Page 155 of The Crown's Awakening
“She used everything she had to bring him back. Every bit of her magic.” Another pause. “She lost her friend while caring for us.”
Her eyes come back to him. “You must care for her first, Colsar.”
He nods once. It is enough.
“There is a room beside this one,” she says quietly.
He looks past her. A narrow opening further down, a small adjoining space barely visible from where he stands. A cot. A table.
He turns and moves fast through the lower level and up the narrow stair, back into the main room. The blood-soaked blankets remain where they were, supplies scattered around them. He gathers what he can. Bread. Blankets. A pitcher of water. Then he goes back down.
He crosses to Saurin and crouches beside her and studies her for a moment. Then, more quietly than anything he has said since entering the house, “Thank you.”
He slides one arm beneath her shoulders and another beneath her knees and lifts her carefully. She does not wake. He carries her into the smaller room and lowers her onto the cot, arranging the blanket over her with more care than his hands should still be capable of. He lights a candle and sets it on the table. Pours water into a cup and places it within reach. Breaks the bread and leaves it beside it.
He looks at her once more. “Rest well.”
Then he steps out and pulls the door gently closed behind him.
He takes the pitcher back with him. In the main room he fills a basin and lowers himself beside it and watches his hands tremble for a moment before he begins to wash them. Slowly. The blood loosens and disappears into the water in long fading streaks of red until his skin is his own again.
He exhales.
He cannot wait any longer.
He crosses back to the bed and drops to his knees beside her, the movement entirely unrestrained, and leans forward and buries his face against her neck, his breath breaking as it finally comes clean.
“Thank you.”
The words barely hold together.
He stays there for a moment longer, then pulls back just enough to look at her. “May I hold them?”
She lets out a soft breath that almost becomes a laugh. “They are yours,” she says. “Of course you can, silly man.”
His hands hesitate. For the first time since the battle something like fear enters them.
“Careful with the head,” she murmurs.
He nods and lifts the first child slowly. A girl. She is small, lighter than he expects, her body fitting easily into his hands, her head full of curls that shift between pale white and soft gold. Her cheeks are flushed, her breathing even, her face entirely at rest.
Something breaks through his expression. His eyes shine as he leans down and presses a careful kiss to her forehead and holds her there for a moment before lowering her gently back into Asharin’s arm.
He reaches for the second and lifts him. The boy is heavier. Stronger. Dark hair streaked through with lighter strands.
“They have so much hair,” Colsar murmurs. He stares at him for a moment. “He is siakar, for certain. I can feel it.”
Then the child’s eyes open. One gray. One blue. The boy looks directly at him, focused and present, and then his eyes close again.
Colsar exhales. “He has my eyes,” he says quietly.
He lowers the boy carefully and returns him to Asharin’s arm, then looks back at her. “Are you well?”
“I lost a great deal of blood,” she says. “But the moment they came to me…” She pauses. “Their power, or whatever it is, the bleeding has stopped for now.” A faint smile. “I am weak. I will need a healer.”
His hand moves instinctively toward his blade.
She stops him immediately. “I am not siakar, Colsar. Your blood will not help. I would need a healer who carries blood bags.” She meets his eyes. “I believe there is one traveling with the Avanki.”
