Page 228 of The Mercy of Dawn

Talking to someone, when they were in great amounts of pain or under duress, was part of the most basic training they received as guards. It helped to keep the person tethered, distracted from whatever ravaged their body, while you waited for help, or…

Mikael didn’t want to think about the or.

He just kept squeezing her hand and bending her fingers, running his nails over her palm, trying to stir any sort of reaction.

“We get a lot of snow here in the winter, you’ll see,” Gunner said, with too much confidence. “It’s beautiful on the solstice, though, when everything is powdery white and you’ve got a mug of hot wine. Do you do that too, in Helia?”

Cyril nodded again but didn’t muster up any noises.

Gunner kept asking her questions—about the winter solstice, and gifts, and food—but they didn’t get another coherent answer from her. Not as her movements stilled and her hand went slack in Mikael’s.

Eventually, Gunner looked at Mikael and nodded in resignation, standing up.

“I'll keep an eye out for everyone. Give you some privacy.”

Privacy for what? Saying goodbye? Mikael refused to do that.

Even as he kept pressing his fingers to her throat, searching for a pulse and terrified of what he might not find, he refused to accept the darkness staring him down.

By the time noises echoed through the building again and Wren swept into the cellar, Cyril was completely unresponsive.

Chapter 59

“Good gods,” Wren breathed.

The blood, the bodies, the carnage—Mikael hoped Ari had warned her.

The healer pressed her hand to her chest, muttering something quietly before she dropped to Cyril’s side. Wren was in her damn nightclothes still, the pastel pinks a grotesque contrast to the pooling blood she settled into without a second thought.

“Move, Your Highness. Let me see her, let me see—”

She shooed Mikael’s hands away from the protective hold they had settled in around Cyril’s body. Against every one of his frantically screaming instincts, he rested her back against the wall.

Wren skimmed her long, scarred fingers from Cyril’s head, right down to her toes. She uttered quiet curses and tsked noises of disappointment as faint pulses of energy radiated from her hands. Assessing the scale of her injuries, as he’d seen healers do before.

“You poor, sweet girl. What happened to you…” Wren murmured, entirely to herself.

She looked at Cyril with a sort of sadness he rarely saw on the woman’s face. Wren had been in charge of the infirmary for…well, far longer than Mikael’s own life. He was sure she’d seen everything.

Mikael watched with bated breath as Wren tugged up Cyril’s tattered blouse and settled her hands over the charred and weeping flesh of her side. The faintest traces of soft, blue light emanated from around her fingers.

Even though Mikael knew that mending of this magnitude could not be rushed, it still felt like Wren didn’t move from that spot for an eternity.

But when Cyril started to stir, just a shift of her weight and a soft, whimpering noise, Mikael’s vision blurred.

“Shh. Shh. I know it doesn’t feel good,” Wren said, her attention entirely fixed on her hands. “But it won’t be long, okay?”

Cyril whimpered again, and Mikael had never been more conflicted by a noise. The notion of her being in any amount of pain brought him near agony, but noise meant life. It meant what was so dangerously close to being snuffed out was stirring again. And he needed that more than anything.

“She’ll be alright, Your Highness.” Wren still hadn’t looked up from the unseen work happening beneath her hands, but Mikael could see a sad sort of smile on her face. “Maybe not the same as she was, but she’ll recover.”

“Thank you, I…” Mikael’s voice broke.

None of them would be the same as they were before, would they?

Not after this.

Wren nodded. “I cannot mend everything at once. She just won’t tolerate”—a quiet sob left Cyril, and she shifted uncomfortably, a muscle flickering in her jaw—“that much, not with the extent of her injuries. I’ll have her organs in good working order, and knit the bone in her leg back together. She won’t have any gaping wounds, either, I’ll make sure of that. But her head—”