his camp, freed Hector. It all went mostly well. But after the battle, just as we were realizing that one of them had gotten away, he launched from the trees and attacked Elisa. I remember it so clearly . . . she couldn’t breathe. There were all these dried leaves in her hair. Her arm was stretched out on the ground, limp, dirt in her nails . . . it made me think of my mother. The last thing I ever saw of her was her hand, sticking out from beneath a pile of rubble, and I . . . Elisa had been so kind to me. . . . It’s like I went to another place in my head, and I wasn’t me anymore but this monster. . . .”
I pause a moment, swallow hard, take a breath. The spigot drip drip drips. Iván’s eyes are intent on me, but again there’s no judgment there. He’s just listening.
“I launched at him. Pounded him with my fists until he let go of Elisa’s throat. But I was just a little girl, and he was a fully grown Invierno assassin, so of course he had me flipped over and pinned in seconds. He hit me so hard my sternum caved in.”
Iván’s brows knit, as he puzzles something out.
“The next thing I knew,” I continue, “I was alive and awake on the cold ground, Elisa collapsed on top of me. Turns out, Hector had killed the assassin, then Elisa used the power of her Godstone to heal me. There was a lot of blood on the ground by then, and Elisa was newly come into her power, so the healing was . . . intense.”
I dash off the words as if they’re no big deal, and I gently peel up a corner of the rag to check Iván’s lip. “The bleeding has lessened,” I say.
The laundry dungeon is cooler than the barracks, and the chill dimples my arms. It’s easy to imagine myself back in the mountains, the air brittle with approaching winter. I don’t remember a lot of what happened to me before I met Elisa, but my flesh remembers being cold.
Iván points toward my hairline, to remind me that I haven’t quite finished my story.
“The truth is, we don’t know for sure how it got there,” I tell him. “Mara was the one who noticed it, a little while after Elisa healed me. Just a little blotch above my forehead that gradually grew out with my hair. Father Nicandro is sure it was Elisa’s magic, though. Did you know that an animagus’s hair grows lighter and lighter with magic use? That’s why so many of them have white hair. Anyway, I’ve always been close to the magic of the earth. I can sense Godstones being used, just like a priest can, or like Elisa’s sister Alodia. I mean, I’m no sorcerer, but Father Nicandro thinks that my affinity, combined with an enormous dose of healing power, caused a bit of my hair to turn white.”
He doesn’t respond for so long that I’m sure I must have offended him somehow. He just stares off into the distance, his dark eyes churning. I pull the rag away and inspect his lip. “The bleeding has stopped. You might want to take a rag to bed with you, though.”
He catches my wrist as I’m drawing away. “This assassin. The one who almost killed you. It was Franco, wasn’t it?” His grip is a little painful.
I blink. “Yes. Though his Invierno name, his real name, was Listen to the Falling Water, for Her Secrets Carve Canyons into Hearts of Stone.”
When Iván doesn’t respond, I add, “And yes, I realize he’s the man who conspired with your father to start a civil war.”
“No wonder you hate me.”
“I don’t ha— I mean, Rosario has ordered us to get along, so I will if you will.”
He releases my wrist so fast that I lurch backward. Any semblance of peace between us seems to be gone; his brow is furrowed, his dark eyes churn. “By telling me all that,” he says, soft and low, “were you trying to make me feel sorry for you? Do you want me to know how much you’ve suffered?” His tone is contemptuous, mocking.
“No.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“Iván, I was just answering your questions. No one has to feel sorry for me. Since becoming ward of the empress, I’ve had such comfort and ease. I had a rough start, sure, and being half Invierno doesn’t exactly win me friends, but I’m still the luckiest girl in the world. All those things can be true at once, you know.”
Ivan’s not looking at me anymore. He pulls his vest from the bucket and wrings it out over the floor drain. “We should get back to the barracks. Get some sleep if we can.”
“You still owe me the answer to a question. We had a deal, remember?”
His frown deepens. “Fine. Ask your question.”
After assuring myself that the bloodstains are no longer visible, I follow his lead and wring the water from my shirt. “Elisa ruined your father,” I tell him, shaking it out flat. “I mean, he deserved it, but she destroyed him utterly, exiled him, gave him over to the Inviernos.”
“Is there a point? Just ask your question.”
“Your countship has been in disgrace ever since, even though your brother is a Quorum lord. Your coffers are empty. You hate Inviernos, so you can’t possibly agree with the treaty Elisa brokered. So my question is this: Why did you join the Royal Guard? Why do you want to protect the person who brought such misery upon you and your family?”
He’s silent a long moment, staring at me. I hate staring; it’s one of the reasons I cover my mark. One less thing for people to gawk at.
The constant drip plink of the spigot echoes around us. I force myself to meet his gaze without flinching, even though my feet are twitching to run, my ears growing warm.
“You’re right,” he says at last. “The empress ruined my father, and our countship is slow to recover from the devastation.”
“Then why—”