Page 52 of Moonless

She hasn’t asked. If I ask about outside, she’ll hear an offer, and if I give her that much, I’ll have to move the stone. My ears go back on their own.

I stay in my seat until the last patch of daylight thins away.

The wraps stay on the floor.

I take the cold food back to the hearth and bring her supper. She’s fallen asleep again before I reach her.

Sleep, then.

The stone flake lies on the bedding near her hand. I lift the cloak clear of its point and leave it where she put it. There’s room on the wall beside the last mark.

She hasn’t counted today.

I go back for the lamp and light it at the hearth. When I set it near the pallet, her eyes open against the light, and I move it a little farther away.

I leave the lamp beside her and lower myself onto the floor with my back against the wall. Her cup’s within reach. So is the food.

I rest my hands on my knees and stay.

Chapter 11

I’m awake, and I don’t know for how long.

Rauk’s moving around the room again, going out and coming back with something, and whatever it is ends up near me. There’s a fur over my legs that wasn’t there before, and a bowl where I’ll see it. I think I smelled fresh pine earlier, but I’m not sure if that was today or yesterday, or if it was the old pine and I only just noticed it.

He’s trying to get me to eat, I know that much. He crouches by the bowl and moves the spoon and goes away again.

I’m dead.

My wolf’s gone. I keep saying it and it still doesn’t mean anything.

I was born a wolf, and I was one before I was Keer’s sister, before I could fight, before I could walk. I never had a day without it, not one, and now I’m supposed to—what, lie here and be the part that’s left? What even is left?

The flake’s still by my wrist, but I haven’t scratched the wall since the night I found out and I’m not going to. There’s nothing to count.

There’s something soft under my left arm now that wasn’t there before. Rauk said something when he put it there. For your arm, I think.

He’s back now, crouched by the bowl with his ears forward, waiting for me to sit up and eat and say something to him.

I don’t know how to be me without my wolf.

Chapter 12

Two days. Hitto.

Two days of bringing her things and nothing. She hasn’t moved. How? How can someone not move for that long.

The linen’s dry, so at least there’s that to carry out. She’s under my cloak where I left her, the cushion still against her sleeve where I put it. She hasn’t so much as shifted it. The pine by her head’s curling already. She used to come back off the dusk walks smelling of outside, and now she smells of the bed and the bandage and that’s all.

“Get up.”

Her eyes come up off the linen to my face. Two days she hasn’t looked at me, and all it takes is an order. I should’ve tried that the first morning instead of pine tips.

“You’ve lain there long enough. There’s work.”

She pushes herself up on her right hand. My cloak slides into her lap and the cushion goes with it. She gets her bare feet down between the bowls and stands, and my hand’s at her elbow with the claws turned out before she’s straight. She’s steady before I get there. Didn’t need me. Fine.

“Come to the hearth.”