Page 117 of In Her Own Rite

“No. I want him far away from me,” she whispers as she walks to me. I take her hand and lead her to the front door, waving Saga away as she tries to approach. As soon as Em and I get out of the door to the infirmary, her knees buckle, and I catch her upper body as she falls forward.

“Take me home?” she whispers.

“Yeah,” I murmur into her hair. “You want me to shift?”

She shakes her head, but she’s clearly exhausted, so I gently reach down to scoop her up, carrying her against my chest.

It’s a ten minute walk to thefikarig, and she rests her head against me as I start on the path towards the house. It’s unnaturally dark outside without the light of stars or thekiyyulit, and after a minute, I think she’s fallen asleep. But then she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the little paper flower. I see the petals are stained with blood.

“Thank you,” she says.

“I’ll get you a new one. It was probably stupid to give you this just before hand-to-hand combat.”

“No. I loved it.” She rests her head against my chest again. “I did it, Kier. I beat him. But I did it my own way.”

“Yeah, you did.” I say, drawing her close to my chest. Within minutes, she’s asleep.

43

KIERAN

When I wake up, Em is still sleeping.

I look over at her, resting beside me in bed. Her face is wan and tired; I can see the circles under her eyes, even now, a full day later. The tone of her skin has turned gray and pallid, and the fever from thekattakaworking its way out of her system has stained her hair dark with sweat. She hardly looks herself, and I can feel the wolf inside my chest pacing at the sight of it.

I roll onto my side, pulling myself closer to her. It’s the second morning since the night of her rite. I hate that she’s still so out of it, but Saga has been reminding me it’s normal—that this happened to me, too, and I was just too sick to be aware of it. Thefikarighas been overactive with people coming to tend to her: Saga swapping out the bucket beside the bed for when she gets sick; Maren bringing a cool cloth to her head every few hours; Helen checking her body for wounds to heal. They all share their love and concern for her, but as soon as they leave the room, I hear the murmurs from the hallway.

What does this mean for her rite? Does it still count?

How did she learn to heal bone?

I know Gabe, at least, has answers to the second question, but I haven’t mentioned it to the others. If Em wanted to wait to share this, then I’ll leave it up to her.

I rest my head on my arm, eyeing her profile. She shifts just slightly, and I can tell she’s starting to wake up.

“Heij,” I whisper.

She groans, bringing a hand to her head.

“Mmh,” she grumbles.

“Your head hurts?”

Em opens one bleary eye and turns her head to look at me.

“Kier?” she mumbles, her voice hoarse.

“Yeah. I’m here. You’re okay.”

“I’m home?” she asks.

“Yeah. You didn’t want to stay in the infirmary, so they let you recover here. Does your head hurt? I can get you something.”

She hesitates, as through processing the information.

“Did I do it?” she asks.

“Yeah,piu,” I say, bringing a hand to her face. “You did it.”

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