“You’re very good at this,” I said as she tightened it.
“I have been out in the field, remember?” she replied. “I have dealt with hypothermia before.”
Her hands rested on my arms. It was hard to concentrate. “But you live somewhere warm,” I said.
Inkar laughed. “Only a Kylmian would say that.” She led me to the chair, and I sat. “May I change your bandages?”
“Okay.”
Inkar knelt, pulling a slim knife from her belt to cut off the wrapping. I hissed at the pressure, but her fingers were light as they ran the edge of my wound. The skin was raw and wept yellow pus. “It looks good, if you can believe it. It will be a little hard to hold a sword for a few days.” Inkar met my eyes and flashed a brief smile.
I wanted her to kiss me so badly. Energy fizzed through my body, starting in my stomach and spreading out until my fingers warmed with it. Every brush of her against my skin sent a tingling through me that made me throb.
“This may sting,” she murmured, picking up a jar of something thick and pale from the wound kit. She spread the poultice over my palm, and I drew in a breath as her other hand tightened around my wrist. “What is it?”
What did I tell her—that I could feel my heartbeat pulsing in my wounds? That her skin glowed in the firelight, or that her waterfall hair had come half undone from her braid? That the way she wrapped my hand again, so careful, so concentrated, was the most beautiful way I’d ever seen someone look at me?
My floundering mouth came up with, “Do you end up bandaging all your wives?”
Inkar didn’t lift her head, but I saw the curve of her jaw as she smiled. “Joking? I think you are feeling better.”
She released my right hand and took the left. My fingers caught in her braid, loosening the ribbon. Inkar froze, head tilted down, gazing at my hand. I teased her hair out. The strands separated as easily as water. As I found the base of her skull, she finally looked up at me, still kneeling like a supplicant before her queen. Her lips parted slightly, revealing ivory teeth.
I leaned forward as she leaned up. Our mouths met, awkward in a way that last night’s kiss hadn’t been, but I didn’t fear her now. Her lips burned against me, and I drank up her warmth, letting it spread in waves. I didn’t care if she was using me. Everyone would, one way or another. Why shouldn’t it be her?
A massive shiver overtook me. Inkar pulled back, and it was like losing the sun. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just—cold, still.” I leaned forward again to recapture some of that heat. Our foreheads met, our noses touched. She smelled like salt and sweat.
“I should—” Inkar’s breath tickled my neck. “Aino will be back soon.” She bent over my other hand, and I didn’t dissent. I didn’t need Aino walking in on us, or her disapproval.
For a few moments, the only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire and the scrape of the putty knife in the jar of poultice. Then Inkar stood and went to my desk. “Aino suggested we bring you out for dinner, if you are not too ill.”
I laughed. “Since when were you and Aino coconspirators?”
“Since you went through the ice,” Inkar said. She frowned at the various jars on my desk. I liked the way she wrinkled her nose in puzzlement.
The servants’ door opened in the antechamber, and Aino appeared, obscured by a large stack of blankets and towels. She dropped them onto the bed, then spotted me through the door. Her eyes filled with tears.
“I’m fine,” I said uncomfortably as she hurried over. She bent down to wrap me in a careful hug, an effect somewhat ruined when she started to sob on my shoulder. I patted her awkwardly, trying to hold her without using my hands.
“What happened? First the hole closed. Then Inkar—” She stopped, took a shuddering breath, and tried again, voice softening. “Then Her Grace broke through and pulled you out. Below was pushing Sigis out of the water as we left. He looked…”
“He must be alive. His army would be laying siege to us otherwise.” Though I hoped he’d bear some interesting scars.
Aino cleared her throat. “May I…?”
“Here.” Inkar handed her a roll of bandages.
Neither of them looked at each other. They seemed… embarrassed? As Inkar slipped into the bedroom to sort through the pile of linens, Aino bent over my raw knees. “Forget what happened with me,” I said in Kylmian. “What happened between the two of you?”
“What do you mean?” Aino asked, but she didn’t look up.
“You know what I mean. She’s not ordering you around. You’re not being sarcastic. You’re… agreeing on things.”
“We’ve always agreed on things,” Aino protested. I snorted. She closed the bandage around my left knee. “You did not see the way she looked when we all thought you were dead. She broke hundreds of years of tradition for you. And she threatened to kill Eirhan.”
“At least somebody did,” I joked.
Aino smiled, but it was quick, vanishing so completely I wasn’t sure it had been there at all. “When she broke through the ice… I thought she’d go in, too. Then I thought she’d give up. But she didn’t stop. She didn’t even falter. I don’t know why she was willing to die for you, but…” Aino slapped more of the poultice on my right knee, making me hiss in pain. “Sorry. I’m not saying that I’ll ever think of her as one of my own. But if you have to marry someone, marry her.”
If I had to marry someone. The thought opened a strange hollowness in my belly. I didn’t want to get married at sixteen. I hadn’t really considered getting married at all. Inkar had been a lucky choice, but I’d known her for only six days.
Inkar came back into the antechamber, and I watched as she examined a length of bandage. She was so serious when she thought I wasn’t looking. But when she caught my eye, her dark, flirtatious smile came up. My heart jumped. I looked down and fiddled with the corner of my robe.
Aino finished wrapping me up. “There. I think that will hold.” She shook her head again. “You should have run.”
“No, Aino,” I said. I’d wanted to—I still wanted to—but I couldn’t say I should have.
A knock came at the door. With a sigh, Aino got up to answer it. “Yes?”
“Compliments from my lord minister,” said a woman’s voice that I vaguely recognized. I twisted to look, wiping at my cheeks and wincing as I pressed on my wounds. Urso’s secretary stood in the hall. “But the final trial has started.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
What?” I jerked to my feet.
“No,” Aino whispered.
“Urso sent me. The prime minister has allowed King Sigis to begin his speech,” the secretary said.
No. No, no, no. He’d obviously decided I’d lost the trial Below—or perhaps I hadn’t won it to his liking. “When?”
“He began fifteen minutes ago.”
“Get my coat,” I told Aino.
“You need to get dressed,” she began.
“No time.” I limped toward my wardrobe and grabbed the first coat I saw, the dark velvet. Inkar helped me pull it and button it. I placed a hand to my temple as my head spun. Inkar steadied me.