The road remained quiet. Whether that was normal for this stretch, or the checkpoints at every town entrance were creating a lull, Llew didn’t know. The clop of unaccompanied hooves they ignored, hunkering silently, waiting for the travelers to pass. With each growing crackle of hard wheels rolling over the fine stones of the road from the direction of Northhollow, Rowan eased himself around a tree trunk to peek at the road. The sky was just fully light when he gave a yell and waved at the road, then returned to help lift Jonas. Moving as quickly as they could, Llew clambered into the rear of the covered two-horse carriage and helped maneuver Jonas inside. Rowan leaped into the back and climbed straight through to the front with Elka. As soon as he disappeared through the cloth doorway, the carriage lurched forward. The brother and sister’s murmuring voices drifted back through the canvas, but not their words.

  Llew eased herself into a cross-legged position on the floor and pulled Jonas’s head and shoulders into her lap. He had been awakened by the rough handling required to get him into the carriage and remained so. A few minutes later, Rowan returned and sat on one of the bench seats that lined each side.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Llew looked down at Jonas. He managed to lift his eyebrows to express his own eagerness to eat, and even that small gesture seemed to exhaust him, his eyes turning dull and listless. Llew tried to work out how long it had been between his getting struck by that arrow and his beginning to weaken. It didn’t help that he hadn’t disclosed his earliest symptoms to her, but it had been some three weeks since she had learned of his weakness. Did they have so long before this … bug that was attacking him finally killed him? Or was it something he could live with for years? She didn’t want to consider only having weeks left with Jonas and didn’t even want to consider what a future without him might look like. The pulsating Ajnai tree in Taither came to mind again. They were weeks away from it. But they were on the way. They had to have that long, at least.

  A vibration buzzed against her chest, and Llew was only a little surprised to discover she had drawn Jonas into her and was smothering him against her chest. He must have been protesting.

  “Sorry,” she said as she released him.

  His eyebrows gave all the expression he was capable of for now, and Llew found herself delighted by the display of a lingering sense of humor when he glanced towards her chest before meeting her eye and raising those eyebrows twice. His lips managed the slightest of an upward lift. She rolled her eyes in return and smiled.

  Rowan raised a hinged lid that doubled as a seat. He sifted through the contents.

  “There’s sourdough, jerky, apples …” He sidled along the bench-cubby, remarkably well-balanced in their rolling conveyance. “… a few varieties of pickled vegetables. You want me to put something together?” He looked over his shoulder at Llew.

  “Can we tear into the bread? We’re both starving.” Llew thought it safe to speak on Jonas’s behalf. Her own stomach was threatening to digest itself.

  Jonas grunted his agreement.

  “Bread it is.” Rowan lifted out a material-wrapped loaf, tore off a hunk for himself, and handed the rest to Llew.

  The loaf was moist and heavy, and the crust had a tough, almost leather quality. Llew couldn’t imagine Jonas having the energy to chew it, so she dug into the soft center, pulled out a handful and offered it to him.

  Jonas’s lips pressed together and his eyes looked in the direction of one of his hands, which made an effort to lift, but he lacked the energy to raise it. With a faint sigh, he let her poke the bread into his mouth in small pinches. In between feeding him, Llew tugged off strips of the tough crust and chewed them. At least the bread was tasty; sweet and sour, balanced just right.

  “I told you we’d do this,” Llew said between mouthfuls, and was pleasantly surprised she sounded much more calm than she felt. A thought struck Llew and she looked at Rowan. “Did Elka pack any medical equipment? Such as blood drawing needles?”

  “I think so.” Rowan shuffled to the front of the carriage and poked his head through the material flap to confer with Elka. When he returned, he went straight to the bench seat on the other side of the carriage, lifted the lid and, after a bit of a dig around, presented the syringe to Llew. “This what you’re after?”

  “Yes.” Llew shuffled so Jonas could lie back in her lap and took the syringe. She tested the feel of the plunger and found that it offered quite a bit of resistance. She didn’t fancy her ability to draw her own blood. Besides, the road beneath the carriage wheels was far from smooth, rocking them constantly with the occasional larger bump throwing them around. She sighed. Perhaps she had to exercise patience. Not so easy when a part of her kept asking when Jonas would run out of the energy to breathe, or beat his heart.

  “L— Llew.”

  Llew looked down at Jonas. His eyes appeared brighter than they had before the bread. Maybe that was all he’d needed.

  “Feel better. Food. Ener—” He heaved a sigh. “Better.” He finished with a wry twist of his lips.

  Improved, yes, but not much better. Still …

  Llew tore into the remaining bread loaf.

  “Open.” She stuffed bread into Jonas’s mouth. “Think you could chew jerky now?”

  Jonas nodded.

  Llew looked to Rowan again, who was already returning to the side of the carriage with the food supplies. He handed her a paper-wrapped package.

  “I’ll relieve Elka.” Rowan disappeared through the canvas at the front, and Elka made her way into the back soon after. She struggled to keep her balance in the rocking carriage and opted to sit on the floor.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  As soon as Jonas swallowed one piece of jerky, Llew tore off another mouthful and slipped it between his teeth. And Jonas kept chewing, though he slowed and sighed over the effort a few times.

  “There are jars of lemonade, if you like,” said Elka.

  Jonas nodded with some enthusiasm, and he had regained enough energy to aid Llew as she levered him into a seated position. Grabbing his ankle, she swiveled him so he could lean back into the food storage bench, facing Elka, who directed Llew to locate the jars. Jonas took the offered jar in two hands. Drinking was no easier than drawing and dispensing blood would have been in the moving carriage, but Jonas managed to catch small sips as the liquid sloshed around.

  “What else do we have?” Llew gripped the edge of the seat that doubled as a pantry.

  Jonas placed a hand on her wrist. “Rations. Not all for me.” He puffed out his words with effort and returned the jar to his lips.

  Llew almost pointed out that not eating for a day would likely not kill the rest of them, whereas in his case … but she didn’t know for sure if what attacked him would kill him, and she didn’t want him carrying the burden of such worries when he was so weakened. She eased herself onto the bench seat beside him.

  Elka opened the top of the seat behind her, fished around a bit, and came out with a clean bandage. She brandished it for Llew to take. “He still requires daily wound care. I have … lotion, somewhere.” Elka lifted the seat again. Soon, she held a bottle and a pair of scissors. She held the scissors out first, and glanced down at Jonas’s stump, currently covered in the pinned-up length of a pair of her grandfather’s trousers.

  Llew unpinned the trousers and unrolled the leg, then took the scissors from Elka. Nervous she might cut Jonas, she checked and checked again where the stump ended within the trouser leg, then cut across. The scissors were sharp, and the material sliced away cleanly. In her care not to injure Jonas, Llew had left length enough she would be able to pin what remained of the trouser leg back up, but she struggled to roll the narrowed knee over Jonas’s bandaged thigh stump and had to cut a slice up the material tube. With his bandaged stump on display, Llew paused. So far, whenever Raena had checked on or cleaned Jonas’s wound, Llew had kept herself busy with eating, or exercises, or talking to Jonas while ignoring that part of his body. She took a breath, peeled off the sticky tape holding the edge of the bandage firm, and began unwinding it. Jonas watched, his jar of sweet lemonade still held to his lips, catching tiny sips when the liquid splashed up to his mouth.

  Eventually, the last twist of the bandage came free, exposing his flesh, and Llew found herself flooded with a strange mix of emotions. She had so often scoffed at Jonas being referred to as The Great Syakaran of Quaver, the most physically gifted man known, but it was who he was born to be. It was who he had been. To see his flesh, soft, rounded, cut up and stitched where a strong knee and lower leg should have been … The reality before her didn’t gel with what she knew to be true. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was going to have to make some adjustments, get used to their new truth. At least everything looked clean, except for a slight crustiness to the stitches.

  Elka held out a clean, damp cloth.

  Llew took the cloth and dabbed it over Jonas’s stump. She rested his stump on her lap, rested one hand on his thigh and ran the fingers of the other gently over the smooth skin between his surgical wounds. It was … different, but she could learn to love it, just as she had learned to love the rest of him. She looked up and was pleased to see a light in his eyes that had been missing earlier that morning; Elka’s sugary drink providing much needed energy. Still, he slouched, barely holding his own weight.

  Under Elka’s instruction, Llew wrapped the stump in a figure-eight pattern with the soft roll of bandage and held it closed with a strip of adhesive tape and they pushed on, largely in silence, only stopping for ablutions and sleep. Jonas slept almost as much during the day as at night, leaving Llew to hope it was due to healing and not a sign of getting worse. Each time he woke, though, he could still sit upright and manage light conversation.

  After a few days of traveling, the carriage slowed and pulled to a stop, and Rowan poked his head between the front curtains.

  “Uhm. You might not want— I mean, it’s— Uhm.” He scratched behind one ear.

  “What is it?” Llew asked. “Are we there?”

  Jonas had been dozing against her, and only grizzled a little when she shifted him to the side. The prospect of seeing Merrid and Ard was far too uplifting to worry about Jonas’s condition right then. Besides, the Ajnais meant she could offer him real help.

  “Yeah. I think we are, but—”

  Llew didn’t wait to hear more. She jumped out the back of the carriage, glancing to the sky, to gauge the time. Maybe lunch time. Merrid would have a meal ready for Ard after his morning chores, and somehow she would magically procure extra food for their unannounced guests and not complain one bit. Llew could already feel the woman’s arms wrapping around her. For a moment, she imagined falling into Merrid’s arms and letting the weeks of coping in the face of so much going wrong fall with her.

  She turned to walk around the side of the carriage to find herself just yards from bodies swinging from ropes strung from hastily constructed gallows, only recognisable as the farmers because of the clothes they wore and the hair still clinging to their nearly bare skulls.

  Llew’s legs went weak. An unintelligible cry escaped her throat. She started to fall.

  Strong arms wrapped around her, keeping her upright, and for the briefest moment she calmed. But the arms weren’t right. They were a little too bulky, a little too … not Jonas. And her body recoiled at the horror of being held prisoner, a chill flooding through her, and she thrashed against the grip, and kicked and screamed “Let go of me!” Released, she stumbled, fell, landed in the dirt. On hands and knees, she raised an arm, wanting to beckon Merrid to her. She needed Merrid’s hugs. Why were they gone? They couldn’t be gone. It was all too much.

  The bodies. The constricting grip that was not Jonas’s, that she now realized must have been Rowan’s – Rowan trying to help, and she felt guilty for hurting him and humiliated for overreacting and it was all a tumble inside her head, her body, and the only thing she seemed capable of was crying, so she did. She let herself fall to her side, knees to chest, hands clasping head, and bawled, keeping her eyes closed so she didn’t have to see the hanging bodies of her friends, her protectors, her heroes. And she did want someone to hold her, to enfold her in a strong, warm embrace, to tell her everything wasn’t fine, but they would go on, they would hold each other up. But the strong embrace she needed didn’t exist. It was weak and broken, just like her life, and it was all too much. Too much. She just needed to sob. And breathe. And not open her eyes for a few minutes. And breathe. The chaos inside her began to calm simply because if it didn’t, she would break and might not be able to be put back together.