proved to be a familiar face.
“Wait a moment,” Vaelin told Chien, who shrugged and found a shadowed corner as he went to greet the handsome woman bearing a basket of laundry.
“Mother Wehn,” he said, bowing. “You are far from the High Temple.”
The smile she gave him was faint, her handsome features tense with suppressed grief. “My order spent many hours in contemplation after your visit,” she said. “We decided it was unseemly to continue to sit idle in her home when we could journey north in the faint hope of providing her some measure of assistance.” She lowered her face. “We waited too long.”
“It’s my belief the Jade Princess set her own course many years ago,” Vaelin told her.
“But it was all for nothing. She failed to halt the Stahlhast, failed to heal the heart of their false god.” Mother Wehn’s tone was one he had heard before, the voice of a soul nearing the limit of their faith.
“Their false god is beyond any healing,” he said. “I think she knew that. She didn’t come to stop him, but to show others that they needed to.”
Mother Wehn smiled at this, but it was a tremulous thing, gone quickly as she briskly gathered laundry into a basket and went about her chores.
He found Sherin at a table in the temple’s scriptorium, cutting strips from a plain cotton sheet to increase the stock of bandages. “I don’t craft poison,” she told him with a hard glare, her knife making another precise lateral cut through the fabric. “War is your province, not mine.”
Her response didn’t surprise him, but the anger it provoked in him did. “Do you want this place to fall?” he asked, voice growing heated. “See every soul within this temple slaughtered for failing to bow down to the Darkblade? And what do you imagine Sho Tsai’s fate will be should the Stahlhast take this place?”
Her knife came down hard, the blade sinking deep into the surface of the table. Her fist lingered on the handle for a time, knuckles white before she snatched it away. It occurred to him that she had spent relatively little time in the general’s company since arriving in the city, and he knew she would have had hard words for him regarding his orders when he sent Commander Deshai to Keshin-Ghol.
Taking a calming breath, she said, “That was unfair.”
“War is never fair,” he returned. “You’ve seen enough of it to know that. You heal so that others may live. I fight to do the same. It’s what we’ve always done. Will you help me or not?”
She lowered her gaze, a small, bitter laugh escaping her lips. “Were we like this before?” she asked, voice soft with reflection. “Have I misremembered all these years? I cast you in the role of betrayer for so long perhaps it obscured how you really were, how I really was. Sometimes I think we were mere children playing at love.”
His anger faded with as much swiftness as it had arrived, leaving a small but painful ball of regret in his gut. “I wasn’t playing,” he said, turning away and gesturing for Chien to come forward. “I have asked Mistress Pao to see to your safety. She will be at your side for the duration of the siege.”
Sherin glanced at Chien, who replied with a cautious nod. “No disrespect to you,” Sherin said, “but I don’t require a bodyguard.”
“Yes,” Vaelin insisted, “you do. You are Gifted now, which makes you a target.”
Sherin sighed and forced a smile at Chien. “Do you have any healing skill?”
“I can sew a cut,” Chien said. “If it’s not too deep. Also, I know how to mix poppy essence so it will banish pain without killing.”
“Very well. You can stay. As to your mission, my lord . . .” she added, turning to Vaelin.
“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll find an apothecary somewhere in this city . . .”
“Come back tomorrow,” she cut in, grunting as she worked the knife loose from the table. “Around noon. It’ll be ready then.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Commander Deshai returned two days later. Watching the cavalry approach the western gate, Vaelin reckoned its strength was perhaps one-third what it had been when it set out. They moved in a ragged formation, two wings flanking a central column of people towing carts or labouring under the weight of heavy bundles. As they filed through the gate, he saw the faces of both people and soldiers were blackened by smoke and sagging in