Struggling against the faint double images that still cloaked her sight after more than four days, Anna stood in the doorway and looked from the sleeping white-haired figure in the bed to the chief player, and then to the guard at the door.
“He sleeps more easily,” said Liende. “There is no fever. The wound is clean. Your elixir, it kept out the poisons.” Her lips pursed. “And your spells.”
Anna sometimes wondered if her greatest legacy might not be distilled alcohol, rather than anything else. She glanced back to Jecks. “I still worry about leaving him here in Hasjyl. The javelin ripped up his chest and shoulder badly.” Would she have had the courage to take enchanted javelins meant for someone else? She hoped she could have been so brave, but she doubted she had that kind of courage. She was a survivor, not a hero.
She’d been lucky to be able to cast a Darksong spell without being totally destroyed, as she had been at Stromwer. Then, the spell over Jecks had been limited to one person at close range, probably before there had been too much damage from the wound. Even so, it would be more than a week before she was fully recovered, she suspected.
“You have spell-searched the town, and left twoscore of armsmen to guard him. He should not be moved until he is better, a few days, at least,” Liende pointed out. “Once you finish Lord Ehara, you can watch over Lord Jecks on the return to Dumaria.”
“I know, and I can’t let Ehara get away,” Anna said. “I don’t have to like it.” How many times over how many years had she thought those words? You have to do it, but you don’t have to like it. . . . Was that always the way it would be?
Jecks’ eyes fluttered, then opened. Anna stepped nearer the bed.
“You . . . are . . . here. . . .” The raspiness of Jecks’ voice tore at her.
Where was the strong leading man? The man who had taken a javelin meant for her?
He’s right there, you idiot. . . .
“I’m here,” she said quietly. “You’ll be fine, but you need to rest.”
“You . . . saved . . . me.”
“You saved me. You did a better job,” Anna said.
“The . . . Sea-Priest. . . .”
“Lady Anna turned him into flame with her anger,” interjected Liende.
“Fhurgen . . . ?”
Anna looked down at the stone floors she’d insisted be washed before moving Jecks into the house she’d borrowed—or commandeered.
“He was dead before Lady Anna could even begin a spell,” said Liende.
Anna wasn’t sure that was so, but she’d only had the chance to save one of them, and she’d made a choice.
“He . . . good . . . man.”
“Just rest,” Anna urged.
Jecks’ eyes closed slowly, almost unwillingly, and Anna stroked his forehead for a moment.
“Just rest,” she repeated softly before straightening, carefully, hoping that the double images and semi-migraine headache would fade before she reached Envaryl, hoping, as always, that she did the right thing—and fearing she wouldn’t.