“They fight to retain a sense of normalcy,” Yrene said at last. “I think in defiance against … against whoever did it. Hafiza and Eretia have led by example, staying calm, focused—smiling when they can. I think it helps the other girls not to be so petrified.”

“If you want me to help with another lesson,” he offered, “my services are at your disposal.”

She nodded absently, running her thumb over the bridle.

Silence fell for a long moment, filled with the scent of swaying lavender and the potted lemon trees. Then—“Were you really planning on barging into my room at dawn?”

Yrene turned from the patient white mare. “You don’t seem the type to laze in bed.” She raised her brows. “Though, if you and Captain Faliq are engaging in—”

“You can come at dawn, if you wish.”

She nodded. Even though she usually loved sleeping. “I was going to check on a patient before I visited you. Since we tend to … lose time.” He didn’t reply, so she went on, “I can meet you back at the palace in two hours, if you—”

“I can go with you. I don’t mind.”

She dropped the reins. Surveyed him. His legs. “Before we go, I should like to do some exercises with you.”

“On the horse?”

Yrene strode to him, gravel hissing beneath her shoes. “It’s actually a successful form of treatment for many—not just those with spinal injuries. The movements of a horse during riding can improve sensory processing, among other benefits.” She unbuckled the brace and slid his foot from the stirrup. “When I was on the steppes last winter, I healed a young warrior who had fallen from his horse on a grueling hunt—the wound was nearly the same as yours. His tribe devised the brace for him before I got there, since he was even less inclined to remain indoors than you.”

Chaol snorted, running a hand through his hair.

Yrene lifted his foot and began to rotate it, mindful of the horse he sat atop. “Getting him to do any of the exercising—the therapy—was an ordeal. He hated being cooped up in his gir and wanted to feel the fresh air on his face. So, just to give myself a moment’s peace, I let him get into the saddle, ride a bit, and then we’d do the exercises while he was astride. Only in exchange for later doing more comprehensive exercises in the tent. But he made such progress while astride that it became a main part of our treatment.” Yrene gently bent and straightened his leg. “I know you can’t feel much beyond your toes—”

“Nothing.”

“—but I want you to focus on wriggling them. As much as you can. Along with the rest of your leg, but concentrate on your feet while I do this.”

He fell silent, and she didn’t bother to look up as she moved his leg, going through what exercises she could with the horse beneath him. The solid weight of his leg was enough to get her sweating, but she kept at it, stretching and bending, pivoting and rolling. And beneath his boots, the thick black leather shifting … his toes indeed wriggled and pushed.

“Good,” Yrene told him. “Keep at it.”

His toes strained against the leather again. “The steppes—that’s where the khagan’s people originally hailed from.”

She went through another full set of the exercises, making sure his toes were moving the entire time, before she answered. Setting his leg back within the brace and stirrup, giving the horse plenty of space as she went around its front and unbuckled his other leg, she said, “Yes. A beautiful, pristine land. The grassy hills roll on forever, interrupted only by sparse pine forests and a few bald mountains.” Yrene grunted against the weight of his leg as she began the same set of exercises. “Did you know that the first khagan conquered the continent with only a hundred thousand men? And that he did it in four years?” She took in the awakening city around them, marveling. “I knew about his people’s history, about the Darghan, but when I went to the steppes, Kashin told me—” She fell silent, wishing she could take back the last bit.

“The prince went with you?” A calm, casual question. She tapped his foot in silent order to keep wriggling his toes. Chaol obeyed with a huff of laughter.

“Kashin and Hafiza came with me. We were there over a month.” Yrene flexed his foot, up and down, working through the repetitive motions with slow, deliberate care. Magic aided in the healing, yes, but the physical element of it played equally as important a role. “Are you moving your toes as much as you can?”

A snort. “Yes, mistress.”

She hid her smile, stretching his leg as far as his hip would allow and rotating it in small circles.

“I assume that trip to the steppes was when Prince Kashin poured his heart out.”

Yrene nearly dropped his leg, but instead glared up at him, finding those rich brown eyes full of dry humor. “It is none of your business.”

“You do love to say that, for someone who seems so intent on demanding I tell her everything.”

She rolled her eyes and went back to bending his leg at the knee, stretching and easing. “Kashin was one of the first friends I made here,” she said after a long moment. “One of my first friends anywhere.”

“Ah.” A pause. “And when he wanted more than friendship …”

Yrene lowered Chaol’s leg at last, buckling it back into the brace and wiping the dust from his boots off her hands. She set her hands on her hips as she peered at him, squinting against the rising light. “I didn’t want more than that. I told him as much. And that is that.”

Chaol’s lips twitched toward a smile, and Yrene at last approached her waiting mare, hauling herself into the saddle. When she straightened, arranging the skirts of her dress over her legs, she said to him, “My aim is to return to Fenharrow, to help where I am needed most. I felt nothing strong enough for Kashin to warrant yielding that dream.”

Understanding filled his eyes, and he opened his mouth—as if he might say something about it. But he just nodded, smiling again, and said, “I’m glad you didn’t.” She lifted a brow in question, and his smile grew. “Where would I be without you here to bark orders at me?”

Yrene scowled, scooping up the reins and steering the horse toward the gates as she said sharply, “Let me know if you start to feel any discomfort or tingling in that saddle—and try to keep your toes moving as often as you can.”

To his credit, he didn’t object. He only said with that half smile, “Lead the way, Yrene Towers.”

And though she told herself not to … a little smile tugged on Yrene’s mouth as they rode into the awakening city.

20

With most of the city down by the docks for the sunrise ceremony to honor Tehome, the streets were quiet. Chaol supposed only the sickest would be bedbound today, which was why, when they approached a slender house on a sunny, dusty street, he wasn’t at all surprised to be greeted by violent coughing before they’d even reached the door.

Well, before Yrene had even reached the door. Without the chair, he’d remain atop the horse, but Yrene didn’t so much as comment on it as she dismounted, tied her mare to the hitching post down the street, and strode for the house. He kept shifting his toes every so often—as much as he could manage within the boots. The movement alone, he knew, was a gift, but it required more concentration than he’d expected; more energy, too.

Chaol was still flexing them when an elderly woman opened the house door, sighing to see Yrene and speaking in very slow Halha. For Yrene to understand, apparently, because the healer replied in the language as she entered the house and left the door ajar, her use of the words tentative and unwieldy. Better than his own.

From the street, he could see through the house’s open windows and door to the little bed tucked just under the painted sill—as if to keep the patient in the fresh air.

It was occupied by an old man—the source of that coughing.

Yrene spoke to the crone before striding to the old man, pulling up a squat, three-legged stool.

Chaol stroked his horse’s neck, wriggling his toes again, while Yrene took the man’s withered hand and pressed another to his brow.