Page 31

Behind them, the enforcers carried Blaidd inside, carefully laying him in the guest bedroom before one ran to get the pack healer.

Lisna watched from the threshold with confusion as Maxen explained.

Maxen turned back to her. "Let him stay long enough to tell us the truth," he said. "Then you can decide what judgment is owed."

For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she stepped aside fully to call for the cook to prepare stew.

And the door closed behind them in uneasy, fragile protection, while they waited for the broken man to answer their questions.

****

Blaidd woke to the sound of needles clicking.

For a long, disoriented moment, he didn't move. The ceiling above him was unfamiliar, and his body felt wrong, as though he had gone a couple of rounds with the Moon Warden, the overlord of wolf clans. They all knew who had won the last time he went against him.

He tried to sit up.

Pain skittered up his spine, ripping a low sound from his dry throat.

"The water's on the table," Lisna said without looking up, her graceful golden head bent to her task.

He turned his head slowly.

She sat in a chair beside the bed, knitting with steady, precise movements. Her posture was relaxed. She did not glance at him as he dragged himself upright, inch by inch, as his muscles protested and his vision greyed around the edges.

He reached for the cup, hands shaking badly enough that water sloshed over his fingers. He drank it down in thirsty gulps.

"How long..." he rasped with a ruined voice. "How long have I been out?"

"Two days," Lisna replied, still knitting.

The needles clicked again before she paused.

Her gaze deliberately dropped to the sharpened tip of one needle, turning it slightly between her fingers. Blaidd had the sudden, vivid sense that she was imagining skewering his eyeball.

"You'd better start talking," she said, still calm.

She looked up and did a double take, her eyes narrowed. "Your eyes…"

Blaidd frowned, but then his bladder made its presence known in no uncertain terms.

"I—" He shifted, grimaced. "I need—"

He tried to stand but his legs folded.

Lisna was already calling out. "Maxen."

Maxen appeared almost instantly, as though he had been waiting just outside the door. He took in Blaidd's pallor, the way he sagged back against the bed, and sighed.

"Easy," he said, slipping an arm around Blaidd's shoulders. "So stubborn. The moonflower's still working its way out of your bloodstream."

"Of course it is," Blaidd muttered.

Getting to the washroom was a humiliating blur of weakness, curses and Maxen's infuriating, steadying presence. Blaidd leaned heavily on him, breath hitching with every step.

And then suffering the indignity of having to be held up and someone else having to undo his pants so he could relieve himself.

"Oh, Goddess," Blaidd groaned as Maxen held him upright. "Just take me now."