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her
son
.
If he is showing concern, there is a
reason for it—and not one that favors me.
Slowly, I push back my scarf. When he sees the
K
, his eyes go hard behind
the mask, and for a moment, sadness and fury burn in his gaze. I’m startled when
he speaks again.
“May I?” He lifts a hand, and I barely feel it when his fingers brush the skin
near my wound.
“Your skin’s hot.” He lifts the basket of sand. “The wound is bad. It needs
attention.”
“I know that,” I say. “Commandant wanted sand, and I didn’t have time to—
to—” Veturius’s face swims for a moment, and I feel strangely weightless. He’s
close then, close enough for me to feel the heat of his body. The scent of cloves
and rain drifts over me. I close my eyes to stop everything from lurching, but it
doesn’t help. His arms are around me, hard and gentle all at once, and he lifts me
up.
“Let me go!” My strength peaks, and I shove at his chest. What is he doing?
Where is he taking me?
“How else do you plan to get back up the cliffs?” he asks. His broad strides
carry us easily up the winding switchbacks. “You can barely stand.”
Does he actually think I’m stupid enough to accept his “help”? This is a trick
he’s plotted with his mother. Some further punishment awaits. I have to escape
him.
But as he walks, another wave of dizziness hits me, and I clutch his neck until
it passes. If I hold on tight enough
,
he won’t be able to throw me to the dunes.
Not without getting dragged down himself.
My eyes fall on his bandaged arms, and I remember that the First Trial ended
yesterday.
Veturius catches me looking. “Just scratches,” he says. “Augurs left me in the
middle of the Great Wastes for the First Trial. After a few days without water, I
started falling down a lot.”
“They left you in the Wastes?” I shudder. Everyone’s heard of that place. It
makes the Tribal lands look almost habitable. “And you survived? Did they at
least warn you?”
“They like surprises.”
Even through my sickness, the impact of what he’s said isn’t lost on me. If
144
the Aspirants don’t know what will happen in the Trials, how can I possibly find
out?
“Doesn’t the Commandant know what you’ll be up against?” Why am I
asking him so many questions? It’s not my place. My head must be addled from
the wound. But if my curiosity bothers Veturius, he doesn’t say so.
“She might. Doesn’t matter. Even if she knows, she wouldn’t tell me.”
His mother doesn’t want him to win? Part of me wonders at their bizarre
relationship. But then I remind myself that they’re Martials. Martials are
different.
Veturius crests the cliff and ducks beneath the clothes fluttering on the line,
heading down the slaves’ corridor. When he carries me into the kitchen and sets
me down on a bench beside the worktable, Izzi, scrubbing the floor, drops her
brush and stares open-mouthed. Cook’s glance falls to my wound, and she
shakes her head.
“Kitchen-Girl,” Cook says. “Take the sand upstairs. If the Commandant asks
about Slave-Girl, tell her she’s taken ill and that I’m tending to her so she can get
back to work.”
Izzi picks up the basket of sand without a sound and disappears. A wave of
nausea breaks over me, and I’m forced to drop my head between my legs for a
few moments.
“Laia’s wound’s infected,” Veturius says when Izzi leaves. “Do you have
bloodroot serum?”
If Cook is surprised that the Commandant’s son is using my given name, she
doesn’t show it. “Bloodroot’s too valuable for the likes of us. I’ve tanroot and
wildwood tea.”
Veturius frowns and gives Cook the same instructions Pop would have.
Wildwood tea three times a day, tanroot to clean the wound, and no bandage. He
turns to me. “I’ll find some bloodroot and bring it to you tomorrow. I promise.
You’ll be all right. Cook knows her remedies.”
I nod, unsure if I should thank him, still waiting for him to reveal his true
purpose for helping me. But he doesn’t say anything else, apparently satisfied
with my response. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks out the back
door.
Cook rustles around the cabinets, and a few minutes later, a mug of steaming
tea is in my hands. After I drink it down, she sits in front of me, her scars inches
from my face. I gaze at them, but they no longer seem grotesque. Is it because
I’ve gotten used to seeing them? Or because I have a disfigurement of my own?
145
“Who’s Darin?” Cook asks. Her sapphire eyes glint, and for a moment, they
are hauntingly familiar. “You called for him in the night.”
The tea takes the edge off my dizziness, and I sit up. “He’s my brother.”
“I see.” Cook drips tanroot oil on a square of gauze and dabs it onto the
wound. I wince in pain and grip the seat. “And is he in the Resistance too?”
“How could you—”
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