BRACED

20

The dragon reacts to her cry and descends to the ground. Hollis dangles upside down from the side of the beast, with her cape draped over her face.

Without thinking, I pull open the heavy gate and race to her lifeless frame. Instead of hissing at me, the dragon gently leans to the side, placing Hollis’s limp body on the floor. Frantically, I yank and twist her foot free. I adjust her body so she is lying flat, but the shape of her lower leg doesn’t look right. I hold Hollis’s head in my hand. Tears blur my view.

“Hollis! Hollis!” I yell, hoping to rouse her. The dragon whines and I jerk back to the reality that I’m within inches of it.

I scoop up Hollis’s slender body into my arms and run through the gate, slamming it shut behind me and sliding the lock in place with my shoulder.

With the strength of ten men, adrenaline helps me bound the stairs in the pitch black and avoid hitting the iron gate on the way. We reach the top before I am winded. “Kava!” I call rounding the hallway, courtyard, and into the dining hall. I slide sideways to fit down the slender stairway to the kitchen.

“Kava! Help!”

Coming around the bend, I find Tolliver and Kava scrambling about, adjusting their clothes. I don’t have time to care about their red faces and mussed hair. I lift Hollis onto the cleanest worktable.

“What happened?” Tolliver asks.

I lay her gently onto the wood, minding her limp head and sprawling legs. “I think she broke her leg.” I pant, attempting to catch my breath but I don’t remove my hands from her.

Kava inspects her shin and gasps. “She did.”

I look away trying to stomach the odd angle at which it lays.

Kava touches Tolliver softly. “Can you fetch my bag?” He nods and darts out of the room.

“What were you guys doing?” She unties Hollis’s left boot.

I am panicked for what to say. “I think the bigger question is, what were you and Tolliver doing?”

“Stars, Ledger. She broke her leg and you’re judging me?”

A groan emanates from Hollis’s throat.

“Oh, no. It would be better for her to stay unconscious for this part,” Kava says.

Tolliver returns with the bag of medicines and herbs. She digs through it and retrieves a brown bottle with no label. My heart hasn’t stopped pounding in my chest and with every passing moment it beats into my throat.

“I need to set the break,” Kava says.

I know what that means. I’ve seen it done before. Juniper’s father broke his arm and when they set it, he passed out from the pain. Kava quickly slides off Hollis’s boot.

Hollis’s moans grow into cries. “Ledger,” Hollis calls to me. I lean toward her face and hold her cheeks in my hands, her tears streaming into my palms.

“It’s going to be okay,” I promise.

Kava unhooks the leather strap from her bag, folds it in half, and slides it between Hollis’s teeth. “Bite down on this.” Kava gives Tolliver some directions, but I can’t look away from Hollis’s frightened blue eyes. “Ledger!” Kava yells.

“What?” I reply with the same intensity.

“Hold her hands down,” she commands. “And lay across her chest so she doesn’t move. Tolliver, hold the other leg.”

I nod without looking away from Hollis. Crossing her arms over her chest, I hold her opposite hands in mine. I lean over, nose to nose with her.

Kava counts and Hollis’s body jerks beneath me. The leather falls from her mouth with a yelp. In the next breath, she gives a blood-boiling scream. I am startled having never heard her in this much pain. There is so much agony wrapped up in her wail that tears sneak their way out of the corner of my eyes and drop onto her cheeks. I hold her tight, even after it is over.

Hollis pulls her hands from mine and wraps her arms around me. She squeezes me tightly and cries into my shoulder.

I shouldn’t have placed the idea of riding into her head. I shouldn’t have volunteered to help. This is my fault. I don’t deserve to be her friend. My thoughts punish me.

Hollis slowly releases her grip and I lean back to see what Kava is doing. Hollis’s black pant leg has been pulled up and Kava is pouring clear liquid from a bottle onto her wound. Before long, Kava has her leg wrapped with bandages and braced with two wooden spoons on either side.

“We’ll have to find more cloth to wrap it so it will be sturdy. We don’t want it to move at all.”

Tolliver pats Hollis’s uninjured leg. “What in the world were you two doing?”

“We—” I start.

“We were climbing,” Hollis interrupts. “The Rocks. Outside.” She eyes me.

“Yeah, outside.” I join the lie, realizing if Tolliver finds out she was wounded by the dragon, he’d kill me, or the dragon, or both.

“Yeah, right,” Kava objects, “You two haven’t said more than two words to each other in weeks. Now you’re climbing together?”

“I wasn’t climbing,” I state, hoping to improve on Hollis’s story. “Hollis was. I was walking by when I saw her fall. So I carried her in here.” I look at Hollis with my eyebrows up.

“I guess now that he saved my life, we can be friends again.” She smiles wryly, and I fake a chuckle.

Kava rolls her eyes and says, “Isn’t that lovely.”

Tolliver reaches over me and helps Hollis sit up. “You won’t be climbing again for a long time.”

Disappointment washes across Hollis’s face. “I guess not.” She looks down at her leg. She winces in pain as she adjusts her position. “How long?”

“I think about eight weeks, sometimes ten or longer,” Kava replies. Her brown eyes bounce from Hollis, to me, to Tolliver. “We need to move her to a bed.”

“I can do it,” I volunteer.

“I know you can, but her leg needs to be braced so we don’t have to set it again.”

Hollis shudders.

“Are there any boards lying anywhere? Maybe a small table top?” Kava looks around the room.

I draw a blank.

Tolliver thinks fast, unloading a shelf on the wall, tossing pots and utensils onto a worktable. He pushes the empty shelf up and down, up and down until it comes loose from the wall. Tolliver carries it over and we help Hollis lift her body onto the slat. Kava takes a few strips of fabric and straps her legs to the wood.

We lift the board, I on one end and Tolliver on the other, steadily lugging her up the stairs, through the dining hall and into the open courtyard.

“Let’s take her down the royal hall,” Tolliver directs. Hollis has been living somewhere on level two or three, but it doesn’t make sense to take her there.

We carry her across the snowy space through the tall wooden doors that bears the crest of the royal family. It is a bird with a branch in its mouth. Tolliver leads the way into what must be the queen’s bed chambers. With the exception of white fabric billowing from the middle of the ceiling, mounted to the walls and draped to the floor, the room is laid out a lot like mine. It was probably beautiful before inches of dust settled into its folds. The four poster bed has vibrant green drapes around the entire thing. There are woven rugs on both sides of the bed and a fireplace beside the door to a balcony.

We place Hollis on the soft bed. Kava pats the blankets, encouraging Hollis to slide off the board, but a puff of dust rises from the fabric.

Hollis slaps the padding. “Can we pull these nasty blankets off?”

“Boys?” Kava nods at us. We lift our wounded princess one last time as Kava peels the top blanket off, and folds back the rest to reveal clean sheets of crisp white fabric.

“Boys,” Hollis mimics the command and points at the bed.

Tolliver and I set her down, and she cries out in pain as we assist her in sliding off the board. Falling limp on the fluffy feather filled mattress, Hollis is breathing hard as if it has taken all her effort.

Kava gives Hollis some instructions and then with a stern, motherly look says, “You shouldn’t have been rock climbing alone, silly girl.”

Tolliver pulls the door shut behind Kava and we are alone.

Hollis heaves a heavy sigh. “Thank you for corroborating the climbing story.” She lays her head back and closes her eyes. Her words slur with exhaustion. “He would kill Tristeh in an instant, wouldn’t he?”

I nod, even though she isn’t looking at me. In the fireplace, I construct a neat stack of tinder. I strike and strike the flint, but it won’t light. Frustrated, I want to throw the flint and steel.

I finally have my best friend back and all it takes is lying to my brother.

“Ledger,” Hollis calls weakly.

I strike it several more times, finally getting a spark. I blow and blow until it lights the scraps of wood.

“Please don’t tell Tolliver about Tristeh. I can’t lose her.”

I come to her bedside. She is peering at me beneath droopy eyelids. She yawns and says, “Please feed her, Ledger.”

“I will,” I promise. “I will.” Sitting, I put my hand on hers. She doesn’t pull away. She surrenders to the drowsiness, closing her eyes and fading into sleep. My heart is full of her and my stomach is satisfied. I sit by her side for a long time watching her long lashes flutter.

After a while, I stoke the fire and add the last few logs. By the time the sun goes down, its warmth fills the room. I lay beside her peaceful frame on the bed and watch her sleep, until I drift into a dream about saving Hollis from a dragon.

Each day, I visit her and give her a report of Tristeh’s status. Alive. Eating regularly. Tristeh is strangely sad, as though she misses Hollis. It took several times to unlatch the saddle by daring to reach between the bars of the cage. Keeping her alive is the best way to keep Hollis healing and keep my own hope alive to reach the ground in search of Alouette. My heart sinks each time I think about Alouette, as if I am betraying Hollis or I’m betraying Alouette because I am caring for Hollis, I’m not sure which. Trying to figure out which gives my head a deep ache.