Earlier today, Ana had healed her, telling her that not even piaua juice could erase such extensive scarring. It’d been years since her back hadn’t been ripped bloody by Bill’s lash. Every day she’d carried that pain. Some days it had swallowed her.
Now it was gone.
Her hand brushed against the softest fabric she’d felt since … distant memories tried to break through, like glimmers, but swirling fog devoured them. She sat up, rolling her shoulders, allowing herself to smile, a fleeting tentative thing.
The floorboards creaked. Through the gray shrouding her vision, a man approached, reaching out a hand. “It’s all right. I won’t hurt you.”
Lovina flinched, pulling her knees up to her chest and curling in on herself. Bill had always said that, the yellow gleam of swayweed bright in his eyes as he raised the whip. She huddled against the wall.
The man placed something on the bed, then retreated. “The berries are for you. They’ll help the fog go away.”
The man must be lying. Why would he want to lift the fog? Lovina couldn’t remember life without the debilitating blanket across her vision and mind. She peered through the gray at three burnt-orange berries, shriveled with age, on the quilt.
“I’ll get you some water.”
“No!” The whisper burst from her in a violent exhalation. She snatched the berries. They were dry—tiny nuggets of hope clutched tight in her hand.
What had Bill said? His water made her biddable. Obedient. Lovina snorted. Bill’s water enslaved her to his will. This man had offered her water too. What did he want? She sat on the bed, gripping the berries, staring at him, fog weaving between them, keeping her newly-healed back pressed hard against the wall.
§
Lofty helped Tomaaz off the horse. “Why do you want to see Lovina anyway?” he asked. “I thought you liked Beatrice.”
“Huh! Not anymore.” The hurt of Beatrice spitting on Tomaaz still rankled, but it was nothing compared to what Bill had done to Lovina. “He deserves his hands cut off, Bill does.” Tomaaz clenched his fists. “Treating his daughter like that.”
“I doubt she’s his daughter. They say tharuks often reward their spies with slaves from Death Valley.”
“Death Valley!” Could Lovina really have been there? From living hell with Zens to further hell with Bill—a bleak existence. Tomaaz would never forget the blood-red, pus-yellow and faded-scar latticework across her back. Those whip marks were seared into his brain, hotter than the burns on his shins.
“She’s in the littlings room,” Lofty said as they crossed the threshold to his home.
Tomaaz hobbled past the kitchen table, toward the bedroom.
Ana closed a door with a click. Her shrewd eyes turned to Tomaaz. “You’re here to see Lovina?”
He nodded, reaching for the door handle.
Ana placed a hand on his forearm. “Go softly. See if she’ll take the clear-mind berries we gave her.”
Clear-mind—to combat numlock. “I’ll try.” He turned the handle.
The room was bright with sunlight. The large bed for Lofty’s three youngest brothers was pushed up against the wall. Lovina was scrunched in the corner, bleary-eyed, her face pinched with suspicion and fear.
Tomaaz closed the door and sat in a chair, resting his throbbing legs. So much mistrust. So tense and scared—not that he blamed her.
“Lovina,” he scarcely dared breathe her name, afraid of startling her. “I trust Ernst and Ana. I’ve known them all my life. When I was small, we used to fish for freshwater lobsters in the creek. You know the ones?”
Her gaze flitted to the window, the door, around the walls and back to his face.
Her fear made his chest ache. He and Ezaara had grown up surrounded by love. Imagine living the way Lovina had.
Actually, he couldn’t imagine it at all.
§
Tomaaz spun stories of sunny littling days in streams and forests, playing outdoors with his sister and friend. His gentle voice floated through Lovina’s fog, his golden hair catching the sun. She leaned forward, straining to hear as he wove tales of the desert lands over the Naobian sea, the thriving metropolis of Montanara and the lush green flatlands past the Grande Alps.
The gray mists still swamped her, stopping her mind from forming pictures, but his words were soothing. Lovina’s muscles loosened and she closed her eyes, listening.
“Lovina, do you want to be free of the fog?”
Hearing him rise, she snapped her eyes open. No fog meant feeling pain. She shook her head, gripping the berries tighter.
§
As a gold-tinged dawn tickled the treetops, Tomaaz walked to Lofty’s house. Ana’s healing poultice had helped his burns, but by the time he got there, his legs were throbbing.
Lofty craned his head around the door, a gaggle of littling brothers clutching his legs. “Tomaaz! How did you get here? Don’t tell me you walked? Yesterday’s horse ride nearly did you in.”
Tomaaz shrugged. “Can’t keep a good man down.” He went into the house and approached Ana. “Has Lovina taken her clear-mind berries yet?”
“No, but she’s awake. Maybe you could try again.”
All he’d done was soothe her with stories. The poor girl needed more than that. She needed a real healer, like Ma. Shards, where was Ma? Heading straight for tharuks? He swallowed, hoping she was all right.
Lovina was hunched amid the crumpled bedding.
“Good morning, Lovina.”
Head tilted, she started, a curtain of lank hair falling over her thin face.
Tomaaz sat down and started his story telling. He was soon interrupted by Ana, holding two bowls of steaming porridge laced with honey. After only eating flatbread for the last day, the aroma was like breathing in heaven.
“Thank you.”
“See if you can get her to eat,” Ana whispered. “She’s so thin.”
Tomaaz carried the bowls to Lovina’s bedside, talking
