Page 27 of Ignite
“Why don’t you get some rest?” I tell him with a nudge. “I’ll stay with Brielle.”
He hesitates, his gaze flicking down to Brielle. There’s something familiar in his gaze—a longing—as he stares at her.
I place a hand on his shoulder, and he glances at me.
“You need rest too,” I tell him gently.
Maddox’s focus drifts back to Brielle, his jaw flexing as he nods absentmindedly. After a moment, his hands move in that fluid, rhythmic motion.
My brows pull together, and I move to get his attention, but a rustling from the cot below stops me.
“Thank you,” a voice rasps. My gaze snaps down to Brielle, whose eyes are slowly opening. “That sign means thank you.”
Maddox shifts toward Brielle, his shoulders deflating a little as she gives him a small nod. He looks back at me, hesitating once more.
“You’ve had a long night,” I say to him, and I mirror the sign to thank him back. “I promise I’ll stay with her for a bit.”
Maddox yawns and pushes away from the cot, his back stiff as he shuffles out of the healer’s cottage.
I wave over the healer, the girl seemingly a few years younger than me, with soft brown eyes and matching chestnut hair. She gives me a nod from the small table, pouring a steaming liquid into a wooden bowl, then glides over to us, her footsteps light.
“Drink this,” she says to Brielle. Her voice is quiet but firm, reminding me a bit of my mother.
As the healer helps Brielle up, a well of sadness stirs in mychest, reminding me of another woman who has hands and a voice as gentle as hers. My mother—the one who showed me nothing but kindness since I arrived in Penyth.
While nearly everyone else was wary of me, she was on my side from day one. I hardly spent any time with her before all of this. What will she think of me now that I’ve snuck off without telling her? Not only getting myself into this mess, but my friends, too.
The thought plagues me while I watch the gentle healer with my friend.
A scraping of wood against wood catches my attention as Leda finally takes a chair and positions herself across from me at Brielle’s other side.
We sit in silence together, watching the healer work. After she’s satisfied with how much Brielle drank, she scurries back to the shelves of tinctures lining the wall of the small cottage.
“How are you feeling?” I ask gently.
Brielle grunts and lies back down. “Like I was hit by a boulder.”
My lips twitch. It’s good to hear her voice—to see that she’s at least better than she was the last time I saw her.
Brielle looks between the two of us, her eyelids fluttering open and closed. “Where do we go from here?” she mutters, but I can tell it’s more to herself, her words slightly slurred together.
Her question echoes the same thought I’ve had. Wheredowe go from here? With Daimon off the table, Graylen stuck in the Vale, the souls trapped from the trial, and Moros doing goddess knows what with the Crean army… There are too many things to count.
A weight sinks in my stomach, pulling my muscles into knots.
Leda leans back in her chair and says, “Rest, Brielle. We’ll talk more?—”
“No.” Brielle shakes her head. “There’s no time to wait. WithMoros back on the board, we need to take advantage of every second we have.”
Leda hesitates, but then gives her a short nod. “Then where do you propose we start?”
Brielle briefly closes her eyes, a muscle in her jaw ticking. “Willow and Aster,” she whispers, her lids blinking back open.
The image of Willow’s face as she whispered Brielle’s name last night flickers into my mind. They knew each other—well enough that worry crept into her features when she realized it was Brielle who was unconscious.
“Do you think we can trust them with the information we have?” I keep my voice low, my gaze flicking to the healer. But she’s lost to her task, muttering to herself and scribbling on parchment across the room.
I realize that we may not have the ability to wait and find out. There’s not much we can offer these people other than information, and hope they might return the favor with anything that could be helpful to us.
