Page 85 of The Fury She Holds
“That man has been coming to the docks every night for the last two years. Don’t tell me he doesn’t show his face.”
“Really? To do what? Laugh at the poor?”
“To feed them, girl. Have you not seen the baskets he brings every night? Has since the first night.”
“And what is this I hear about you not charging anyone?” She tried to sit up, but Madge pushed her back down. “I can barely afford your prices!”
“I charge what can be afforded. If you didn’t waste your money on the drink, you’d be rolling in gold.”
“Is she going to be alright?” Faron asked from the doorway.
Madge waved a fern at him menacingly. “You bring her here in this state, give me all of ten breaths to wake up, and start making all these demands. King or no, I’ll kick you both out on the street.”
Faron’s face softened. He walked to Tal’s side and saw the axe on the chair. His lips twitched. When he searched Tal’s face, she turned away from him. “What happened?” he asked gently.
Tal swallowed. “Wolves.”
“Wolves? Plural?” He sounded impressed and concerned at the same time.
“They attacked Pepper while she grazed.”
“And let me guess,” Madge said from her cupboard. She was hard at work with rags, herbs, salves, and a mortar and pestle. “You thought you could save the animal against a bunch of born predators.” Tal could see the woman shaking her head. “When will you learn that you’re not invincible?”
“You hired me for a job. How was I supposed to get back without a horse?”
Madge came over to the table and started cleaning Tal’s wounds with a rag dipped in some yellow and green paste in her pestle. “Sure, use that as your excuse. Damned fool is what you are.” Madge chastised Tal more while she worked. She complained about the state of Tal’s wounds, how much blood she’d lost, everything she could think of.
Tal began to think that the woman did it to distract her from the pain. She tensed each time Madge dabbed at her ravaged skin, and the woman set off on another rant. She tried her best not to make a sound, but occasionally a grunt or whimper slipped past her lips. When Faron grabbed her hand andsqueezed, she squeezed back. She turned to see his face, finding the expression unreadable.
“Don’t blame them.”
Faron’s lips pressed into a thin line.
“They tried to stop me, and I nearly ran them down.”
“You don’t need to lie for them. Ed has a soft spot for you. It compromises him.” Tal tried to interject, but Faron continued, “It’ll gut him when he hears what happened to you. He and Jens have been gone for hours looking for you.”
She turned her head to the ceiling, swallowing down the emotion that clawed at her throat. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Faron squeezed her hand with both of his.
Tal stared at the shadows flickering along the wooden slat ceiling while Madge tended to her wounds, and Faron drew circles on the back of her hand.
She didn’t say anything, and neither did he. It wasn’t time for apologies, and Tal was in no condition to accept them.
23
Whatever Madge did, it helped with the pain, and Tal soon relaxed enough to fall asleep. She awoke in her bed the next day with Carrick by her side, like so many times before. He scolded her for barreling into danger without hesitation. Described the terror at seeing her carried in by Faron, unconscious, battered, and bloody.
“I’m tired of seeing you hurt,” he said.
“It was wolves, Carrick. I had a bounty to fill. Mages had nothing to do with it, just bad luck, something that could have happened any day.”
He pursed his lips before saying, “And what am I supposed to do the next time you bleed out because you’re too drunk to take an elixir?”
Tal raked a hand over her face. “Did you forget that we live in the docks? Life here isn’t fair, nor is it lengthy. I could turn a corner tomorrow and run into an angry client with a knife and nothing to lose. You can’t protect me from reality, nor from the mages. Stop acting like everything will somehow be okay.”
Carrick sighed, but didn’t say more. Instead, he told her about Faron, how the man was torn up over her, and Tal rolled her eyes. Faron had described her state when Pepper burst into the stables. There was so much blood, he initially thought the mare had also been injured. She collapsed in her stall upon their return, after what must have been a nonstop journey home. Tal made a mental note to visit Pepper and express her thanks.
