Page 87 of Savage Devotion
The simple statement carries unexpected weight. How many times have I apologized for injuries inflicted by others? Forconsequences of choices forced upon me? For existing in spaces where my presence challenged expectations?
Too many.
"Come on." He guides me to the low campaign table, where maps still lie scattered from the interrupted council. "Sit."
I perch on the table's edge while he rummages through supply chests, movements efficient and purposeful. His hands emerge holding a clean cloth, a waterskin, and something that makes my breath catch, a knife unlike any I've ever seen.
The blade gleams with the distinctive ripple-pattern of forge-folded steel, but embedded along its length are veins of what looks like molten gold. The metal seems to pulse with its own internal heat, casting dancing shadows on his face.
"Mountain-steel," he explains, noting my stare. "Forged in the deep fires beneath our ancestral halls. It holds heat longer than regular steel, burns clean."
"You're going to cauterize the wound?"
"Clean it. Mountain-steel burns away infection without scarring if you know how to use it."
He tests the blade's edge against his thumb, drawing a thin line of blood that hisses and steams on contact with the metal. Steam rises from the cut on his skin, carrying the scent of purified flesh and something deeper—ozone and earth and the distant memory of forge-fire.
"This will hurt."
"Everything hurts."
He searches for permission or protest. I extend my arm, palm up, exposing the gash Heldrik left as his parting gift.
The heated blade touches my skin with a sound like water hitting hot iron. Steam rises in delicate spirals, carrying away blood and poison and the lingering taint of my uncle's hatred. Pain flares bright and clean, then fades to manageable heat.
I watch Kaelgor's face as he works, noting the careful concentration that furrows his brow. His jaw clenches with each application of the blade, as if my pain registers in his own flesh. When he reaches a deeper section of the cut, his breath hitches.
"Sorry."
"Don't apologize for healing when someone wounds me."
A ghost of a smile touches his lips before concentration reclaims his features.
The process takes minutes that feel like hours. Steam continues rising from the blade's contact with my flesh, each touch burning away damage and leaving clean, sealed tissue in its wake. By the time he finishes, the wound has closed to a thin pink line that will probably fade completely within days.
"Mountain medicine," I observe. "Your people know things ours have forgotten."
"Survival teaches harsh lessons."
He sets the knife on the table between us, blade still glowing faintly with residual heat. In the amber light cast by the tent's oil lamps, his face shows exhaustion and the choices made under pressure.
"You didn't have to do that," I say quietly.
"Stop Heldrik? Heal your wound?"
"Any of it. All of it."
He studies my face with the intensity of someone reading battle-plans. "What would you have done if our positions were reversed? If one of my clan threatened me in front of you?"
The answer comes without hesitation. "Exactly what you did."
"Then you understand."
Understanding.Such a simple word for something so complex. I understand he protected me because protection is fundamental to his nature. I understand that his loyalty, once given, doesn't bend under pressure. I understand thatsomewhere between our first collision in Ember Hollow and this moment, I've become something he considers worth defending.
What I don't understand is why that knowledge feels like standing too close to a forge-fire, warming and dangerous in equal measure.
"Heldrik will try to turn the camp against us," I say, reaching for practical concerns to anchor my thoughts. "He has authority, connections, and tradition behind him."
