a sliver of raw sunlight there.” Edan struggled to unscrew his canteen. “With the help of the gloves.”
Seeing him struggle with the canteen softened my anger. “You helped heal my hand. If magic is scarce here, then let me help you with your arm.”
Edan shook his head.
“Your eyes are turning black.” I’d thought that meant he was angry; maybe it was also a sign of pain.
A muscle in his jaw set; then he relented. “Make it quick.” He rolled up his sleeve. “We need to be fifty miles east by sunset.”
Edan had already tried patching up his arm. Gently, I unwrapped his bandages. The wound was deep, some of the flesh torn away. I noticed his nails were ringed in blood, and I thought of the hawk. It had dug into the wolves with its talons.
My pulse quickened, and I struggled to look calm. “Your stitches are crooked. I’m going to have to take them out and redo them. It’ll hurt—do you have any rice wine?”
“Just do it,” Edan said with a grunt. He clenched his fists, knuckles whitening as I carefully began to undo the threads.
“I used to patch up my brothers,” I said conversationally, trying to keep his mind off the pain. “Finlei and Keton were the worst. They’d fight each other over the stupidest things. Then Sendo would try to stop the brawl and end up right in the middle of it.”
“Is that why you’re so good at stitching skin?”
“I practiced on my brothers, but my father taught me before that. When work was scarce, sometimes the doctor would call him to help—mostly out of charity. Often I would go in his place.”
“I was once an apprentice like you,” Edan said through clenched teeth. “Only, my teacher taught me how to open up a man’s skull, how to dissect scorpions but leave them alive, how to tell the difference between hemlock and ivy.” He coughed. “Useful skills for an overly curious young enchanter. But not very useful skills for looking after myself.”
“I had no choice but to learn,” I replied. “My mother died when I was only seven. I had to take care of three growing boys and my father.” I pursed my lips, remembering the time when my family had been whole. It seemed so far away now, so deep in the past. “What about your parents?”
“I hardly remember,” he said. “They died a long time ago.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about.” His voice was distant. “My mother passed when I was born, and my father—I wasn’t close to him. Or to my brothers. I had brothers once, too.”
He didn’t say anything more. He looked lost, so unlike the self-assured enchanter I knew that I wondered if I’d caught a glimpse of the true Edan—the boy behind the magic and power.
“There.” I wrapped the bandage over his arm and tied it with a knot. “Finished.”
“Nice work.” He rolled down his sleeves and regained his usual poise. “I wish I’d been there last night, but you defended yourself well.”
“Are you sure you weren’t there?”
Edan let out a dry laugh. “I would know, wouldn’t I?”
I didn’t laugh. “The wolves began fighting one another, as if they were bewitched. And there was a hawk—it went into your belongings.”
“Oh? What did it take?”
“A red pouch from your saddlebag.” I lingered to let my words sink in. “It seemed to know exactly where to find it.”
“Hawks are intelligent creatures,” Edan replied. “It must have been looking for food.”
“Perhaps,” I said, but I didn’t believe him at all.
I was sure of it now.
The hawk was Edan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When at last we saw the Temple of the Sun, I feared it was a mirage. Framed by dark, charred-looking trees, it stood amid a sea of dunes, with a pool at the foot of its entrance that looked wide as a lake and long as a river.
I clambered toward the pool. My body ached for water, my throat was shriveled from the need of it. But as I knelt to receive its glorious waters, all I saw was my glassy reflection.
This was no pool at all! Only a mirror lying flat against the sand, awash with the gray-blue of the sky. I let out one quiet sob. I had no tears left.
The temple might have been ivory long ago, but like everything else in the desert, it had taken on the color of sand over time. My eyes burned when I tried to see the domed top, shimmering in