Page 46 of These Immortal Truths
The day’s heat is made more insufferable with the humidity, but it’s the first opportunity Anna’s had to leave camp in weeks—the first real break in battle that would allow them to leave since the snow has melted. There will be more rumors when they return, and certainly more salacious, but she’s determined to teach Frederick for as long as he’s willing to learn.
“We’re foraging.”
“For?”
“Yarrow. We’ve run low. I’m hoping we can find bloodroot as well. I overheard Mr. Pratchet coughing yesterday. His last bout nearly brought him to death’s door.”
His footsteps falter. “Bloodroot? You’re more likely to poison the poor man. How will the general penthatletter?”
Anna stops, turning to face him. “It’s effective.”
“When it doesn’tkillsomeone.”
“I suppose we should avoid killing anyone, then.” When the onlyresponse she receives is a blank stare, she sighs. “It’s a matter of dosage, as with everything else.”
He jogs a few steps to catch up with her, a lanky shadow hovering at her side. Eyebrow raised, skepticism warring with wonder, he asks, “And you’re familiar with the dose in which it should be applied?”
“Enough to avoid poisoning anyone, at least.”
“Extraordinary,” he murmurs, pushing aside the branch of a sapling so as to continue walking beside her. “Where have you managed to acquire all this knowledge?”
Anna doesn’t face him—can’t look him in the eye as the lies spill off her tongue. “Here and there.” The words ring as evasive even to her own ears, so she adds, “I’ve spent more time traveling than settling.” An almost truth. There have only been a handful of places she stayed long enough to feel like home, while everything in between felt more like a stop along the way.
“Is that it, then? I had wondered, with the way your accent is. Were you born in England, or did you move there as a child?”
Anna thinks of smoke and ships—the whispered remnants of a memory from a life so long ago. “I was brought there as a child,” she says, looking at the ground passing underfoot.
“Fascinating. And where—”
She cuts him off before he can finish asking. “As an orphan.” It’s another lie, but it’s easier than the truth.
“Oh—I’m terribly sorry.”
He sounds so awkward, Anna finds herself biting back a smile. “It’s in the past.” She nods toward an opening in the trees. “There’s a meadow just ahead.”
“You’ve been here before?”
She glances at him over her shoulder, a smile teasing her lips. “I didn’t wait for your approval to collect what we needed, doctor. I would come here often, even before you thought to dismiss me.”
She can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or the heat bringing color to his cheeks. “Ah.”
The meadow is still only in the early stages of bloom, but her gaze snags on several clusters of small white blooms. Yarrow. Tyingup the ends of her apron around her waist, she pulls the plants from the base of the stem and gathers them into her makeshift pouch. Frederick’s hands are slower than her own—less confident. For every three stems she plucks from earth, he has only added one to the growing bouquet in his left hand.
When her apron borders on full and the patch of yarrow becomes scarce, Anna straightens her spine and scans the meadow. She doesn’t have room for much more, but her hands are willing to carry whatever her skirts cannot. There’s a patch of soft lavender flowers. Anna is almost certain it’s sage, but she can’t be sure. She turns to Frederick to point it out, but his outstretched hand—a deep purple bloom pinched between his fingers—makes her pause.
Eyebrows knitting, she frowns down at the offered morning glory. “I don’t know any uses for this.”
Frederick laughs, a soft sound, and deftly tucks the stem behind her ear. “It looks lovely on you. Does it need any other purpose?”
Anna’s hand rises, fingers brushing the petals.
“There,” he murmurs. “Now I’ve taught you something for a change.”
The summer days are long. Filled with more blood and more battles, with only a few quiet moments in between. Stolen minutes to eat a quick meal, Frederick’s fingers brushing her own as he hands her a cup of weak tea. In those moments, Anna can forget the pain and death waiting for her like a shadow at her back and breathe in the scent of pine rising from her cup. Frederick says little to nothing. Anna likes it that way. Likes the quiet camaraderie that comes with understanding. This—the screams and the blood, the pain and the suffering, the fragile hopes and lost causes—is a burden they share.
By September, there is no mistaking his feelings for her.
Anna is not a stranger to long gazes or flirting. She has been alive too long, the average man too forward, to be anything other thanfamiliar. She isn’t even a stranger to the things that can come after. Once, when she was feeling brave enough to confront her curiosity, she slept with a man too drunk and in a room too dark for him to be afraid of her. It wasn’t an experience she ever felt compelled to repeat. Somehow, with Frederick, it feels different. Subtle lingering touches when she passes him the bandages—a softness around his eyes when he looks at her. Alonging.
