Watching her makes me wonder when I started to care so much about how a wound is made instead of healed. Apsara is magic, has always been magic, with every step she takes to care for me. She makes me feel like a creature made of poison and she one made of every antidote to every inch of me. I am glad, furiously glad, that war did not touch a single inch of her perfect soul.
And right there, as she chews a poultice with her teeth, I swear to every old god and ever new god that I will conquer every world that would ever bring war to my sister’s heart. Each and every one of them.
Foras is breathing in my ear and quieting me with the sound of his winter mountains and his adoration. My heart stutters to pick up the sound of his as he lays protectively around me. Through our bond I can see how he waivers between watching the sea and the woods where death lingers. He knows both are waiting for me (and by association him too). Neither of his will go gently now that I’ve freshly promised my soul to Aspara and nothing else.
I wonder how many pieces of me will be left when I’m done giving them all away.
The wound stings when the poultice warms between the bandage and my skin. Pain however, is no stranger to me, and I do not let Aspara see how the healing is always just as worse as the injury (and it makes me wonder which of us is better at pain). My teeth ache as I swallow down the hiss of pain before it can find life. I hope my eyes do not give me away, when I blink slow and weary at her. “I’ll stay and rest only if you stay with me.”
When I rest my cheek against her leg she is as warm as she has ever been. There is only the sun of father’s desert in her and none of the bitter winter sea that fills me. Nothing in the world calms me as much as my sister’s warmth does.
I silently make my pledge again, and again, and again, as my lashes flutter and close.
Before I fall into the exhaustion of a wounded thing protected by wolves I ask, “Will you tell me a story that is nothing like mother’s?” But before she can begin I am--
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