Page 125 of Foul Days

“Kosara?” Asen said after a while.

Finally, an apology! It had taken him long enough.

“What?” she asked.

He wasn’t looking at her. Had he looked at her at all since the Zmey took his wedding ring away?

“Kosara, I…” He cleared his throat. “I need a second opinion. How much blood can someone lose before they die?”

“I’ll think about it,” Kosara said, and then she realised he hadn’t asked for forgiveness. “Wait, what?”

“How much blood?”

“It depends on how fast you’re losing it,” Kosara said carefully. It was starting to sound like their situation had indeed managed to get even more dire. “Why?”

Asen sighed and rolled up his trouser leg. A fresh bite mark bloomed red on his calf. Four rows of long, crooked fangs. Karakonjul teeth.

Kosara inhaled sharply. “When did that happen?”

“When the monsters had us surrounded. Before the Zmey turned up. Don’t worry about it, it’s not deep. It’s just a scratch really, I’m sure it will heal just fi—”

His head drooped, hitting the metal bar behind him with a thud. His body slumped to the floor.

“Asen!” Kosara rushed towards him. The wound definitely wasn’t just a scratch. It was deep and messy, soaking his trouser leg in blood. “Asen! Goddamnit!”

Kosara tore off a piece of her skirt and pressed it against the wound. She looked around in a panic, at the dark sky and the yudas circling the cage. Their shouts penetrated the night. Kosara struggled not to imagine them calling Asen’s name.

“Help!” she shouted. “Can someone hear me? Help! Heeelp! Heeeee—”

“Oh, will you be quiet?” said a high-pitched voice.

Kosara turned around and saw Sokol, hovering a step away from the cage, her wings flapping every few seconds. Her feathery face was unreadable, but Kosara knew she liked people. Otherwise, she would have ignored Kosara’s screams, just like the rest of the yudas.

“Sokol!” Kosara smiled as if she’d met a long-lost friend. “Just the woman I need. Could you do me a favour?”

“What do you want?”

“My…” Kosara hesitated. What was he to her exactly? “This man is wounded. Karakonjul bite.”

“Nasty.”

“Could you bring me something to disinfect it? And some bandages?”

Sokol considered her for a few uncomfortably long seconds with those large, gleaming eyes of hers. Then, without saying a word, she turned around and flew into the night.

Kosara could only hope Sokol would bring her what she’d asked for. Karakonjul bites were a nasty business. If she didn’t take care of the wound, it would become infected, and that was the last thing they needed when they were stuck in a cage on the tallest tower of the Tsar of Monsters’ palace. It wasn’t the most hygienic environment for an amputation, for starters.

A sudden thought struck Kosara that perhaps she was fretting over the wrong thing. Asen’s wound wouldn’t matter if they both died here.

No, she decided. She was fretting over the only thing she could control.

She’d been right to trust Sokol. The yuda soon returned, carrying a roll of bandages and a bottle of cheap grape rakia.

“Thanks,” Kosara said. Her arm barely fit through the cage’s bars as she reached for them. “Where did you get them?”

“Some ill-fated adventurer tried to scale the palace’s walls last winter. He fell, of course. I found them in his rucksack.”

“Thanks,” Kosara repeated since she didn’t know what else to say. She couldn’t exactly continue making small talk. What would she ask next? Oh, what did he taste like?

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