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There was a very long silence Then she spoke in a voice cold with outrage "I see You gave our son’s welfare into the keeping of a vicious savage so that Nevare would learn that his father did not always knoas best for hiht It is a pity that Nevare did not learn that lessonI’d ever heard ined they had such conversations as this

"Perhaps you are right In which case he would not have survived long as a soldier anyway" Never had I heard my father’s voice so cold Yet there was sorrow in his words Did I hear guilt there as well? I could not abide that uilt over what had befallen me I tried to speak, failed, and then tried to shift my hands I could not, but I could ers scratch shallowly against the linens of h I drew a deeper breath, braced ht hand I trembled with the effort, but I held it up

I heard h hand that gripped ers I had not understood that even ers close around mine "Nevare Listen to me" He spoke very loudly and clearly, as if I stood at a far distance fro to be all right Don’t try to do anything just now Do you ater? Squeeze ed a feeble colass was held to my mouth My lips were swollen and stiff; I drank with difficulty, soaking the bandages on my chin, and then was returned to my pillohere I sank into a deep sleep once more

Later I would learn that I had been returned to my mother’s house with a fresh notch cut deeply into my ear beside the first one for my disobedience, just as Dewara had promised But that was not all he had done to s alertedhis ht coolness of the early dawn The taldi mare had hauled me up to my father’s doorstep on a crude travois made of brushwood My clothes were in tatters, and soh conveyance had not coround The exposed parts ofby exposure to the sun At first glance, ht I was dead

Dewara himself did not approach the house, but sat his mount at a distance in the dimness When my father and his men came out into the yard to see what the disturbance was, Dewara lifted a long gun and shot Keeksha through the chest As she screamed, sank to her knees, and rolled to her side, he turned his taldi’s head and galloped away No one followed hietkicks Other than htered taldi, Dewara left no e for my father I was later to learn that he either never returned to the Kidona or that his people concealed him and refused to surrender him to Gernian justice His possession of a firear offense for one of his folk That he showed it so blatantly still makes me wonder if it was an act of defiance or one that invited his own death at my father’s hands

My injuries were nu I was dehydrated and burned froed ho thick blood when my father receivedfrom the crown of my head The doctor su es, is beyond my skill Perhaps he took a sharp blow to the skull That may be the reason for his coma I cannot tell We will have to wait In the meantime, ill do e can for his other injuries" And so he picked gravel and dirt fro as he went, until I looked like adoll

I come fro was painful and slow, but once I awakened fro unconsciousness, heal I did My reased to keep air away froether as the old skin sloughed off to reveal raw pink newness beneath, but lying on greased linen when every inch of otten The pungent agu kept ered in my bedchamber for weeks afterward The wound on rew there