Page 44

In Breath and Blood

Maia and Caelith half-carried, half-dragged Julen toward the healer’s wing, each step leaving a wet smear of blood across the stone floor. The corridors outside the Archive were nearly silent, save for the distant rumble of the storm.

Julen gritted his teeth. “You’re both… terrible at pretending this doesn’t hurt.”

Maia tightened her grip. “We’re trying to keep you alive, stop complaining.”

“Complaining is what keeps me alive,” Julen muttered, his voice thinning near the end.

Caelith said nothing. His jaw was set, his breath shallow, each step careful, as if anything less might pull him apart.

Even with Julen’s weight between them, he kept his injured side angled away, refusing to shift any of the burden onto Maia. Blood had soaked through his tunic: a dark, spreading stain he tried, and failed, to hide with a braced forearm.

When they reached the healer’s chamber and transferred Julen to the cot, Caelith stepped back as though he couldn’t stand to take up space there.

The healer, still bleary from sleep, rushed to Julen’s side. She cut his shirt away with quick, practiced strokes, pressing folded cloth hard against the worst of the gouges, her hands moving in the brisk, unhurried rhythm of someone who had done this before and expected to again. She called for water, for the willow-bark tincture, for someone to hold the lamp steadier.

Maia hovered next to him until he squeezed her wrist lightly.

“I’m not dying,” Julen murmured, though his voice was laced with some uncertainty. “But I don’t know that he’s decided not to yet. Go.”

Heat rose fast in Maia’s cheeks. “But—”

“Maia,” Julen whispered, eyes flicking toward the doorway. “Go.”

She took a roll of bandages and a damp cloth with her from the healer as she left.

When she walked back into the corridor, Caelith was standing, bracing a hand against the wall, shoulders hunched. Silver blood dripped steadily at his feet, each drop striking the stone with a soft, echoing tick.

“Caelith! Gods, sit down,” Maia said, rushing to him. “You’re hurting.”

“I’m fine,” he said through his teeth.

“You’re not. You’re barely standing.”

He didn’t fight her when she guided him into the small antechamber beside the healer’s quarters, but the tension rolling off him was palpable. When she pressed him into a chair, he winced, despite trying not to.

She knelt in front of him, hands hovering. “Please. Let me look.”

“No.”

For the briefest second, panic flashed wild in his eyes before he forced them calm.

Maia softened her voice. “I’m not asking anymore. I’m helping you.”

He went still. The storm outside cracked thunder across the sky, and in the echoing silence after, he finally exhaled a long, frayed breath.

“Fine. If you insist.”

He peeled back his blood-soaked coat, then lifted his tunic. Maia sucked in a breath. The wound was worse than she’d thought. The wraith’s claw had carved a jagged line across his ribs, deep enough to show the white edge of bone beneath. Bruising bloomed around it, black-purple like ink spreading through paper.

“Why didn’t you tell Julen that his wasn’t the worst injury?” she whispered.

“Because Julen was conscious,” Caelith said softly. “And I needed him to stay that way.”

“Hold still,” she murmured, reaching for the clean linen.

He flinched when her fingers brushed his skin.