Ch. 59: Above Ground and Ch. 60: Still Here

Chapter 59: Above Ground

Daravan carried Marielle out of the passage with one of her hands twisted into his coat. Lia walked beside him, attending to the dressing at Marielle’s throat. Harrek sent officers ahead while others took the captured leader along a separate route.

Serali followed, looking as though remaining upright had become a philosophical position rather than a physical state.

Lia had checked Serali’s pulse with one hand still on Marielle’s throat, and declared she was unlikely to lose consciousness in the next several minutes.

Good, Daravan had enough immediate problems.

Marielle’s head rested uneasily against his shoulder. Every uneven step changed something about the way she held herself.

He adjusted, but it didn’t seem to help. There was no way to carry someone who had been abducted, bound, beaten, drugged, and cut at the throat without hurting her somewhere.

He hated it.

She was lighter than he expected.

That was a useless observation. Naturally, his mind kept it.

Lighter than her presence in council. Lighter than her repair lists. Lighter than the space she had occupied in every room she was not in.

He looked at the next patch of stone instead.

“The bathhouse access is held,” Harrek said. “Dry rooms above. We stabilize her there before the carriage.”

Marielle moved against Daravan’s shoulder.

Lia looked at her. “No speaking.”

Marielle closed her mouth, and for a moment her expression was one he recognized on her; irritation that showed in the way she scrunched her nose and bit her lower lip.

The tunnel narrowed twice.

Daravan turned his shoulders, keeping Marielle clear of the brick.

Lia followed every adjustment.

“Bleeding in a sewer,” she muttered. “Why choose a clean room with light and boiled water when centuries of runoff are available?”

Marielle made a faint sound against his shoulder. Not quite a laugh.

Lia pointed at her. “Do not encourage me by being amused either.”

Serali’s shadow flickered across the walls whenever her balance faltered.

Daravan had not asked what she had done. He knew enough.

Later, Allandra would have questions neither of them could answer while crossing runoff with Marielle bleeding between them.

At the next junction, Harrek paused to receive a report from an officer.

The escaped woman had not been found. The outer access teams had been notified. Assistance had reached the wounded operative.

“Alive?” Daravan asked.

“When they began moving him.”

Daravan looked down at Marielle.

She had heard.

Her gaze had sharpened briefly, then lost its focus again.

He wondered if he should tell her the man’s message, and decided not to. Not when she might try to answer it.

He kept walking.

A ladder rose into the maintenance chamber beneath the bathhouse.

Harrek climbed first.

A moment later his face appeared above them. “Clear.”

Daravan looked at the ladder.

Then at Marielle.

Harrek followed the calculation. “You cannot climb that carrying her.”

“I know.”

“There is lifting equipment.”

Daravan felt Marielle’s fingers tighten before he answered.

Lia looked from her hand to her face. “She stays supported,” the healer said. “No swinging basket.”

Harrek considered the opening.

Then summoned two officers and had them lower the maintenance platform on its chains. Lia checked the fastening before allowing either of them onto it.

Daravan explained the movement to Marielle before anyone touched her.

“They will lift us far enough for me to reach the upper edge. I keep holding you.”

Her eyes found his.

“You will feel the support beneath us. Lia stays with us.”

A small nod.

When they moved, it was not graceful.

The officers took their weight while Daravan kept Marielle against him. He could not make the opening wider or the stone smoother by disliking it.

Lia swore continuously, which he chose to interpret as medical supervision.

Marielle made a small broken sound when her injured arm shifted.

Daravan stopped.

“Keep moving,” Lia said.

“She—”

“I heard her.”

Marielle opened her eyes and gave him another tiny nod.

He moved.

By the time the officers helped him onto the upper floor, his dressing pulled sharply, his eyes burned, and Marielle had gone gray around the mouth.

He did not let anyone take her while he regained his footing.

The old bathhouse chamber was dry.

Mostly.

Watch officers had cleared dust from a stone bench and laid cloaks across it. Someone had brought lanterns. Someone else had found a bucket of water.

Lia took one look. “No, that water has opinions.”

The officer holding it froze.

Lia held out a hand. “Serali, the sealed water in my bag.”

Serali set the bag on the bench and began undoing its buckles. The loose end of the silver thread caught on one. She pulled it free.

“Down. Slowly,” Lia told Daravan.

“I’m going to set you on the bench,” he told Marielle.

She didn’t look at him until he said her name. Then she put a hand against his arm as if to help. He had already lowered her most of the way by the time she pushed.

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“Allow assistance,” he said.

Her brows drew together. He waited for her to look up and show him what she thought of that instruction. Her eyes stayed on his sleeve.

Lia put two fingers to Marielle’s wrist and watched her face for several breaths.

“Faster than it was downstairs,” she said. “Help me lay her back. Serali, another cloak over her legs.”

Marielle’s hand slipped from his coat as they lowered her. He offered his own. Her fingers closed around his hand only after he pressed his thumb into her palm.

Daravan and Harrek had sent the Watch healer with Tairn. He had needed one; Daravan wouldn’t have changed that order. But if Lia hadn’t come through with Serali, he would have brought this far with nothing more to offer her than another folded cloth.

Lia leaned into her line of sight. “Marielle, I’m going to lift the wet cloth. Can you hear me?”

Marielle blinked at her. Daravan waited for a nod. None came.

The instant Lia lifted the edge of the dressing, Marielle’s free hand shot toward her throat. Daravan caught it before she reached the wound. Her eyes snapped to his hand, wide and suddenly intent. He eased his grip at once.

She pulled again. There was barely any strength behind it.

“Keep her hand clear,” Lia said. “I need to see where she’s still bleeding.”

“Marielle. It’s me,” he told her.

Her eyes found his. He thought she understood, until Lia shifted the cloth and Marielle tried to turn her head away. Blood welled beneath it. Lia pressed the dressing down again.

Marielle continued to struggle. Not strongly. That made it worse.

Her body seemed to have decided every hand near her throat was an enemy. This was reasonable, but also completely incompatible with Lia treating her.

“I am taking off the wet dressing,” Lia said. “I need to clean underneath it.”

Marielle shook her head and the movement brought fresh blood beneath the cloth.

Lia steadied her chin. Firmly. Not roughly. “Hold still.”

“No.” The word came out thin. It sounded painful.

Daravan moved into her line of sight. “Marielle.”

Her gaze found him, then lost him, then found him again.

“Can’t you heal it?” Serali asked.

“I can help it heal once it’s clean. Close it now and I close the runoff inside it.” Lia held out her free hand. Serali put a folded cloth into it. “The arteries are intact but the edges need stitches to hold them properly even with healing.”

Lia worked beneath the loosened cloth. Clean water. A fresh dressing. Something sharp-smelling she instructed Serali to hand her from the bag.

Marielle jerked. Her fingers crushed Daravan’s hand, released, then closed again.

“I know,” Lia said. “But there is sewer filth in this wound. We are not letting an infection finish what they started.”

Marielle made a sound that almost became a laugh, but it broke into panic halfway.

When the cloth came near her face again, her breathing sharpened.

Daravan saw her eyes follow it. Then Lia’s hand. Then the bottle beside the clean water.

He remembered the drugged cloth they had found in the cellar.

She would remember hands holding her while she tried not to breathe, a journey she could not account for.

He did not know every part of it, but he could see what the treatment might resemble from her perspective.

“Lia.”

The healer paused long enough to look at him.

“The cloth,” he said quietly.

Lia looked at Marielle and understanding changed her face.

She moved it lower, keeping pressure where pressure was needed without bringing it over Marielle’s mouth.

“Clean cloth,” she said. “Nothing to breathe in.”

Marielle’s eyes moved to the open bottle, then back to Lia’s hand. Daravan could see her trying to make sense of what Lia had said. When Lia touched the cloth to her throat, she still flinched.

Outside, Harrek was arranging a carriage, guards, and a route back to the palace. Daravan could have stepped out and taken half of it off his hands. Marielle’s fingers tightened around his. He stayed where Marielle could see him.

Chapter 60: Still Here

Lia rinsed another section of the wound. Marielle jerked, and blood welled into the space Lia had just cleared.

Lia swore under her breath and put the pressure back on. “I need to give her something. I can’t clean it if she keeps turning away.”

Marielle went still. Her eyes fixed on the bag. It was the quickest Daravan had seen her understand anything since they brought her up from the runoff.

“No,” she managed.

Lia’s face tightened. “Do not speak. Please.”

Marielle shook her head instead, a tiny, desperate movement.

Daravan bent closer. Whatever she had heard in that announcement, it was not help. He could feel her waiting for the moment when someone would stop listening.

“She is exhausted, hurt in six different places, and running on spite and sewer fumes,” Lia said.

Marielle’s eyes sharpened faintly.

“I know.” Daravan kept his eyes on Marielle.

“I cannot clean and stitch it if she keeps moving. She will tear it open,” Lia said.

“I understand why,” he replied.

Lia’s mouth thinned. “Then help me make her understand.”

Marielle’s fingers had locked around his. Her breathing came too fast, panic hollowing everything else out of her face.

“Marielle.” He waited until her eyes fixed on him. “Lia wants to give you medicine.”

She shook her head immediately.

“I know.”

Another shake.

“You’re in the Kellen Row bathhouse. Harrek is outside. Serali is here, by your feet.”

Her gaze moved down the bench.

“Here,” Serali said. She had one hand braced on the stone. “I’m staying.”

“Look back at me,” Daravan said.

It took a moment, but she did.

“No one is moving you while Lia treats you,” he told her. “When it’s time to leave, we’ll tell you.”

Lia asked Serali for a small vial from the inside pocket of her bag. Serali held it where Marielle could see it, then laid the glass dropper beside it.

“A very small dose,” Lia said. Her voice had lost its edge. “I know how much blood you’ve lost. I need you able to keep still while I work, not unconscious for my convenience.”

Marielle looked at the dropper. Her hand was still locked around Daravan’s.

“Lia is treating you.” Daravan held her eyes. “I am here.”

Her breathing hitched.

He did not tell her she was safe. There was a knife wound at her throat and an escaped operative somewhere in the city, and he would not ask her to accept a word that could not account for either.

“You are not being taken.”

Something changed. It was not calm, not that quickly, but the panic found an edge. Her grip shifted, no longer clawing. Holding.

Lia watched them both. Daravan saw the look, too tired to interpret it and too aware to miss it.

“Ask her,” he said.

Lia’s brows drew together.

Daravan did not look away from Marielle. “Ask.”

For a moment, only the sounds beyond the doorway reached them.

Lia moved into Marielle’s line of sight. “May I give you enough medicine to stitch your neck without you reopening it?”

Marielle looked at her. Then at the vial.

“You don’t have to speak or move your head,” Lia said. “Two deliberate blinks if you agree.”

Her eyes drifted toward Daravan. He waited. She looked back at Lia and closed them once. For a moment he thought she hadn’t the strength to open them again. Then she did it a second time, slowly enough that he could see the effort in it.

Daravan exhaled. He had not realized he was holding his breath.

“Good,” Lia said. “I will tell you before I give it.”

Serali took over the pressure while Lia drew up the medicine, her fingers fitting carefully where Lia showed her. Marielle watched the dropper come toward her. She opened her mouth just enough, swallowed, and tightened her hand around Daravan’s.

When the tension began to ease from her shoulders, her eyes went looking for him.

“Still here,” he said.

Her hand loosened. It did not let go.

Lia took back the dressing. Serali brought the basin nearer and held the lantern when Lia needed a better angle. Twice she reached for the wrong thing. Both times Lia told her what she wanted in the same even voice, and Serali put it into her hand.

He kept expecting the moment when Lia would stop cleaning and simply heal it. A hand, a glow, a wound that had never happened.

Lia did not give him that.

Marielle flinched when Lia rinsed the wound again, but she kept her head where Lia had asked her to. By the time Lia took up the needle, her eyelids were drooping.

“Stitches now,” she told Marielle. “You will feel me working. Keep your head where it is.”

Marielle’s fingers tightened at the first stitch. Daravan kept his hand steady.

He could not look at the needle for long.

He looked at her face instead.

At intervals, her eyes opened enough to find him. When they did, he answered before she had to ask.

“Still here.”

Beyond the doorway, someone called for hot water. Another voice demanded a clean litter. Harrek swore at someone who had misunderstood the word sealed.

Serali’s arm began to shake. She set the lantern on the bench and steadied it with her palm until Lia told her the last stitch was in.

Lia rested two fingers beside the wound. A little warmth gathered beneath her hand. Marielle stirred.

“Healing,” she told Marielle. “The stitches stay. I’m helping the tissue hold around them.”

Daravan watched her expression through the brief spell. No sudden restoration. No disappearance of the bruises or the blood dried against her skin, only a little less strain around her mouth.

When Lia was done, she secured a clean dressing and took Marielle’s wrist again. Daravan waited for her to say the pulse had slowed.

“The bleeding’s stopped,” Lia said. “Her pulse is still too fast. Keep her covered. We’re taking her straight to the infirmary.”

Serali sat down on the tiled bench across from them as though she’d been waiting for permission. One hand went to her ribs. The silver thread still hung from her wrist.

She watched Marielle with such obvious guilt that Daravan suspected Lia would have to treat that too.

Later.

Harrek appeared in the doorway. His gaze passed over Marielle, Serali barely upright, and Daravan’s hand in Marielle’s.

“The Commander is secure,” he said. “The woman is still loose. We found tracks east and lost them at a water break.”

“Keep sealing the exits,” Daravan said.

“Already.”

“Send word to Her Majesty. Lady Marielle is alive. We’re bringing her straight to the infirmary. Lady Serali and Mistress Lia are with us.”

Harrek drew the communication stone from his coat as he stepped outside.

Marielle’s thumb moved once against Daravan’s hand. Small enough that he could have missed it if he’d been doing anything else.

He squeezed back.

An officer approached with a litter. “Captain.”

Daravan stood and carefully untangled his hand from Marielle’s.

Her eyes opened immediately.

He stopped.

“Palace,” he said. “We are going to the palace.”

Her eyes moved toward the litter, then back to him.

The panic returned, not fully, but enough.

Lia looked at Marielle, then at him, and sighed. “You.”

Daravan bent close. “I will carry you to the carriage. May I?”

Marielle raised her hand toward his coat.

He waited until her fingers found it, then slid his arms beneath her and lifted carefully.

Her breath caught. Her body did not fight him.

One hand twisted into the front of his coat. Daravan adjusted his hold.

The Watch officer gestured helplessly toward the litter. “It would be smoother.”

“Have it ready if we need it,” Lia said. “And clear the way.”

Harrek returned to the doorway. “Captain, you are bleeding on your left side.”

“I know.”

“We have a litter.”

“Yes.”

Harrek stared at him, then at Marielle’s fist in his coat.

“Fine.”

Lia gathered her bag. “Your dressing needs attention.”

“I know.” Daravan started toward the door.

“You are going to make me treat both of you at once.”

“I know.”

“That may be the most agreeable he has ever been,” Harrek said, following.

Daravan ignored him.

Marielle’s head settled against his shoulder. Her eyes opened once.

He looked down immediately. “Still here.”