Followed by Fros(41)

Sadriel visited once while I was struggling with the bookshelf. Not to help, of course—he wouldn’t lift a finger, not even when I entreated him with every kind and begging word I knew. He stretched out on my bed and watched me work, treating the cavern like a honeymooner’s escape, making comments in whatever provocative manner he could contrive.

“It’s crooked,” he said. “If you really want a shelf, I’ll give you one taller than the Itarian itself, and bring you the souls of your favorite authors.”

“What is the Itarian?” I asked, wrenching a bent nail free of its wood.

“The largest tower in the world, across the seas in Gardinia. They’re especially good at war there. Wouldn’t you like to see it?”

I told him no, and he left.

Frowning at what must have seemed a foolish endeavor, Aamina, on her next visit, said, “Wouldn’t it be easier with the gloves off?”

My first reaction was to shake my head. I had assumed the gloves were necessary to prevent the wood from freezing. But after thinking on it a moment, I wondered if Aamina was right. Did it really matter if frost laced my hammer or riddled my boards?

I slipped off the gloves, which improved my poor grip on the tools. I sawed the splintered board to make a small cubbyhole on top of my creation, which, in the end, stood three shelves high. I had nearly finished it when Lo returned, this time midday. Bright sun made the drifting snow flurries outside my door look like fairies behind him, twirling and glowing and gold.

He carried his side bag with him, laden with books. I wanted to grab each volume from his satchel and dance with them, but even the Svara Idyah could remember her manners.

“Impressive,” he said, setting his mashadah by the dwindling fire. He poured some oil on the coals. “But will it hold?”

“It can hold me,” I said, hammering a nail into the back of the cubbyhole.

He smiled and unloaded the books onto the table. He read the titles to me, each sounding like music—The Word of Kings, a philosopher’s book and fairly recent; River of Tears, a short novel missing its back cover; and Sun, Moon, Stars, Sand, a book of—

Distracted, I let the last nail slip from my fragile grip as I hammered. Instead of pounding it into the wood, I smashed its point into and across my palm. I hissed and dropped the hammer, which hit the rug-strewn stone floor with a loud thud. Cold blood oozed from the gash and trickled down my wrist and the sides of my hand, congealing and then freezing to the skin. A drop stained the pale green rug underfoot.

Cradling my hand, I hurried to the half-filled pitcher of water and bowl on the table.

“What happened?” Lo asked, stepping toward me.

“I slipped, it’s fine,” I lied. It throbbed terribly, my coldness making the slash ache all the more. I reached for the pitcher.

“Let me see—”

He reached for my hand before I could stop him, before I could shout. His fingers grasped my wrist. Frost zigzagged over his hand in an instant. Wincing, he pulled his hand back as though struck by—what had Eyan called me?—a cobra.

I spilled the pitcher.

“I-I . . . I’m sorry,” I choked out as Lo cradled his hand to his coat, rubbing warmth back into it. I repeated myself, quieter, and fumbled with the pitcher. I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t bear to see that expression of hate and contempt I’d seen on so many faces play across Lo’s familiar features. I averted my eyes from his injured hand and fled, not bothering to clean up the mess of blood and water.

I stumbled outside with the pitcher still clutched in my hand, biting my lower lip to force my emotions flat, but they swirled and looped inside of me until I barely knew up from down or east from west. My insides became stone. Kneeling, I bit the inside of my cheek as I scrubbed the cut with snow, shivering and shaking.

Careless, I thought to myself, wiping my eyes on my sleeve before tears could form. I clumped snow together and scoured frozen blood from the sides of my hand and wrist until the skin turned raw. I had gotten too comfortable here, too careless around people. I had thought I could no longer hurt anyone, tucked away in my cave. I had been so very wrong.

I took several deep breaths, trying to calm myself. I couldn’t stay out there forever, just as Lo would not merely wait in the cave until I bridled my emotions. Clenching my injured left hand in a fist, I scooped snow with my pitcher and stepped inside, setting it by the fire to melt.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, again without looking at Lo. Instead, I stared into the coals, prodding them with my right hand to build a better flame.

“It is not your fault,” Lo said from behind me, though I still didn’t glance back to see him. “You warned me before, with the others. I was not thinking.”

I forced more deep, chilly breaths into my lungs as I poured the melted water from the pitcher over my hand, keeping it over the flame so the liquid wouldn’t freeze to my skin. I washed the new blood away, but it slowly bubbled up again.

Lo kneeled beside me, and I flinched away, not wanting to hurt him again.

He set bandages from my small store on the ground and retrieved his leather riding gloves from his coat pocket. After pulling them on—his hand didn’t look damaged—he unrolled a length of bandage and held it taut, waiting for me. He said nothing.

Another deep breath, and I placed my hand on the middle of the bandage. He pressed gauze to my palm and carefully wrapped it, proficient even with the gloves. I imagined he’d had experience bandaging wounds, being a soldier. I wondered how many he had wrapped for others and how many for himself.