The Untold Tale

Seventeen

It isn't until several long hours later, when the sun is struggling to brighten the edges of this cotton-wrapped world, that I realize my cheek is bleeding. Or was bleeding, at any rate. And even then, it must be pointed out.

"Your face," Bevel says from somewhere beside me, and I don't know how long he's been sitting there, for me to have forgotten him entirely. His voice sounds close to my ear.

The warm touch of Bevel's fingers on my cheek startles me back to myself. Now that he has called my attention to it, it hurts like an absolute son of a bitch. My skin is freezing, and I seem to have been sitting beside the fire without properly wrapping up. I have lost the thread of myself in my desperate attempt to just not think, not think, not think.

Not think about Pip. Not think about what this means for my feelings for her. Not think about how horrible and scared and furious she feels. Not think about the fact that I have just killed a human being. Not think about the possibility that it might not be the last time I do so on this adventure. Not think about the fact that we have now completed five Stations, with Kintyre and his knife here, and that that means we are one step closer to sending Pip home. Not thinking about a life without Pip.

"It's sort of rakish, Forssy," Bevel says, and then there is something thick and wet and tingling against my skin. He caps the jar of healing ointment and returns it to his pack. "Or it will be rakish, when it heals up. Especially with this." He taps the hilt of my sword, making it rattle against the scabbard.

For a moment, I am caught in that liminal place between being Forsyth Turn and being the Shadow Hand. My face smells of thyme, lemon, menthol. A mixture that only Mother Mouth uses. Where he managed to get a jar of Mother Mouth's ointment, I don't know. Maybe Kintyre is on better terms with her than I thought. I let my gaze fall to my frigid fingers. Smoke is at my hip still.

I am both Turn and Hand, Forsyth and Shadow, and for the first time in my life, the dichotomy doesn't feel as though it is about to tear me in two.

"Thank you... Bevel," I say, making free of his first name without having been invited to do so. Bevel Dom has been calling me by my brother's nickname since he was a squeakling squire hard on Kintyre's heels, and I feel that perhaps I have finally earned the right to address him so. That he doesn't correct me confirms it.

I look around. We are back on the portico of King Chailin's tomb, the door still wide open and the fire, somehow, burning much higher than I managed to make it climb before. At some point, someone wandered back to fetch my Shadow chest. It seems foolish to haul the chest around now, when two of the four things it was meant to keep hidden are currently in use. I stand slowly, my knees popping in protest at the cold and the workout I just recently put my body through. I go to the chest, pull out the mask, and secrete it in the inner pocket of my travel robe, snugged up close against my heartbeat. There. Dauntless's cloak and tack can remain behind.

Bevel watches closely, his dark blue eyes narrowed, flicking over the Shadow's Mask, where it lies hidden against my ribs.

"Well, if that don't just beat all," he says. "Forsyth Turn, the Shadow Hand."

"Surprise," I say glumly. Bevel knows, and Kintyre knows, which means I've violated one of the few direct edicts the king has given me. Well, Pip has, at any rate. Which amounts to the same thing.

"It sure was," Bevel says. "Seems to be the moon for them."

"Agreed. And, speaking of surprises... you and Kintyre are still traveling together?"

Bevel looks down, focuses on putting away his healing kit. "It wasn't easy," Bevel says softly. "But... there was too much to throw away, you know? Too much... history." I realize, tellingly, that Bevel's usual Dom-amethyst short-robe has been traded in for a Turn-russet jerkin.