Heron looks at me with raised eyebrows. “Do you know how?” he asks.
I shrug. “I was on the other side of it often enough after the Kaiser’s punishments. I’m sure I can figure it out.”
Heron nods. “All right, then. I’ll get you some supplies. Art, can you help Erik outside? Get him used to finding his way around?” He looks at Erik. “The last thing you’re going to do is wallow. You’re going to get back on your feet and figure out how to adjust. Trust me, you’ll thank me for it later.”
Erik grimaces but nods. “I’m sure I will,” he says, forcing himself to sit up, and groaning as he does. “But right now, I’d like to say some far less savory things to you.”
“Keep a list,” Heron says with a small smile. “You can tell them to me over dinner.”
For an instant, Erik is shocked and flustered—a look I’ve never seen on him before. He recovers his wits quickly enough. “It’s a deal,” he says.
Artemisia looks between the two of them, eyebrows raised so high they almost disappear entirely into her hair.
“We are at war,” she says with a sigh. “Surely there is a better time to flirt than when death is around every corner?”
“Truth be told, I’m hard-pressed to think of a better time to flirt,” Erik says, pushing himself to his feet. “You very well may never get another chance.”
Artemisia rolls her eyes.
“Just because I can’t see you doesn’t mean I don’t know you’re rolling your eyes, Art,” he says, holding an arm out to her, which she takes. She guides him a couple of hesitant steps. “Just because you don’t know how to flirt—”
“I know how,” she snaps indignantly as she leads him out of the tent, the two of them continuing to bicker as they go.
* * *
—
When Heron leaves us with the ointment and bandages, he takes all of the air in the room with him. Alone with Søren, I’m aware of every breath he takes, standing on the opposite side of the tent—the rise and fall of his bare chest, marred with scars and wounds. I’m aware of him being aware of me, his gaze careful and wary, like he still doesn’t trust that I’m really here. I don’t blame him—some days I can’t quite believe it, either.
“I really thought that you were dead,” he says, breaking the silence. The words are a confession, whisper-quiet, as if saying them out loud might negate the miracle.
“I know. I thought you were as good as,” I reply. “I didn’t think I would see you again before she…I wanted to get you back, I swear I did. I would have done everything I could to rescue you, but…”
“But storming the capital before you had enough warriors would have been to doom your rebellion,” he says. “I know. You couldn’t do that. I never expected you to.”
“You would have done it for me,” I point out.
He hesitates but doesn’t deny it. “Maybe I would have,” he says softly. “But it would have been a foolish decision. You are many things, Theodosia Eirene Houzzara, but you aren’t a fool.”
I bite my lip. “Erik thought I wasn’t acting because I didn’t care. He thought I was indifferent to your suffering. I wasn’t,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t do more. Maybe if I had, he wouldn’t have lost his eye.”
He shakes his head, dropping his gaze. “You don’t owe me any apologies, Theo. You don’t owe them to Erik, either. You aren’t responsible for his faulty plot,” he says. “Besides, you’ve saved me plenty of times before, and you did so again today. I don’t think it’s a debt I’ll ever be able to repay.”
“There are no debts,” I tell him quietly. “Not between us, Søren.”
His eyes find mine again, and without a word he holds out a hand to me and I take it, stepping into his arms as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. He buries his face in my neck, and I hold him as tightly as I dare to, carefully avoiding his wounds. Somehow, beneath the blood and sweat, he still smells like the sea, and that makes him feel a little more real to me.
For a moment, neither of us moves. We just stand there, holding one another, and I wish that the moment would last a lifetime, but eventually Søren pulls back, fixing me with an imploring look.
“Your skin is warm,” he says slowly. “Not hot. Not feverish. But warm—warmer than it used to be.” He pauses, weighing a question he knows he doesn’t want the answer to. “What did you do, Theo?”
“What I had to,” I say, stepping out of his arms to retrieve the ointment and bandages that Heron left, though it’s also an excuse to not have to look at him when I say the words. “I went into the Fire Mine.”
He gives a sharp inhale, like he’s been hit. “And here I was, saying you weren’t a fool,” he says, shaking his head. “It could have killed you.”
I shrug, but I still can’t meet his gaze. “Cress could have killed me. The Kaiser could have killed me. There were times when I think even King Etristo wanted to kill me back in Sta’Crivero. Believe me, the mine was a less frightening prospect after all of them. Besides, I trusted that the gods had other plans for me. They wouldn’t have let me die like that, not in their domain.”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment. Instead he watches as I open the jar of ointment and spread it over his wounds, starting with the ones on his face. The second the cool salve touches his skin, he flinches.
“I know, it hurts,” I say. “It’s the same kind Hoa would use on me. But the pain will go away in a moment, and then it won’t hurt at all.”
He relaxes slightly and I move on to his chest, tracing Cress’s handwriting on his right clavicle. Betrayer she wrote there, the lines of her script hard and inelegant. Angry.
“What was it like?” he asks me. “The mine?”
My hand stills and I realize that no one ever asked me that. Most people don’t want to know, and the only people who would have asked already know from their own experiences. I take a deep breath, the mint from the salve stinging my nostrils.
“I don’t remember most of it,” I tell him. “It comes back in flashes sometimes, but there are still parts where I don’t know if it was real or not. I saw my mother, as real down there as you and I are now. Some days, I’m not sure I ever left the mine at all. It feels like I’m still there.”
His hand comes to rest on top of mine on his chest. “But you did make it out,” he says. “And you came out stronger, didn’t you? Gifted?”