He moved his hands to her thighs, feeling the shape of her body return, the bones of her legs knitting together and notching into the curve of her hips. When her spine became a long, straight line, he rolled her to her side to run his hands over the back of her skull. It was wet with blood and soft in his hands. He swallowed back bile, surprised at his squeamishness. He had gutted men and beasts and never winced or even hesitated.
“I am a man with little imagination,” he whispered, smoothing her hair. “I cannot pretend to love you. But I can heal you if you help me.”
He strained, still listening for that one note that would save her life. He’d been in this position once, years before, straining to hear something he’d never heard, hardly knowing what he sought, but listening all the same. At the time it was his brother, and his wounds had been just as grievous as this woman’s. Kjell had saved him. He’d healed him. But he’d also loved him.
Fear trembled in his belly, and the heat in his hands instantly lessened. He forced his thoughts back to his brother, to his affection, his respect, his devotion. The thought became strength, and the heat in his hands became light.
He leaned down and whispered in her ear, sing-song and coaxing.
“Can you hear me, woman? Come sing with me.” The only songs he knew were bawdy and lewd, simple tunes about lifting skirts and brandishing swords.
“Come to me, and I will try to heal you. I will try to heal you, if you but come back,” he chanted softly, the melody monotone, the lyrics weak, but it was a song of sorts, and it fell from his lips in a husky plea.
“Come to me, and I will give you shelter, I will give you shelter, if you but come back.” His lips brushed the lobe of her ear, and he felt an odd shudder that passed from his mouth and lifted her hair. Her heartbeat strengthened as if she heard. He continued to chant, allowing hope to make him a liar.
“Come to me, and I will try to love you. I will try to love you, if you but come back.”
He heard a single, solitary peal, almost inaudible. Almost imaginary. Almost gone. A bell ringing once.
But it was enough.
Kjell lifted his voice, grasping the pitch and pulling the tone from the winking stars. Suddenly the death knell became a merry tolling, clear and bright. It grew and grew, and still he hummed, until the sound resonated in his skin, in his skull, behind his eyes, and deep in his belly. He was euphoric, vibrating with sound and triumph, his hands smoothing back the matted hair from blood-stained cheeks and staring down into eyes so dark they appeared infinite. Their gazes locked and for a moment, there was only reverberation between them.
“I saw you,” she whispered, the bell becoming words, and Kjell drew back, releasing his grip on her hair, the song in his throat becoming shocked silence. He clenched his hands and felt her blood on his palms.
“I saw you,” she said again. “You’re here. You finally came.”
***
Her words were senseless. He’d healed her body but her mind was something he couldn’t touch. Kjell sat back on his haunches, putting a few feet between them.
“Are you . . . all right?” he asked. He wanted to ask if she was whole—healed—but didn’t want to draw any more attention to what he’d just done. His gift frightened people. It frightened him. She began to raise herself up gingerly, and he extended his hand to assist her. She didn’t take it, but paused, sitting silently as if listening to her body. He needed to stand. His knees were numb, and his hips screamed from kneeling so long at her side. His head felt light and disconnected from the rest of his body, as if it floated above him like a cloud, thick and weightless, his thoughts muddled with fatigue.
His hands trembling, he pushed himself up, demanding that his cramped legs hold him. The healing had left him bled out, depleted, and he didn’t want his men—or the woman who watched him with hollow eyes—to see the after-effects of using his gift. They couldn’t know. Such knowledge was noted and tucked away, a secret to be traded among warring tribes and plotting men. He was not loved like his brother and had never inspired a similar loyalty. But he was feared like his father, and that suited him well enough.
The woman rose with him, defying the blood that still soaked the earth where she had lain. She was taller than he expected—long and slim—saving him from getting a crick in his neck to look into her face. Her hair was unbound and fell in matted disarray past the swell of her hips. Her thin dress, little more than a gown for sleeping, stuck to her skin in gory splotches. Her feet were shod in the short leather boots of a desert dweller, as if she’d left her home in a hurry, prioritizing shoes over her clothing.
“What is your name?” he asked. She hesitated, and he suspected that she was going to lie to him. He was well-accustomed to women who lied, and immediately braced himself not to believe her.
“I am called Sasha,” she supplied reluctantly, and his brows rose in disbelief.
It was hardly a name. It was a command used on horses or cattle—often accompanied by a kick to the flanks or a slap to the rump—to get them to move. He hissed the word several times a day, and wondered who had given the poor woman her moniker.
“And where is your home, Sasha?” He winced as he addressed her.
She turned toward the cliff that loomed above them, steep walls and jagged teeth, unwelcoming in the flickering torch-light.
“I live in Solemn, but it was never my home.” There was grief in the simple revelation, and he braced himself against it. He did not want to know her pain. He’d done what he could for her. Some pain was not within his power to ease. She said no more, but continued staring at the cliffs, as if her life had truly ended there, and she didn’t know what came next. She took a few steps toward the cliff wall, and he stepped aside, following her with his eyes. His gaze caught on a white cloth caught by the brush that grew in the cracks and crags about twenty feet from the base of the cliff. The woman—Sasha—moved toward it as if it belonged to her and scrambled up several feet before he realized she had every intention of scaling the wall to reach it.
“Come down. I won’t heal you twice.”
She bowed her head briefly, as if she knew she should listen, but then continued, scurrying upward several more feet and untangling the pale fabric from the branch while clinging to the wall with curled toes and one hand.
“It is mine,” she informed him—slightly breathless—when she stood in front of him once more. She wrapped the cloth carefully over her blood soaked hair and secured the edges around her waist. She was calm and composed, and her serenity made him wary. He’d healed her body, but a physical healing didn’t erase her memory or alter her experience. She had fallen. She had teetered between life and death. Yet she did not cry or tremble. She didn’t ask him questions or seek to understand—or explain—what had happened.
“There is a stream in the crevice between the cliffs. I will show you and your men,” she said.
“How did you know I was not alone?” he asked.
“I saw you,” she replied, repeating the first words she’d said, and his stomach shivered uncomfortably at her insistence. She’d been unconscious when they found her.
He whistled sharply, the sound piercing the darkness, sending a signal to his men. He waited, his eyes on the strange woman, until Jerick and several other men stepped out from the shadows and halted with stunned curses. A lance clattered against the ground.