“No,” Dnara said, still looking at her hand. “I mean, what happened to him?” Her eyes rose to meet his. “What happened to me?”
“How should I know?” Athan’s nose wrinkled and he stood up, putting his hands on his hips and facing the fire. “All I know about magic is that it’s usually more trouble than it’s worth. Would’ve been nice of you to tell me, though, that you’re a mageborne.”
“Mageborne? I’m no mageborne.” And the very idea sounded ludicrous to her. She hated mageborne. Granted, the only experience she had with them had been her keeper and his apprentices, but they were all cruel, demanding, arrogant- Being compared to them angered her. “If I had magic like that, do you honestly think I would’ve allowed myself to be kept?”
Athan put his back to the fire and examined her through a squint before rubbing the stubble on his jaw. “Fair point. So, you’re saying, whatever you did back there to that guy, you’ve never done before?”
“No!” As her ire rose, her arms itched beneath their bandages. Her anger shifted into concern. “What did you put on my arms?”
Athan crouched back down near her and took her wrist in hand. “The same stuff you showed Hector how to make, plus some virgin ash like you’d read in that book. Made a nice salve, actually. Thought it would help.”
The concern fell into fear. “Help...? With what, exactly?”
Athan grimaced then untied the knot on top of her wrist and unwound the bandage partway. “Your scars... It’s like they ripped back open.”
With shaking fingers, she touched her unbandaged skin. Beneath the layer of ashen paste speckled with green herbs, her scars were no longer jagged white scars. They were angry looking, the darkest of red and split open like caverns to the underworld.
“They didn’t bleed,” he said, taking a tin of salve from his pocket and reapplying it to the area before rewrapping the fabric around her arm. “Which isn’t even the weirdest thing.” He shook his head, as if trying to wrap his mind around it all, and retied the knot. “For a while, they were glowing.”
“Glowing?” She, too, found it hard to imagine.
“Guess your scars have never done that before, either?” he asked.
Dnara looked away from her arms and off to the side, the omission about her scars catching up with her. “No, but I’ve only had them for a day.”
Athan’s mouth fell open and he blinked at her. “What? But, they were fully healed, aged scars when I found you. How is it possible you’ve only had them a day?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed heavily, looking past his astonishment to stare into the fire. The flames crackled, sending sparks dancing into the air, wafting upwards where smoke melded with night’s dark embrace. Beyond the treetops, she could barely make out the stars, and the moon remained as absent as the night before. Drawing her knees to her chest, she exhaled the weight of uncertainty that continued to cling to her like her own shadow. “I don’t seem to know a great many things.”
Athan let her sulk in silence for a few moments before asking, “Who’s Caelin?”
Dnara lifted her head and stared back into the flames, the name both familiar and not. “I’m not sure...”
“You said the name as you were waking up,” Athan pressed.
She closed her eyes, trying to remember. The wind caught the trails of curling campfire smoke and drifted the scent to her. “Caelin...” The name brought with it glimpses of sunlight and laughter, then of ash and screaming. Dnara flinched away from the memory before it could get too close. “My sister, maybe? It was... a long time ago.”
“A sister?” Athan questioned. “I thought you don’t have any family?”
“I don’t,” she replied, weary of the questions. “I’m pretty sure she died.”
“Oh.” Athan stood back up and walked to the fire, casting shadows over her as he paced. The pacing stopped and the shadows paused. “I’m sorry.”
Dnara watched as he stood in front of the fire, a hand on his hip and another at the back of his neck. He looked as if he carried a great burden on his shoulders, and perhaps he did. Perhaps that very burden sat with her arms bandaged after having nearly killed a man. He hadn’t asked for any of this, no more than she had asked to be kept all those years, away from the world.
“I’m sorry, too,” she said and he turned back around to face her, confusion in his eyes. “For not telling you about the scars,” she clarified, but that wasn’t all. “For... For all of this. You had every right to leave me where you found me, collared in the mud. It could bring you so much trouble, that collar, even from the bottom of the river. And now... Now I’ve nearly killed a man...”
“Word will probably get out,” Athan nodded, confirming her fears in the steadfast, honest tone she’d already grown accustomed to. He crouched down, the corner of his mouth lifting. “An unsanctioned mageborne giving Jorn a swimming lesson, thieving ass that he is, is bound to garner attention.”
Just hearing the man’s name brought back the memory of the desperate madness in his eyes. She shivered, but Athan’s playful smirk made her feel as if it could somehow all be okay. “He
