Lion's Bride - Iris Johansen [33]
Jasmine. She hadn’t seen the wagon arrive. She had seen nothing but death and blood and fire.
“You are weeping,” Jasmine said. “Are you hurt?”
She hadn’t realized she was weeping. She reached up a hand and touched her wet cheek. There didn’t seem to be enough tears in the world for what she had just seen. “No, I’m not hurt.”
She turned back to the village.
There was no village, only a solid sheet of flame.
“May Allah be merciful,” Jasmine’s voice was unsteady. “I was not treated with kindness here, but I would not have had this happen. I grew up in this village.”
Thea saw several of the soldiers standing with tears running down their cheeks. This was their home, the place of their birth, the people they had loved in that bonfire. She couldn’t stand to look at it any longer. She turned back to the wagon. “Did you look at Haroun?”
“He may not live. He’s had a sharp blow on the head. The old man, Malik ben Karrah, has only a few burns.”
“Did they find anyone else?”
“One man. Amal, the cobbler. He died before I could look at his wounds.”
Two alive out of an entire village. She suppressed the wave of sickness that washed over her. She couldn’t help anyone if she was ill. She climbed onto the bed of the wagon. “Then let’s get back to Dundragon so that we can care for the boy.”
“Are you all right?” Kadar was beside the wagon.
She nodded. “But we have to get Haroun back to the castle.”
“Not now. Ware has taken some men and gone on ahead to make sure the road is safe. I’m to wait a quarter hour and then escort you back.”
She nodded wearily. She couldn’t comprehend what had happened here, but she accepted that it would be foolish to place Haroun in a position of danger. “I’ll need water to wash the boy’s wound.”
It was a somber, grim Dundragon to which they returned. A pall hovered over the castle and the soldiers who guarded it.
“Take him to my chamber,” Thea told the soldiers who lifted Haroun out of the wagon. The boy had not awakened during the journey. Perhaps he would never wake again.
No, she would not think that. She slipped out of the wagon and started up the steps.
“Send word to me when he wakes.”
The command had issued from Ware standing a few feet away. He was still in full armor, and his expression was the same impassive mask he had worn at the village. Did nothing move him? Thea wondered.
His hardness suddenly enraged her. “Why? So you can send him back to his village to die again?”
He didn’t answer for a moment, and his expression never changed. “Send me word.”
She turned on her heel and went into the castle.
Haroun did not wake until near dawn the next day.
“Mama…”
Thea’s hand tightened around his. She would not lie to him. The pain would just be harder to bear later. “There were only two survivors of the fire. You and an old man…” She tried to remember the name Jasmine had mentioned. “Malik ben Karrah.”
“Fire?”
He had evidently been struck down before the fires had been set. “There was a fire.” She dabbed at his head with a wet cloth. “Try to go back to sleep.”
His lids slowly closed. “Yes.” Two tears rolled down his cheeks. “Mama…”
He was a child again, no longer the little proud soldier who had streaked about the courtyard carrying his torch like a bright banner. She wanted to gather him close as she had Selene on the morning their mother had died, but he was not her own. He belonged to no one now. She swallowed. “I promise it will be better soon.”
She stayed there, holding his hand, until he went back to sleep.
“You should go to your own bed,” Jasmine said as she set a fresh bowl of water on the table by the bed. “I’ll stay with the boy.”
Thea shook her head. With his hand still clasped in her own, she felt that leaving him would be a betrayal. “You sleep. You’ve not rested either.”
Jasmine hesitated and then finally nodded. “One of us must show some sense.” She moved brusquely toward the door. “I’ll tell Tasza to come to you