Page 241 of The Mercy of Dawn

Runa ushered her a few more steps across the room before she started easing her grip on Cyril. “Do you need me to help you?”

“No, no, I—” Cyril cleared her throat. “I can handle the rest.”

She wasn’t entirely confident in that statement, but Runa nodded and let Cyril step away from her. She used the counter as a guardrail, sliding her hands along the cool stone surface as she half-shuffled, half-limped her way across.

Cyril swayed and froze in front of the mirror.

She had a black eye that made the one Dion gave her look like it was done with love. A scabbed-over split had taken up shop in the center of her bottom lip too, and her throat—gods.

She didn’t want to let her eyes hover too long on the bruising that wrapped around it, to let any bit of what caused that work its way into her mind. But she leaned forward, her hair slipping over her shoulder, and—

“Runa?” she whispered.

The queen had already given Cyril the decency of turning her back to her. Cyril heard her feet pad across the floor.

“What is— Oh.”

Runa stood beside her, her look of confusion shoved out by a sad smile. She ran her fingers through the hacked-off ends of Cyril’s hair with a gentle touch.

“Your braid was cut, in the…well, when you were…attacked, I assume. I know it looks rough right now, but I’ll have someone come….”

Runa’s words breezed over Cyril as she pulled her attention from the mirror that was forcing a crushing weight of reality onto her shoulders she wasn’t ready to bear. The bruises on her legs were an easier sight to digest, so she focused on those as she willed her feet back into uneasy steps and prayed she could tend to her needs before her body gave out.

She did, thankfully. But by the time she made it back to the sink to wash her hands and force a glass of water into her system, she was shaking.

The wave of pain that grew in her body from the moment her damn feet touched the ground had something to do with it. But so did the battered face that greeted her in the mirror again.

Cyril forced her eyes shut.

“Can you get Mika?” she asked.

The soft whine of the hinges that followed gave Cyril her answer.

She heard Runa’s voice next, then Mikael’s, then a third she didn’t recognize—and didn’t care to recognize, truthfully—as she gripped the edge of the counter and tried to breathe.

A count of five in, a count of five out.

The voices kept mumbling away in her room and, gods…she wasn’t going to be able to keep herself upright much longer. Even with her weight shifted off her healing leg, the pain pulsing through her was brutal.

A count of five in, a count of five out.

A count of five—

“Cyr?”

A shuddering breath left her.

Her grip on the counter wasn’t trustworthy, but she extended an arm towards Mikael’s voice anyway. A silent ask to please fucking help her, and to not make her put it to words. Her voice wasn’t trustworthy either.

Mikael’s hand grazed her back, slipping under her arms, just a moment before his lips met her temple, and he said, “I’ve got you.”

Something that sounded awfully like a sob crawled out of her chest.

“You’re alright, wrath. You just need rest, and a lot of it.” His voice was soft and soothing, but she shook her head.

She wasn’t alright.

Not in body, not in mind.