She hurriedly pushed his blanket down, exposing her mended shirt with the new black stitching staggering its way from neck to hem. It was still a little big on her and the cloth puckered and bunched all along the ugly seam, but it covered her. “I don’t need that. I fixed my shirts.”

“I decide what you need. Put it on.”

“Meoraq—”

“Put it on.”

“I can’t!”

“Don’t whine at me. Put it on.” He leaned back on his heels and looked at her, rubbed his throat, checked his belt buckle, and suddenly spat, “How do you feel?”

Amber plucked listlessly at one sleeve of the tunic. “About this?”

“I don’t care how you feel about that!” he snapped. “How badly are you hurt?”

She dropped her eyes to keep from looking at his, which were blazing, bright as fresh blood, furious. He wanted to get moving, of course. She’d slept half the day away already, and yeah, she hurt, there wasn’t a square inch on her that wasn’t reliving last night—worst of all her stomach, which felt like she’d swallowed a hot, jagged rock—but she for damn sure wasn’t going to whine at him about it.

“I’m okay,” she mumbled, looking at the tunic. His tunic. The tunic everyone was going to see her wearing.

Silence. He was staring at her. She could feel him staring, even though she didn’t dare look.

Outside the tent, people were talking, moving around. She found herself wondering who’d started the morning fire, who’d topped off the flasks. Her stomach hurt.

“I’ll be out in a minute, okay?” she said finally, desperately. “Just let me get myself together and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Take all the minutes you want,” he replied. “You’re not going anywhere today. Tell me where it hurts.”

“I’m fine.”

“You may not go anywhere tomorrow either,” said Meoraq, just as if she hadn’t said anything, as if she weren’t even there. His scaly fingers closed on her chin, forcing her head back. He glared at the side of her face, then pulled her chin down almost to her chest so he could see the top of her head. When he was satisfied with that, he nudged her shielding arm aside and pulled her shirt up to expose the plum-colored skin of her stomach. She sat there, clutching his tunic and waiting for it to be over.

“You’re very quiet,” he remarked, prodding inevitably right where it hurt the worst.

“Does anything I say matter?”

“What would you say if it did?”

“We have to keep moving.”

“Then, no, it does not.” He dropped her shirt and pinched her chin again, having another look at the side of her face. “We leave at my command, and I wait upon our Father’s. No more arguments.”

Amber shut her eyes and waited until he was done thumbing through her hair.

“I have tea and a little stew I want you to take,” he said at last, releasing her. “And then I want you to rest.”

The thought of having to eat anything put another hot, jagged rock in her stomach. They ground together, breaking off points that stabbed their way into her heart, her throat, her eyes.

Amber nodded.

He grunted and left, letting in a great gust of frigid air before the flap fell shut behind him.

Amber pushed his blanket back and moved off of his bedroll. She put his tunic on over her shirt so she wouldn’t have to feel it touching her skin. It was soft and warm and a bit stiff. It smelled faintly of smoke, but mostly of new shoes; it had never been worn. She cried a little, but only a little. Then she scrubbed her eyes dry on her sleeve, put her boots on, and crawled out of his tent.

The sun was even higher than she’d thought, almost directly overhead. Everyone was up, milling restlessly through the camp with nothing to do, nowhere to go. She saw Nicci first, because Nicci was there on Amber’s mat where she could dimly remember leaving it, although the memory felt days old, unreliable. Amber limped over, holding her stomach in the cradle of one arm, and bent laboriously to collect her spear.

Nicci watched solemnly until Amber had straightened herself out. Then she huddled up tighter under her blanket—hers and Amber’s both—and said, “Are you all right?”

All her life, no matter how she’d actually felt at the time, the answer to that question had been yes, usually in the kind of scornful, impatient tone that was meant to make the other person sorry they’d ever asked. Now, although she still could not bring herself to admit to the truth out loud, Amber shook her head.

“You look pretty bad. Amber, I…about last night, I mean…” Nicci looked away, shivering under her blankets, toward Scott’s fire. Toward Scott himself, standing by his tent and watching them. She dropped her eyes, not looking at either of them anymore, but said, “Do you need help? To…you know…go?”

Amber considered it, which was depressing enough, but in the end, she knew that no matter how uncomfortable the short walk to the boulder designated as the bathroom might be, it wouldn’t hurt any less to hang off Nicci’s arm. She shook her head again and limped off alone.

By the time she managed to shift her clothes, squat without falling over, pee out the shrieking leaden hell in her guts, and put herself right again, she had begun to feel dizzy as well as tired and hurt. Feverish. Gripping her spear, she sat on the rock that had hidden her bathroom activities from camp and bent forward as much as her stomach would let her, letting her swimming head dangle over her knees.

“Here you are! And by Gann’s closed hand, here you are alone!”

She raised her head just enough to see Meoraq’s boots stomping toward her through the grass. “I had to pee,” she said dully. “I don’t do that in front of an audience.”

He kept coming, which she expected, and when he reached her, he took her by the chin and forced her to sit up straight. She more or less expected that, too. But the hand that wasn’t iron at her jaw was gentle as he stroked her hair back and peered into her eyes, and the yellow stripes at his throat had faded almost entirely to black. He was still glaring, but it was hard for lizards not to glare.

‘He said he liked me,’ she thought suddenly, which was not exactly true. What he’d said was, ‘I don’t care about anyone else,’ but the implication was there. He’d said that and then he put her in his tent to sleep and gave her his tunic in the morning and where was she supposed to go from there? She found herself wondering…if she put her arms around him right now, would he give her another of those stilted pats? Or would he hold her?

“I would be very clear now,” he murmured, rubbing his thumb lightly back and forth beneath her left eye. It hurt a little, like it had bruised up. She didn’t think she’d even been hit in the eye, just the ear. “You are not to leave my camp. Not alone. Not in company. Not at all. How do you mark me?”

“I’m still in camp. This counts as camp.” She watched his red eyes move, reading all the pain the old Amber could have kept hidden, thinking how easy it would be to just let go of her spear and hold on to him instead. “It isn’t your camp anyway.”

He snorted, but even that was gentle. “Whose then?”

“It belongs to all of us.”

“Ah.” He stepped back, gesturing for her to stand, which she eventually was able to do. He watched, spines forward, intent, as she took her first steps, then joined her at her side. He said, “I took a talon on my first tachuqi hunt.”

“Oh yeah?” She had no idea what that meant.

“Truth. And on my second, I took its foot to my chest. Why I wasn’t killed, only God could say. As it was, I was thrown some distance and briefly lost my reason, but I was able to walk back to the city and I slept in my own bed in the billets that night.”

“Wow,” said Amber, because she felt like she’d ought to be in the conversation. She hoped her noticeable lack of enthusiasm didn’t make it seem like she was being sarcastic, but she just hurt too much to care.