Page 100 of Tarnished Crown

By the time we made it to the inn, we were frozen and weary. Broken. Taras volunteered to lead the men to the inn and fetch a medic for them.

Evander refused to be seen yet, insisting on escorting the fallen men to the local funeral undertaker himself, and I, of course, accompanied him.

After he made the necessary arrangements, we went back to the inn. Neither of us had spoken a word to each other since the battle. Even here, Evander went straight upstairs, mutely leading the way.

I hung back long enough to ask for food and a few other things to be sent up, then followed Evander to our room.

He sat on the bed, digging into a pack of what looked like medical supplies, while I hovered uncertainly by the door. He winced when he took his shirt off, but didn’t make a sound. Underneath was a cloth he had tied haphazardly, already soaked through with blood.

When he went to untie it, I crossed the distance between us, placing my hand over his. “Let me.”

He met my eyes, hesitation plain in his own. I thought about how many times he had taken care of me, even when I didn’t realize he was doing it.

Did anyone ever take care of him?

The thought bolstered me to stare back at him resolutely until he relented, lying back on the bed. I untied the cloth and made quick work of cleaning the wound with the solution in his bag, stopping only long enough to answer a knock at the door.

It was our soup and the warm water I had requested. I set the soup on the table but grabbed the water and rags to finish cleaning Evander’s torso.

He hissed a breath through his teeth, but made no other sound, no expression. I thought about the wounds on his back, about the small scars that were evidence of injuries he likely got from encounters just like these.

He was clearly no stranger to pain, and that thought broke something inside of me. I despised everything that had happened in his life to make him not even flinch when I had to pour a thick, bubbling liquid over a six-inch-long gash in his side.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly as I was winding a bandage around his torso.

“It’s nothing,” he grunted out.

“Not about this,” I clarified. “About Igor and Dmitriy. I know what they meant to you.”

He nodded. “Igor was my youngest recruit, but no less loyal for it. And Dmitriy was...He was my friend.”

It was an effort to swallow the emotion rising in my throat. Dmitriy had been my friend as well. Not for as long, and not as close, but one of the few I had in this place.

He had been one of the first men to accept me, to play cards with me, to tease me, even to check on me in the weeks after the negotiations when I was sinking in on myself.

And Igor, the shy young soldier who had blushed at having to handle my underthings. He had barely gotten to live before death stole him.

Before Ava did.

“They died because of me, and I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me for that.”

His startled eyes flitted up to meet mine. “That wasn’t your fault, Lemmikki. If anything, it was mine. I wasn’t paying the attention I should have.”

Because of me.

Tying his bandage off quickly, I turned away so he couldn’t see whatever was on my face, using the excuse of grabbing his bowl of soup.

“You ordered that?” he asked, an odd note to his tone.

“Yes. You should eat,” I said.

He took the bowl without complaint, eating it slowly, and I forced myself to do the same. We didn’t say anything else until I climbed into the small bed.

The threadbare blanket and the small fire in the corner of the room did nothing to quell the ice that had rooted itself in my soul. Frigid hours ticked by in silence, but I knew Evander wasn’t sleeping any more than I was.

There were too many thoughts churning in my head. About Igor and Dmitriy, about Ava, and about Evander.

I thought about what he said earlier, about it being his fault.