Page 9 of Artemysia
“Are you going to push me off when we get to the top?” I ask flatly, half-joking.
With the day I’ve had, it would be a fitting end.
“A downhill attitude will never get you to the top of the mountain,” she says brightly, pushing past me to climb the winding staircase.
Well, that’s alarming.
How anyone can be that optimistic in a world like ours is beyond me. I don’t know how to react to such unexpected cheer. My morose thoughts usually keep people uncomfortable, and therefore, silent.
Silence is peace.
I want to reply that her sunshine will never make it through my cracks where no light ever goes, but she’s so pleased with herself that for once I don’t feel like being mean.
She chuckles as she marches up the wooden stairs. “You probably hate motivational sayings.”
Yes, I do.
But she can’t help herself. “Every summit is within reach if you keep climbing.” She snickers to herself as her eyes crinkle into a grin.Something about this place relaxes her, and her strangely buoyant personality emerges from under her trained-soldier exterior.
It’s unsettling in a slightly pleasing way.
I snort, suppressing a laugh. “Please, no more. I’m motivated, I promise.”
She leads me past the mechanical clock room, the exposed gears clicking rhythmically. We must have taken at least two hundred steps, but she treads upward tirelessly. I try not to limp on my sore knee that was slammed by a mace-wielding Syf earlier today.
We spill out onto a landing that resembles an attic, with four glass windows and a steepled roof.
A flick of a wrist later, a match is lit, and she reaches up to a large lantern hanging from a rafter, igniting the oil. Only the newer buildings in South Kingdom are outfitted with gas lighting.
“Open the windows,” she says. “Both full moons are out now, so you can view the entire city from here—like I promised. On a clear day, you can see Serpent’s Moon Mountain to the south and the Syf forest to the north and east. Royal castle to your left. Welcome to Stargazer, the largest city on the peninsula and the center of the valley. Population 20,000 or so.”
She rummages around a wooden chest under one of the windows—almost knocking over a high stack of books piled on the floor—and tosses out a pillow and blanket. Shifting aside what looks like a disorganized collection of personal items, she pulls out an Academy first-aid kit.
She shuts the lid and taps the chest. “Sit.”
Instead of protesting, I surprise myself by obeying.
She kneels in front of me, dipping cotton into pungent green liquid from a bottle before dabbing it around my eye. It’s cooling and soothing.
“It’s not a cut from a blade. It’s ragged,” she assesses.
“Syf claws are sharper than a sickle,” I mutter. A bloody image flashes across my mind.
I don’t want to think of my fallen mates. It stirs my hollow insides in a way that makes me want to retch, so I clear my throat and change the subject. “What is this place?”
She seems to understand and doesn’t press for more details. “Foundit years ago when I first joined the Academy. Sometimes I sneak away and sleep here to escape my dormmate’s snoring.”
A dropper bottle is next. “This will sting, but it should stop the bleeding,” she says.
Her small fingertips tap gently around the wound without getting any in my eye, filling in the gash with the sticky stuff. It burns like hellfire, but I grit my teeth without letting out a sound. My early training forced me to endure pain silently. Nobody cares if the shadow gets hurt. Shadows are silent. No one wants to hear it.
She notices and gives me an apologetic look. She’s so damn sweet.
She leans in, and a loose tendril of her pale, radiant hair falls out of her braid and into her eyes. I get a whiff of her hair. It smells like heady florals, the ones that blossom in the summer by the riverbanks. Dammit, she makes me feel so warm. I’m about to break into a sweat. Perhaps infection has set into my wound.
I haven’t thought of that scent since I was a boy, and it stirs memories I don’t allow myself to think about.
Good memories, that is.
