From Darkness Won - Jill Williamson [203]
A man’s shadow fell over Kurtz’s face and stretched out on the bright grass. Likely Sir Eagan checking on Kurtz. “I can do no more for him than this,” Averella said, hoping Father would not point out an obvious mistake.
“He is blessed to be in your care.”
Still crouching, Averella spun around on her toes. Achan stood at Kurtz’s feet. The sun behind him made his outline glow. She could hardly see his expression, but shiny gashes all over his breastplate gleamed and caught the light.
A flutter passed through her stomach. “Achan!” He extended a hand. She reached out and slid her hand into his and found it sticky, coated in drying blood. “Are you injured?” Her eyes studied him. One leg was coated in blood from knee to boot.
He pulled her to standing, harder than need be. She flew up from the ground and slammed against his breastplate. He held her there with a hand at the small of her back. She could do nothing but gaze into his eyes. His hair, wet with sweat, frizzed out like the rambutan fruit from Nesos. The blisters on the top edge of his burned ear had mostly healed now.
“Achan?”
But he only stared, the hand against her back trembling. A single tear streaked down from the corner of his eye and vanished under his ear, painting a clean stripe through the dirt on his face.
“You did it, Achan! I heard your voice. I sang with you. You brought all Er’Rets into fellowship with Arman. I have never been so proud of anyone.”
He grimaced, as if the compliment pained him. “Sparrow—”
“We asked the soldiers to bring the wounded here. Do you think that will do? I do not know this castle well enough to take them inside. Besides, the fresh air will help to—”
“Vrell!” Achan swallowed. “My lady Averella.” His hand clenched behind her, taking the back of her tunic in his fist. He closed his eyes. “Bran is dead.”
A chill fell over her as if the sun had passed behind a cloud. She shook her head. “No, I— I can still sense him.” But even as she said it, she knew she could no longer feel Bran’s presence.
“He saved my life,” Achan said. “I realize you might not consider that the best exchange, but… I am sorry.”
She tried to pull back, but his grip was too strong. The world spun around her, everything blurred, green, white, silver, red.
Achan spoke to her, a low, muffled sound she could not interpret. Her feet left the ground as Achan lifted her just before she fell.
She woke in a chamber brightly lit by sunlight streaming through a set of opened double doors that led to a balcony. She lay on a double tester bed canopied in white organza linen that shifted in a breeze sweeping through the doors. She wore a nightgown. One of her own. Mercy. It had been ages since she’d worn this.
Where was she? This was not her bedchamber. How had she come to be here? She sat up and slipped out of bed.
The chamber was large, curved on one side, likely on the perimeter of one of the arcs of the Armonguard keep. She frowned. Did that mean the war had been real? And what Achan had told her of Bran…?
The walls were bare on one end of the chamber, covered in colorful tapestries on the other. Two servants stood where the tapestries ended, working together to hang more tapestries. A maid stood beside the door.
“Good morning, dearest.”
Averella turned and found her mother sitting in a wicker chair on the other side of her bed. “Mother!”
By the time she reached the chair, Mother had stood. They embraced. Averella started to cry.
“I am so sorry, dearest. He was a good and brave young man.”
This declaration ended all communication on Averella’s part, for all she could do was sob into her mother’s chest. She searched her memory to recall what her last words to Bran had been.
She could not remember.
This only made her cry harder. Mother helped her back into the bed. She did not know how long she lay there before she drifted off to sleep.
When she woke again, her curiosity grew stronger than her grief. She turned onto her side and drew the organza curtain aside. All the tapestries had been hung now.