The Bonds Undone (Sequel to The Sword Unbroken)

Chapter Nineteen: Loss

Rerdas' face felt so swollen, he could barely breathe. His lashes and cheeks were crusted and salty, but he seemed to have cried himself out. It was not a relief, and neither was crying.

His captors had brought him to a small, clean room, and he had not left it since he had first woken. Whether this was by design he had not bothered to find out, since he doubted he could move even if they let him. They fed him, and asked him his name. He refused to answer. He lay still, letting tears soak into his pillow until consciousness faded. But the darkness was infested with dreams, and he found no rest in it.

When he was forced back into daylight, his shoulder was unbearably stiff. Someone had treated and bound it, and the smell of the medicine filled the room. Bitter and spicy. It made him want to vomit.

They asked him his name again, when they came in to smear some paste on his shoulder and across his back, and changed the bandages. His tongue was too heavy to move. They were probably his enemies, so he said nothing, just listened to the echoes of exasperated discussion when they moved into the hallway.

The problem was that each time he came awake, he was a little more awake. His head throbbed and his back stung, and there was no name for the kind of pain that festered in his heart. He thought it might be better to fade in and out of various states of shadow.

What he hated most about the room was the window. If there were no window, there would be no light. It was always coming and going, the light, welling up in the morning and gleaming in the afternoon and thick as honey in the evening. Every change was a reminder that the world beyond was proceeding as normal, nothing had stopped or even adjusted, and her death did not much matter to the sun or anyone beneath it.

Rerdas trembled on the bed, squeezed his eyes shut and rammed his head into the already flattened pillow. Eternals. He had gone too far into waking. He remembered that she had been alive still when they took him away, which meant she had died alone.

He had left her. Not by choice, but someone stronger in his place would have fought his attackers off and stayed with her. Someone even stronger than that would never have allowed her to be hurt.

Sleep came in shallow fits. He tossed and jerked in its grip, trying to outrun the red-haired monster that stalked him. He was worn thin as a rag and felt twice as useless, when a face came through the door that he dimly recognized. His cloudy mind could not summon her name.

The woman made a sharp noise when she saw him and rushed forward. Her hand was very cool against his skin. "Master Toriem? I did not realize it was you they found. I should have come sooner." She crouched beside the bed. "Rerdas? Do you know me?"

He did know her. One of his aunt's old friends. In the red house, the Arleth house. He had lied to her the last time they had met. For all the good it had done any of them.

"Honna Arleth," she said, as though it were encouragement. "I...I am sorry to hear that your cousin has passed."

"She didn't pass," Rerdas said. The words seemed slurred, and he pushed himself halfway up from the bed to try again. "She didn't pass. She was stabbed and bleeding and left for dead in the jungle."

Pain grooved Feldlady Arleth's expression, settling about her downturned mouth and furrowed brow, but her face held none of the revulsion he deserved. Her hand on his good shoulder was more weight than he could bear, and he sank back to the pillow.

She stood up. "You should rest, Master Toriem." He thought she left then, but it was difficult to be sure. He couldn't see much when the tears turned everything into unfocused shapes and bright points of changing light.