“Mother’s Light?”

She jerked her snout towards the ring.

“It harnesses the power of light to clean wounds. Then, I will have her take a tincture, to help clear the infection from the inside.”

“Should we not administer the tincture first?” I asked. As concerned as I was for her feet, I was far more worried about things like lungs, heart, and brain. Those were the things that, when they failed, would kill a mortal man, and I imagined that they’d kill a little star, too.

But Jolakaia jerked her snout in disagreement.

“I need her lying on her belly to expose her heels to the light. I don’t want her vomiting it back up.”

I grunted, then stood as Jolakaia gently but firmly rolled Suvi over. Her movements were decisive, competent.

“How long have you been a healer?” I asked her as she helped Suvi turn her head to the side. I circled to the other side of the bed so I could keep Suvi’s face in my sights.

“Since childhood,” Jolakaia replied, hurrying down to the other end of the bed. She had to use some sort of fluid from a glass jar to remove the cotton from Suvi’s heels because the pus and dried blood had made everything stick. “I used to tend to my father’s soldiers after raids. We never had equipment like this, though,” she said about the metal ring. “Metal was used to pad my warlord father’s hoard and to fashion new weapons. Never to build machines that would heal the men who’d injured themselves fighting to retrieve it for him.”

She pulled Suvi’s feet down until her knees were straight and the fronts of her ankles rested on the inner tube of the ring.

“That was when I first became disillusioned with the way of metal. When my father died, my brother Joleb took over his army and hoard. The things I ignored or found I could stand under my father’s rule, I could no longer tolerate under my brother’s. I left my familial home and walked the river for many days, prostrating myself before the Mother until Koltar found me and brought me into Callabarra.”

Jolakaia tapped something on the ring, and the inner tubes lit up with brilliant light, blue instead of the warmer yellow that illuminated the temple and the city streets.

Instantly, Suvi jerked, using more force than I’d seen her exert all day. Violent tremors wracked her body, and Jolakaia instantly splayed her large green hands down on the backs of Suvi’s calves to keep her from pulling away.

In her weakness, Suvi could not manage a scream. The high-pitched, whimpering keen that crawled from her throat had me digging my claws into my hair, eye wide. It was a sound of pure, primal panic. A noise made by an animal caught in a trap.

“You’re hurting her!” I bellowed, claws flexing spastically against my scalp. I whipped my hands down, forming fists without even meaning to do it.

I’d smash it. Smash the ring, then Jolakaia, then this whole cursed place because Suvi’s pain, her suffering, was worse than my own. I could not take it. I could not take it.

“The pain is necessary,” Jolakaia was saying, her eyes trained on the trembling legs she held in place.

I barely heard her. My own heartbeat, echoing behind Suvi’s agonized whisper-moans, filled my ears. Every muscle lurched, swelling, bulging, stretching until my joints ached. My claws felt tight at the tips of my fingers, my scales bunching and bristling.

“Jolakaia!” came a call from behind me.

Jolakaia’s eyes went to the doorway, then to me, and then widened.

She straightened, but kept her hands where they were while Suvi writhed beneath her hold.

“Skallagrim!” she shouted. “You must control yourself! If you enter a berserker rage now, we are all doomed. Including her.” She gestured to Suvi with her snout. “Especially her.”

I panted, chest heaving, heart feeling too large for my ribcage. My starmap buzzed insistently, begging me to draw upon the power that was rising inside me, a black river about to overflow its banks with nowhere to go but outwards. Until everything was drowned in it.

Even her. Especially her.

The echo of Jolakaia’s words lanced through the darkness building in my brain.

I reeled, falling to my knees, wings spasming, tendons crackling.

“Little star,” I begged, not daring to touch her in case I hurt her even more than she already hurt. My claws dug into the bed, slicing instantly through the sheets and mattress in front of her turned face. I trembled nearly as violently as she did, shoulders hunching forward.

“Little star, precious Suvi, show me the way. Show me how to stand by you now without destroying everything.” My words felt mangled by my aching throat, and I hated myself for asking her for anything while she choked out her tearless sobs of pain.

You are weak, I hissed in silence to myself. She hurts because you brought her here. She hurts because you do not know what she needs. She hurts, and it is your fault, and even now you cannot master yourself without begging for her help.

Strength bloomed in my tightly leashed limbs. More strength than any mortal creature would ever hope to wield.

And I had never felt so weak.

Suvi’s keening ended with a shuddering gasp, and her face suddenly went slack with relief. Jolakaia had turned off the light. My cousin-niece rolled the contraption away from the bed, her yellow gaze narrowed and fixed on me as if waiting for me to explode and kill us all.

“I will not...” I blinked away darkness and allowed one solitary fingertip to crawl over the ruined mattress and make contact with a bit of Suvi’s hair. Just her hair. So that if I cut it, at least it would not bleed. “I will not rage. I will restrain myself.”

Jolakaia remained quiet for a long moment. Finally, she said, “Even though I told you to, I knew you would not pray to the Mother. I thought that maybe, instead, you would pray to the Father, but you don’t.”

She paused, her eyes finding and lingering on the place where my fingertip fervently stroked a single, silvery strand of hair.

“You pray to her.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Suvi

“Minulla on huono olo,” I groaned. “I don’t feel well.” I didn’t know if anyone was there to hear me. I didn’t even know what was wrong with me. Only hoped that somebody could help because I felt more unwell than I ever had in my entire life.

I was lying on my back, but not for long. Strong hands beneath my shoulders and my back lifted me, then leaned me back against something warm and solid so I was half upright. I moaned in complaint, begging them to let me lie back down, but fingers closed around my shoulders, holding me there, as something cool and hard was pressed to my lips.

On instinct, I shut my mouth as tightly as my eyes and shied away. The fingers on me gripped harder, and something firm bumped my cheek. Someone’s breath skimmed over my skin.

“Suvi.”

I stilled.

It wasn’t the use of my name that felt so familiar, that penetrated the thick, heated fog around me. It was the voice itself. A gruff, cajoling rumble that I recognized somehow. I knew that voice, I was sure I did.

And I decided to trust it.

I let the firm, breathing thing at my cheek bump and guide my head forwards again. The cool thing – the smooth edge of a glass cup, I thought – returned, and I parted my lips for whatever was inside. Thick liquid tasting of mud and bitter herbs slid into my mouth and I choked it down, stomach roiling. Luckily, there wasn’t too much of it to drink. When the cup came back, it contained only water. I managed a few sips of that before I pulled away, the back of my head relaxing against whatever I was leaning against. The headboard of a bed? A wall?