Page 3 of Salt in the Wound

"Not yet," Tomás hisses from beneath the bunk.

Indrie doesn't argue with him. He might be right. But there's that nagging thought, that image he can't shake. The man who knocked him down and lookedsorryabout it. Who helped him up and made sure he was steady before moving on.

"Stay here," he says, and releases Senli's hand.

Her grip tightens before he can pull away. "What? No. Indrie, stay. Whatever you're thinking, don't."

"My satchel." He meets her eyes and watches understanding dawn in them, followed immediately by disapproval. "I left it in the king's chambers. It's the only... Senli, it's everything I have."

"It'sthings," she says fiercely. "Things can be replaced. You can't."

"The vials alone took me three years to collect." He doesn't tell her about the mortar and pestle, the one his mother pressed into his hands on the day the slavers came, the one thing of hers he has left. He doesn't tell her because if he does, he'll lose his nerve. "I'll be quick. I know the back ways. No one's up there. They're all at the front of the castle and the treasury."

"You don't know that."

"I'll be careful."

"Indrie..."

He takes her face in his hands, the way she used to do to him when he was new here and frightened of everything and she was the only person who was kind. He presses his forehead to hers, brief and warm.

"Stay hidden," he tells her. "All of you. Keep the door closed. I'll be right back."

She doesn't let go easily. Her fingers drag against his sleeve as he pulls away, and the look on her face is one he'll carry with him. Fear and frustration and the specific kind of love that saysif you die, I will never forgive you.But she lets him go. She's always let him go, even when she shouldn't.

Indrie slips back out the door and into the corridor, and the silence swallows him whole.

The back passages of the castle are narrow and poorly lit, servant's routes, designed to be unseen. Indrie doesn’t need lighting to know the way. He knows these passages the way he knows the herbs in his satchel: by feel, by instinct, by years of repetition. He climbs the winding stairs to the upper floors without encountering a soul, his unlaced boots whispering against the steps, one hand trailing along the damp stone wall for balance.

The king's chambers are in the west wing, on the highest floor that isn't a tower. Indrie pauses at the top of the servants' stairs and listens. Nothing. The sounds of fighting have moved deeper into the castle, toward the treasury like he thought, and the great hall where the guards would have made their stand. Up here, the corridor is silent and still.

He moves quickly. Past the closed doors of abandoned guest chambers. Past the alcove where a suit of decorative armor stands gathering dust, relics of a military history this kingdom can no longer lay claim to. The castle is old and crumbling in ways that Armond refuses to acknowledge, let alone repair. Cracks web the stonework. Mortar crumbles from between the blocks. The tapestries on the walls are faded and moth-eaten, their heroic scenes made ghostly by time and neglect.

The door to Armond's chambers is open.

Indrie slows, peers inside. The room is empty. Bed unmade, sheets tangled and thrown aside in a panic. The water basin has been knocked from its stand, a dark stain spreading across the stone. Armond's night robe lies crumpled on the floor beside the bed, and his slippers are gone, which means he was at least partially conscious when he fled. The remains of the previous evening's medicine still sit on the bedside table, the half-emptycup of sleeping draught, the poultice wrap Indrie had prepared for the king's chest.

And there, draped across the settee beneath the window where the morning light falls gray and cold, is his satchel.

Indrie crosses the room quickly, across the thick rug that covers the center of the floor, one of the few luxuries in the castle that still looks new, because Armond prioritizes his own comfort above all else. He scoops the satchel up with both hands and presses it against his chest. The familiar weight settles against him. The clink of glass vials, the rustle of dried herb bundles, the firm line of the small cutting knife in its leather sheath. Beneath it all, wrapped in a square of oilcloth at the very bottom, the mortar and pestle. Smooth stone, pale gray, small enough to fit in one palm.

He holds the satchel tight and allows himself one breath. Two. His eyes fall shut.

All right. You have it. Now go back.

He turns to leave.

There is a man standing in the doorway.

He is somehow even taller than the red-haired one. Broader in the shoulders, though leaner in the hips, but definitely built from the same cloth. His hair is blond, the pale gold of summer wheat, and it's braided close to his skull in tight, intricate rows that sweep back from a face that is...

Indrie's mind stutters on the details.

The face is all angles. A jaw cut sharp enough to throw shadows. Cheekbones high and prominent beneath skin that's been weathered by sun and salt and wind. A scar runs across his left eye, not fresh, long healed into a pale silver line that bisects his brow and skips over the lid and continues down onto his cheek. It should make him less handsome, more savage, but it doesn’t. His arms are bare from the shoulders down, emerging from a sleeveless tunic of dark, well-worn leather, and they are,gods, corded with muscle in a way that Indrie has no frame of reference for. The men he's known are soft nobles or starving servants. This man could pick up the settee Indrie just retrieved his satchel from and break it over his knee without effort.

At his hip, a blade. Long and broad, its pommel wrapped in leather, its sheath scarred from use. It probably weighs more than Indrie.

And he is staring. Directly at Indrie. His pale eyes, blue or gray, Indrie can't tell from here, fixed on him with an expression that Indrie cannot read. Not angry. Not amused. Not hungry in the way that some men look at him, the way that makes his skin crawl. Just...intent. Studying him like he’s a puzzle he’s stumbled in upon.