Page 73 of This Dark Descent
She gaped at him, struggling to form words. He was still dressed in his suit from the ball, his tie torn loose and his hair a wild nest. Before she could say anything, he was on his feet with Ailene in his arms. She looked so fragile against his chest, lying limp in his grasp as they hurried across the pasture.
They burst into the house. “In there!” Mikira gestured to the glow of the evening’s dying fire in the drawing room, then shot into the mudroom. She retrieved her father’s medical kit, a bottle of salve for cleaning the wound, and as many bandages as she could carry.
When she broke back into the foyer, she found Nelda peeking out from their father’s study, the book she’d been reading clutched to her chest like a stuffed animal. For an instant, Mikira half expected to see her father’s tired face over her shoulder, but there was only the darkness of the study she couldn’t bring herself to enter since he’d left.
“Nelda.” Mikira’s voice broke. “Go upstairs, and don’t come down, no matter what you hear. Can you do that for me, little frog?”
Face pale, Nelda nodded, bolting up the stairs.
In the drawing room, Reid had torn away the rest of Ailene’s trousers up to her knee, revealing a bloodied mess. Mikira’s stomach turned, but she forced the nausea down and dropped to the floor beside Reid, proffering the medical kit.
He took it and set to work. “I need light.”
She retrieved an enchanted lamp from out in the hall and held it over Ailene’s leg, moving it to the left or right each time Reid instructed. Wolflay with his head in her lap, and she petted him mechanically with her free hand. She was vaguely aware of Reid cleaning the wound before he set the bone and began stitching. Time stretched so that it felt like he’d been operating forever when he finally slumped back with a heavy breath.
“It’s done.”
Mikira couldn’t look. She lowered the lamp beside her and turned her back against the couch, staring at the dying embers in the hearth.
“She’s going to be okay,” Reid said softly. “It was a clean break. I don’t know if she’ll ever run on that leg again, but she’ll be able to walk. We won’t know until much later if it’ll cause her any pain.”
She nodded, and kept nodding, until her addled brain realized what she was doing, and she forced herself to stop.
“When you left the ball so suddenly, I got worried,” he said awkwardly.
She wanted to tell him she was glad he’d come, but everything inside her felt numb.
An arm fell around her shoulders. It wasn’t until she felt the heat of Reid’s body against her own that she realized how cold she was. Bone deep, achingly cold. She leaned into him, and let him hold her until the fire turned to ash.
CHAPTER 25
MIKIRA
REID DEPARTED EARLYthe next morning, leaving them with instructions to watch for infection and ensure Ailene stayed off of her leg, a task Mikira dreaded. Keeping Ailene cooped up on a couch for days on end was like sticking a wild stallion in a tiny stall. The last time her sister had been on bed rest, battling a fever, Mikira had come home to find her out racing the neighbor’s boy in the freezing rain.
Now, though, Ailene lay with her arms folded, staring blankly at a spot on the wall. Wolf had wedged himself between her and the couch. She’d cried when Mikira told her about Starling, but since then, she hadn’t said a word. Nelda had taken it upon herself to be at their sister’s beck and call. She’d made her breakfast, kept an endless supply of tea coming, and read to her from the book she’d been carrying about. But Ailene kept staring.
She just needs time.
She wasn’t the only one. The prince’s stable master had arrived earlier that morning, and with the horse he’d wanted gone, Mikira had promised him his pick of another.
She waited for him now while he perused the selection she’d brought into the stables. He’d been looking for nearly an hour, popping out occasionally to question her about one or the other, and the wait was slowly wearing at her. They needed this sale. Only a purchase from the princewould break the embargo Rezek had effectively placed on their business, and if she didn’t win the Illinir, they would need the money.
Mikira was sitting on the steps, picking a long blade of grass into tiny pieces, when the stable master’s stocky form emerged. He walked with a limp, a wolf tattoo on his bronze forearm indicating he’d served in the Iziri military.
Dropping the grass, she clambered to her feet. Her hope rose and died like a wave as he frowned back at her.
“I’m afraid none of these are quite what the prince is looking for.” His gruff voice was thickly accented. “You don’t have others of the speed and danger line?”
Mikira’s gaze strayed reflexively to Iri, who stood at the fence of his paddock, waiting for her. She’d ridden him only sparsely the last few weeks, too busy with Atara and the races, and his head hung just the slightest, as though he knew he’d been replaced.
You haven’t, she promised him silently.
“He’s of the same line as Starling, isn’t he?” the stable master asked. “I saw it on his stall plaque.”
Mikira flinched. “Iri’s not for sale.”
The stable master’s frown deepened, and she nearly kicked herself. She needed to be on her knees groveling, begging him to buy another horse, not snapping at him like a testy mare.
