Page 89 of The Bones of Benevolence

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I squinted through the passing trees, hoping with everything in me that Belin knew what he was talking about when he told me to follow this trail. It’d been hours now. Then I saw it — the surface of a pond reflecting the early-afternoon sun, the same pond I’d woken up next to a few days before. It had the same peculiar ripples it did then, too, as if someone had just skipped a stone, though no one was near enough to do so.

“Petra!” I heard Nell scream, and relief flooded through me at the sight of her small figure waiting on the bank of the pond with Whit beside her. I watched their faces scan the newly unmasked Lieutenant as we neared, his slumped figure, the urgency on my face.

“We’re here, Miles,” I murmured back to the Lieutenant. The heat that radiated from his body was stifling, even through his leathers. I pulled the horse to a stop but stayed mounted, ready to ride into the burning city of Taitha to search for a healer.

A third figure I hadn’t noticed rose then, and disbelief flooded my senses as they came into focus.

“Solise.”

As soon as Nell and Whit had their hands on Miles, I ran to the healer, my arms folding around her as sobs racked my body. “I’m so sorry,” I cried into her thin shoulder, the sound muffled by her robes. “I’m so, so sorry Solise. You were brought to Taitha because of me. You were thrown in the dungeon because of me. It’s–”

“Hush, child,” she whispered into my ear. “Nothing to apologize for.”

Reality rushed back in then and I pulled away, spinning to see Miles propped up on Nell and Whit’s shoulders, the Lieutenant’s dead weight pulling them down. “Can you help him?”

Solise laid the back of a wrinkled hand against Miles’ forehead and nodded, noting his sallow skin and sunken cheeks. Beads of sweat dripped off him in sheets as Nell and Whit lowered him to the ground, pulling him forward to expose the wound. She reached into her robes and pulled out a small vial before gently grasping his hand, his grip weak as she spoke to him. “You’re going to be just fine, dear,” she said quietly, the calmness that was Solise washing over me. “Can you tell me what your name is?”

His breathing was choked but he managed to push the words out. “M-Miles Landgrave.”

“Okay, Miles Landgrave. Can you tell me where we are?”

“Forest.”

She nodded and tipped his head back, emptying the vial down his throat. He sputtered for a moment before all of his features relaxed, the pain melting from his face immediately as Solise turned him to lay on his belly. “Arri root,” she gave as a simple explanation. “I’m assuming someone has clean water?” Whit pulled a small canteen from his hip and passed it to the healer. “And I know at least one of you has a flask.” Whit and I both looked to Nell, her face flashing with a poor attempt of innocence before she reached to her hip and handed it over with a sigh.

Solise began to work, quickly propping him on his side. How did she know we’d be here? How did she even know to come here? She carefully unbuckled the fasteners and peeled the leathers from Miles’ skin, taking extra care around the arrow. The defined lines of muscles were evident even as his entire body was relaxed. There was the scar on his right shoulder from the arrow that had hit him when he plunged from the Cliffs of Malarrey. And there was the tattoo across his left shoulder that I’d seen in the Onyx Pass — two ships sailing past each other, now forever separated by what would be another jagged arrow wound.

Nell stared at Miles and whistled. “You did spend the night at the inn with him, right?”

My eyes flashed to her, mortified. Solise didn’t look up from her work but raised a thin brow before reaching into her robes for a roll of bandages. “I didn’tspend the nightwith him.”

Nell shot me a knowing look then winced as she watched Solise wrench the arrow from Miles’ back and quickly press the whiskey-soaked bandage to his skin. After a moment, she pulled it away to reveal a festering wound. I had to turn away to keep the bile from rising in my throat. Nell and Whit both groaned at the sight, and I cringed as I heard Solise uncork the flask again and pour more whiskey into the wound.

She gently lifted the Lieutenant’s arm, coiling the bandages around his shoulder. Every move she made was careful, compassionate, and I smiled to myself at the thought that some way, somehow, I had Solise back.

“He’s going to have a tough recovery. You got him back here just in time,” she murmured. “The arri root will keep him unconscious for a bit and help lower his fever.”

Tension I hadn’t realized I’d been holding melted away from my shoulders as I felt my heart rate return to some semblance of normal. It seemed like everyone else relaxed a bit, too. “Thank you,” I whispered.

Solise’s eyes crinkled with a smile as she looked up at me, her hand finding my cheek. “Petra.”

I folded her into my arms again, savoring the feel of familiarity. “How in the hell are you here?” I finally asked.

She exhaled a breath I could tell was heavy-laden with unspoken words. Her head shook slightly, as if she didn’t know where to start. “Did King Belin find you?”

My chest tightened with what those words meant. “Yes, how did–”

“The dungeons,” she cut in. “Castemont didn’t thinkeverythingthrough, because King Belin and I ended up in cells directly across from one another.”

My eyes widened as I stared at the woman. “So you know the truth.”

“He told me everything he could tell me.”

I lowered myself to the ground to lean against a boulder, my eyes warily on the Lieutenant who slept peacefully in the dirt. Nell and Whit silently excused themselves as Solise found a spot next to me. A breath left my lungs hard and fast. “You were right about him.”

“I was only right that something wasoff.”

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