She kept it close to her torso, her face pale and eyes conflicted.
Questions whirled in his mind, but his tongue was slow to begin voicing them.
He brushed away her hand with a quick swipe of his own, prepared to delve into the pack himself and withdraw the necessary supplies to tend her arm.
The splint would need to be fashioned from their surroundings, but that was little trouble. It would require more cloth, however, as he was not going to allow untreated shards of wood to rub against delicate skin, causing even more discomfort than was necessary.
But as he looked down at his own hands, he belatedly realised why she had instigating doing it herself.
Blood, thick and metallic clung to both of his hands, pooling most especially about his fingernails. Even the hand that had not been responsible for the decisive slice bore the evidence of the other’s work, and he quickly backed away from the pack, from her.
He should be more prepared for this. They had told him, over and over, that killing would likely be necessary.
But they had spoken of animals, of a clean hunt that should end quickly and with respect.
The battle had been fierce, but quick, but there was no mistaking that it was a man rather than...
He frowned, turning his back on Penryn, determined to see for himself exactly what he had killed.
The body lay where he had dropped it, disturbed only by the mount’s persistent shuffling with its nose. He wore little clothing, at least compared to the styles of Grimult’s own clan.
Breeches clung tightly to heavily muscled thighs, a necessity if he was to prove proficient at riding such a beast. There was no covering on his chest beyond stripes of white paint, the designs purposeful if not elaborate.
Grimult reached down and pushed until the body yielded onto its stomach. There was no paint there, nothing to obscure the view of the skin of its back, tanned and smooth.
With no hint of a scar upon the shoulder blades.
He supposed it was possible that Penryn had simply healed poorly. He had seen well how differently his fellow initiates had scarred after mishaps in the sparing range, some raised and angry, others smooth and quick to lighten.
But never could he imagine the amputation of a wing to leave behind such pristine skin.
“Grim?” Penryn asked, from much closer than he had expected. She had followed him, her steps nearly silent as she approached.
Or perhaps he had been so focused that he simply had not remembered to listen.
“What is he?” Grimult asked her, not knowing if he truly expected her to give him an answer or not.
She reached his side and followed his gaze down to the man’s back, and he tore his own attention away only long enough so as to catch a small glimpse at her own reaction.
Worry.
That was wholly evident.
Perhaps a hint of surprise, the same he had seen earlier when the battle was done and she appeared nearly dazed that it had occurred at all.
He was tired of the silence, of questions that would remain unanswered. Frustration was welling into resentment, either of the sages or of the Lightkeep herself he could not be entirely certain. But regardless, the longer they stood, still covered in the blood of the impromptu battle, his own still oozing sluggishly from his open wound, he wanted to be free of it.
Of secrets, of deception.
And perhaps, if he was honest with himself, even with the task itself.
But the tether niggled, the ever-present reminder that it would be mean being free of Penryn as well.
And despite it all, that was not what he wanted.
“He should not be here,” Penryn acknowledged at last, kneeling down and running a quivering finger down the length of the body’s shoulder blade. Some buried instinct cut through the anger bubbling within him and he reached down and pulled her hand away.
He was very fully dead, of that he most assured, unless the being was capable of some magic to bring him back from the dead.
“That is what troubles you?” Grimult countered, unable to fully keep the hint of bitterness from his voice. “Not who he is, what he is, but simply that he is not where he should be?”
Penryn swallowed and turned to him. He was looming, of that he knew, crouched even as he was. She was fully on her knees, and something in her look suggested she was not quite as collected as she appeared. Brittle.
And he was still holding her undamaged wrist.
“He should not be here,” she repeated. “This... it should not have happened.” A sniff, eyes turning watery as she tried to glance at a wound that was obscured from her view. “You should not be hurt, and I should have the lantern and...” she shook her head, her expression stricken.
Betrayed.
“Why did they not warn me of this?”
Her voice was small and almost lost. For all that she had spoken of the sages, even if there was a resentment ever present in her recollections of them, she was always sure and steady about the Journey itself.
And now she floundered, for there was something new, something unexpected.
For a brief, shameful moment, he was heartened that even for so short a while, she knew how it felt to be him. To be given scraps of information, utterly lacking the entirety of the situation.
Despair was creeping about the edges of his consciousness. They had travelled for so long, and he was tired. Not merely in body, but in a spirit that could not bear more uncertainty.
And to see Penryn struggle, even for so short a while...
He did not wish that for her. Not truly.
“Is it possible they did not know?” he asked, wondering at himself for attempting to defend the sages he had come to think so poorly of during the course of his travels with Penryn.
Penryn seemed ready to give a quick answer before she paused, glancing down once more
