Page 54 of Warrior of the Wild
My face heats up. “I’ll manage.”
I stride down the trail, and behind me I hear a smack.
“Did you really just offer to help her piss?” Iric whispers loudly enough for me to hear.
“No! I was just making sure she could. Why would you hit me?”
“Because you’re behaving like an idiot.”
I miss the next exchange because I’m too far. I find the latrine. Any sort of bending is extremely painful, but I manage to relieve myself without getting anything on my clothes.
When I make it back to the house, Iric and Soren are still having a quiet argument. They cease as soon as I’m in view.
“Something wrong?” I ask.
“No,” Soren says at the same time Iric says, “Yes.”
I wait for an explanation, but neither boy is forthcoming. Soren is watching Iric, and Iric is grimacing at the ground.
“I doubt you’re about to start helping with the chores again anytime soon,” Iric eventually says to Soren, “so I’d better get to it. You stay here to play manservant.”
“That’s not necessary,” I say. “I’ll leave as soon as one of you retrieves my armor and ax.”
“All right,” Iric says, before pulling himself up the branches leading to the house.
But Soren yanks on his foot and pulls him back down to the ground. Iric barely manages to catch himself on his other foot.
“We talked about this,” Soren says to him.
“Fine,” Iric says with a sigh. He turns his gaze to me. “We’d like to invite you to stay with us until you heal.”
Was that the cause of their argument? Soren wants me to stay but Iric wants me gone? Well, then. I’ll make it easy for them. “Thank you, but no.”
“Rasmira,” Soren says, “if you lie down, you won’t be able to get back up again, and you need someone who can monitor your wound. Let us help. Please.”
He’s asking me to trust them. To willingly put my safety in their hands. I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit. But he has a point. I won’t make it on my own. Not if I can’t get up to feed myself.
Soren has been nothing but kind and even helpful despite everything. Iric, I haven’t seen nearly as much, but he seems tolerable. Logically, I know staying with them is the smart thing to do, but I can’t change how I feel. The desire to take my chances on my own is almost overwhelming.
But physically, I’m spent.
Even now, standing and moving have taken their toll on me. My abdomen throbs, and I feel light-headed, ready to collapse again.
“Maybe one night,” I finally say, trying to sound stronger than I really am.
“Great,” Iric says, and his voice doesn’t quite match the word. “And I’m off. Since Soren is feeling so extra helpful today, I’ll let him get you situated.” Iric shoots a glare at his friend before taking off down a trail—one that leads in the opposite direction as the latrine.
Soren rolls his eyes after him.
CHAPTER
11
“The floor is fine,” I say once Soren gets me back up the tree.
“Nonsense, take my mattress. Iric and I can share.”
“You’ve saved me as it is. I don’t need to steal your bed.”
