The Other Side of the Sky - Amie Kaufman Page 0,30
a chance the boy’s simply mist-touched and experiencing a moment of semi-lucid awareness.
And there’s also a chance …
An enraged squeal splits the air, reverberant across the Mirror’s water. The boy jumps, whirling around to search the darkness for its source.
“The boar,” I tell him. “They smell you.”
He turns wild eyes back on me, his wonder vanishing in his sudden fear. “How far to your … wherever you came from?”
“Too far for you to walk, bleeding—they will only follow you.” I hesitate one moment longer, searching for any sign that this boy is a threat.
But he simply looks weary and frightened. His face is a few shades lighter than mine, but even by starlight I can see his skin is ashen—with fear or loss of blood, I don’t know.
“Come,” I tell him, trying to maintain my caution despite my irrational urge to trust him. “I will tend your arm.”
I put a hand to my chatelaine, dipping into one of the pouches for a pinch of fireseed. The boy watches, brow furrowed, as I cup it in my palms and whisper the invocation of light—but when I toss the handful into the air, and it casts its gentle green glow in a pool around us, he scrambles back with an oath.
I eye him quizzically. Light magic is the easiest to master, and fireseed is abundant throughout the forest-sea—and yet the boy acts as if this magic is new to him.
“I mean you no harm,” I say gently. “Light magic cannot hurt you, and I need to see where you are wounded. Show me?”
The boy’s eyes are still a bit wild, but he does as I ask. He grasps at something by his collar and draws downward, and his body-hugging suit splits with a metallic grating noise. Now I can see it more clearly, the bandage isn’t worthy of the name. It’s a dirty bit of rag tied around the wound, which is sluggishly oozing blood that pools in a congealed mess at the crook of his elbow. He tugs the rag away and eases his arms free of his suit, then ties both sleeves around his waist, baring the thin shirt he wears underneath, short-sleeved and plain.
His features are more visible now in the light of the spellfire. The eyes I’d thought were black are actually a dark brown, a pleasing contrast against the lighter shade of his skin. Though his short sleeves reveal no brawny riverstrider, there is definition to the muscle of his arms that gleams bronze in the spellfire. His black hair is of a style I’ve never seen: shaven close on the sides up past his ears, then left to form a mop of curls on the top. Strange, but undeniably compelling.
There is a little twinge I sometimes feel when I meet someone so obviously attractive. A fluttering glimmer of something, deep, instinctual—and then the swift banishment of that same feeling. Only the tiniest pang of loss lingers to remind me of what I can never have.
I bid him hold his arm up to the light. The gash is ragged but shallow. It will likely scar, even were I more skilled at healing magic, but I can at least stop him losing more blood. I retrieve a waxed packet of Mhyr’s Sunrise from my belt and ask him to hold the rent flesh open a little. He looks more dubious by the moment, and when he hesitates, I tell him, “It will seal the wound. It will hurt, but it is better to keep ill humors from festering.”
“You mean it’s a disinfectant? Some kind of antibiotic medicine?” He prods at the wound with his fingertips until its ragged edges come apart, and he hisses in pain.
I move closer and eye him askance. “You use strange words.” I sprinkle the Sunrise powder along the interior of the wound, careful not to spill any on the rest of his skin.
He flinches. “That’s not so bad,” he murmurs before looking back up at me. “You use some pretty strange words yourself. Is this more … magic?” He speaks the word as though he finds it humorous.
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Yes. And that is not the part that will hurt.” I replace the packet and pull out the little vial of thicksweet. Before the boy can ask me what I mean, I pry out its stopper and lean over his arm to pour a thin drizzle of the clear syrup along the wound.
“Ow, that’s—hrm. That’s warm. Hang on, it’s feeling