Page 91 of Of Sins and Sacrifice

I grab his arm and lay it over my shoulders as I try to help him up.

“No,” he grits out. “My…tent. I have everything there.”

He must sense that I’m about to protest because he adds, “It’s closer.”

He has a point.

Nodding, I help him move, though it’s quite hard on both of us. Not only is he so much taller than me, but he is also much heavier. Without my powers, I can barely shoulder any of his weight. Good thing that his tent is nottoofar away, and within a few minutes, we make it back inside.

As we enter the tent, he collapses onto the small bed, almost taking me with him. I manage to extract myself from his grasp right as his body hits the mattress.

He groans in pain, turning to his side and clutching his stomach tighter.

“In the…back. White box…” he struggles to say.

Driven by an unusual urgency, I ransack the back of his tent in search of that white box. First, I look in his trunk. It’s not there. Then I scan the contents of his suitcase. Only after long, drawn-out minutes do I spot a white box.

I pop it open to make sure it has the right materials.

“Found it,” I declare, turning to him.

He removed his shirt and unbuttoned his pants. His bandage is half peeled off, and fresh blood stains his skin.

I press my lips together.

He must have strained too much for the wound to gape wide open like this.

“It will need stitches,” I tell him as I place the white box on the table in front of him and take a seat on the bed next to him.

“You can do it, no?”

“Of course.” I bristle.

“Good. You should find everything you might need in that box.”

I nod, getting to work to wash the blood off his wound.

“This will likely leave a scar,” I comment as I see the extent of the injury. How did it get so bad in a matter of hours? I could have sworn it was only a superficial scratch when I first treated it.

“What’s one more scar?” He shrugs, pointing to his face.

I glance up, studying the scar tissue on the side of his face. It may be that I’ve gotten used to him, but I’ve stopped noticing his scar.

“That’s not even the worst,” he continues, turning slightly to show me his marred back. “I have scars everywhere.”

“Are they from battle?”

He shakes his head.

“I’ve had them for as long as I can remember.”

My grip on the needle and thread falters. His scars denote unspeakable pain if I were to go by the depth and amount of tissue affected. For someone to suffer anything like that…

“Why? What happened?”

He’s silent for a few moments.

“I was ill,” he murmurs.

---