Page 74 of The First Scar
I ground the heels of my hands into my eyes until I saw stars. It didn't help.
A shadow stirred in the dark.
I went still. My senses, sharpened by exhaustion and paranoia, registered the shift before my mind could name it. A presence detaching from the deeper gloom near the cavern entrance, moving toward me without a sound.
My hand found my dagger before I'd finished the thought.
Eryndor.
I dropped into my bedroll and tucked the blade against my thigh. Eyes shut. Breathing even. One eye cracked open just enough to track him.
He emerged from the dark, his Crownforged cuirass catching the faintest edge of firelight. The metal shifted with him—muted creak of plate against leather, too controlled to be careless. He'd loosened the straps. Quieted himself on purpose. He moved with lethal economy, each step precise, almost furtive.
My breath went shallow. My grip adjusted on the blade.
He's seen what you are now. The full, uncontrolled horror of it. He's here to finish it—to drag you to the King while you're weak and shaking and—
A boot on stone. Close enough that I caught the grit grinding under his heel, the faint pop of a pebble skipping sideways. Then another step. He stopped beside my bedroll, close enough that I caught the metallic bite of his armor.
He didn't speak or reach for me, didn't even look at my face.
His gaze stayed fixed on the ground between us—the uneven stone slick with condensation, pooling light in its thin, wet streaks. One knee pressed into the damp rock beside my bedroll. He set a small shape down beside my head. A small clay pot, unremarkable except for the scent that rose from it: cool, earthy, a blend of crushed herbs and oil.
A salve for Marks.
My eyes snapped from the pot to his face. For a breath—less than a breath—his gaze lifted and met mine.
A heavy, knowing weight settled in his eyes—a brief bridge between two people who had both bled in the dark.
I saw what it costs you. I know.
The air between us crackled, thick with everything neither of us was saying.
Then he was gone. Melting back into the shadows as silently as he'd come, leaving nothing behind but the faint scent of pine and the pot cooling against the stone.
I didn't move for a long moment. Didn't even breathe.
My fingers found the pot eventually. The clay was cool beneath my touch. I uncapped it, and the earthy scent bloomed around me—herbs I recognized, blended in proportions I'd used myself on Shadowmarked children whose parents couldn't afford a healer's discretion.
He knew the recipe. Of course he did.
Strategy, I told myself.You don't let your bounty lame itself before you drag it to the King. He's maintaining equipment. That's all.
The explanation should have settled clean. A week ago, it would have. I'd have thought it, believed it, and gone to sleep.
But tonight the words had to be shoved into place, like bricks into wet mortar. Each one heavier than the last. And underneath them—in the gap where certainty used to live—a fault line shifted. The sound of a wall taking weight it wasn't built to hold.
I dipped my fingers into the salve and spread it over my burning Marks.
The relief was immediate—cool and spreading, sinking into the raw skin where my Shadowmark had lashed out. My breath slowed. My shoulders dropped. The pain didn't vanish, but it softened into something I could carry, and I kept going—until the pot was half empty and the burning had faded to a distant hum.
I sat there in the dark with the scent of his mercy on my skin.
No one saw. No one would know. That was supposed to make it easier—a thing done in private didn't count, didn't mean anything, could be filed underpracticalityand forgotten by morning.
But my hands were gentle. I'd been gentle with myself becausehehad been gentle first, and I couldn't unlearn the permission.
I capped the pot. Set it beside my bedroll where I could reach it again.
