Counting Shadows (Duplicity) (11 page)

All of my visions have always been impersonal. Just sounds and sights, and the occasional smell from the past. There’s no thoughts in them. No talking. Nothing to identify them to a particular owner.

Except for these. These visions—the ones I haven’t had since Ashe died—are just as disturbing as they are unique. Because they contain thoughts— thoughts that somehow feel like they belong to me.

I open my eyes, remembering that I’m trapped in a room with a dangerous Angel. Lor is still crouched on the ground, glaring up at me. A log crackles in the hearth. The fire flares, casting light across the room. For the first time, I see Lor’s face clearly, without shadows or distance obscuring it.

His eyes are red.

“Something wrong, sweetheart?”

Lor’s question brings me out of my daze. I blink a few times, clearing my thoughts. Lor has red eyes, and so do the men in my visions. But that could just be coincidence, right? There’s no reason to panic.

“Sorry,” I murmur, although I don’t know why I’m apologizing. I clear my throat, then swallow hard.

Lor cocks his head to the other side, reminding me of a little of a confused puppy. “What just happened? You zoned out for like a minute.”

I shake my head and press a hand to my forehead. “Nothing. Really. I’m just tired.”

He makes a small noise in the back of his throat, something between a hum and a growl. Somehow, I know he’s laughing at my lame excuse.

“Really,” I insist weakly.

He nods and then presses his forehead against his knee. His chest expands in a shuddering breath. I look around, and my gaze lands on a blanket resting on my dresser, folded and ready for use. I walk over to it and toss it to Lor. He flinches as it lands beside him, and shoots me a suspicious glance.

“Press this against the wound,” I say. “The pressure will help stop the bleeding.”

He stares for a long moment at the blanket, like he’s trying to assess whether or not the cloth could be dangerous. Then he nods sluggishly and obeys, pressing the blanket against his wound. His hand trembles with the simple exertion.

“You’re hurting,” I murmur.

“No.”

“Don’t be a tough guy.” I gesture to my bed, realizing a moment too late that he can’t see me with his head down. “Go lay down.”

He sighs, the sound defeated, and then lifts his head. He stares at me hard and nibbles at his lip, and I can only guess that he’s trying to decide whether or not to trust me. Then he spots my bed and struggles to his feet, wobbling over to it. I try not to smile, but I can’t help but feel like his compliance is a victory. I walk behind him, careful to keep a few feet between us. He’s hurt, but he could still be deadly.

Lor glances over his shoulder at me. “I’m not going to hurt you, you know. I’m not stupid enough to risk my own life.”

I raise an eyebrow, careful to hide my relief. “Why should I believe that?”

“I’m a man of my word.”

I scoff. “You lied about all Angels looking the same.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“Why should I tell a man who can’t keep his word?”

He rolls his eyes at me, and then collapses on the bed. He pulls himself up on it and buries his face in a pillow, his words coming out muffled. “I had to lie about that, sweetheart. No choice. You were barking up the wrong tree.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why should I tell a girl who doesn’t trust me?”

I sigh. “Touche.”

He makes that little hum-growl noise again. I approach the bed and stop about five feet away, peering at his side. Blood seeps from the wound that broke open, staining my bedspread a dark maroon color. It needs to be restitched, and immediately.

I take four steps forward, closing the gap between us.
One, two, three, four.
And then I breathe deeply. In and out,
one and two.

“You know, sweetheart, this bed is awfully comfy,” Lor mumbles into the pillow. He reaches over and pats the opposite side of it, the side where I always sleep. “I’d be happy to share it, if you want.”

“You’re insane,” I mutter, and then quickly amend myself: “No, you’re injured.You’ll be more rational when you’ve recovered a little.”

“Don’t count on it, sweetheart. I’m usually about as rational as that Southern Wolf I took out.”

“Meaning if I stab you in the brain, you’ll die and leave me in peace?” I realize a moment too late that I’m being overly harsh, but my mind feels like it’s been stuffed with gauze, and I’m not in the mood for tact.

“Hmm…” He shrugs, seemingly unconcerned. “Hadn’t quite thought of it that way.”

As he shrugs, his shoulders pull up and stretch the wound. Why isn’t he screaming? The wound is a four-inch gash across his ribs, and it’s deep. Stretching it like that should be painful enough to make Lor pass out.

But he doesn’t. He just lets out a long sigh and hugs my pillow. “I missed pillows. And sheets. And beds. Do you know there’s no beds in that prison? You should do something about that, little princess.”

“I have no power. I can’t do anything about it.”

“Then pay someone to do it. Or you could sleep with someone powerful. Isn’t that what you human royalty do to get what you want?”

“I’m a princess, not a whore. And shut up before you say something you regret. You’re being obnoxious.”

“Says the girl telling me to shut up.”

Lor hugs the pillow tighter, his arms pulling at his chest and bandages. I cringe as I think of what the movement must be doing to his wound. Tugging it apart, putting pressure on the remaining stitches…

But he remains nonchalant, even as a fresh stream of blood seeps out the open wound. It’s just a few drops at first, but quickly turns into a small crimson stream.

I press the back of my hand to my mouth. Usually, blood doesn’t bother me, but the sheer amount of it coming from Lor’s wound… It reminds me of that spear piercing Ashe’s wing.

I take in a shuddering breath, and it inflates my head with a tingling sensation.
Focus
, I tell myself.
Or count, or do something to keep from fainting. Anything.
Lor’s tattoo catches my eye, the uninjured part wrapping around his shoulder, and I stare hard at it. It’ll work as a distraction.

Blood trickles over his chest, blending with the black of his tattoo, seemingly giving life to the inked flames.

I know those flames so well. Every curve of them, every highlight and boldly shaded area. The tattoo looks just like I remember it on Ashe: beautiful and stunning. But somehow it’s… different. It had been a piece of artwork on Ashe; he’d never gone shirtless, because people would stare, and he’d be ashamed.

But on Lor, it isn’t artwork. It’s like another limb that he proudly carries close to him. Still beautiful and stunning, but completely natural.

“You want something, sweetheart?” He’s lifted his head off the pillow, and is staring at me with one eyebrow raised.

“No.” My voice is a little weak, but stronger than I expected.

“You’re staring at me.”

I shake my head, clearing my thoughts, and take a hesitant step toward Lor. “I’ll stitch you back up. Just let me grab my medical kit.”

I make the offer before I can stop myself. The smart thing to do would be to call in a male healer to do the job, one who hasn’t been ordered to kill Lor. But right now I feel curious, not smart. I want a closer look at that tattoo. A small part of me is suspicious that it’s drawn on with charcoal, or that it’s nothing but an illusion that’ll disappear the moment I touch it again.

Lor’s grin returns, although it’s not as vibrant as before. “You? Sweetheart, you do remember you’re a princess, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I snap. I walk over to my closet, where I keep everything but the things I’m supposed to. There’s no clothes in here, but instead shelves of books and everything required to search for the man. Maps, pens, ink pots, letters, money. All the things I need, and all safely hidden in a place no one would dare to look. After all, princesses are given certain amounts of privacy.

I shuffle through my belongings, and pull out the medical kit I remember stashing in the closet a while ago. Nine months ago, to be exact. The month after Ashe died. I’d decided that I would never be caught in the same situation as Ashe, and that I needed to be prepared to run. So I’d stashed some money and basic traveling items into the closet, including a medical kit. That way I was always ready to flee.

If only I’d been this prepared ten months ago.

I walk back to Lor and sit next to him on the bed. He watches me closely, trying to cover his suspicion with a look of nonchalance. It doesn’t work. Every day, I wake to see my own hard, scrutinizing gaze in the mirror. I’m too familiar with the expression to not recognize it right away.

“Relax,” I say. “I know what I’m doing.”

He grunts and eyes the medical kit. It’s a wooden box with a willow carved into the lid, the branches of the tree criss-crossing into intricate runes of the Old Language. ‘
Power’
is what the runes spell, according to Jackal. He said the box was originally made to hold pen and paper.

I open the box’s lid and take out a needle, pushing a strand of flax thread through the eye-hole. I try not to think of how close I am to Lor, of how foolish I’m being. One grab, one punch, and he could…

No, I really can’t think of that. I need to focus, because I haven’t stitched a wound in years. Not that I’m going to tell Lor that.

It’s not like I’ll make a mistake; I might not have Ashe’s perfect precision, but I have his memory for details. And I remember perfectly the day Jackal brought an uncooked pot-roast into my chambers, dumped it onto my desk, and demanded I sew a line of stitches into it. A straight line, not to deep, not to shallow. And I remember failing, and the weeks of pot roasts it took to get that line absolutely perfect.

“Roll on your side,” I say to Lor. “Your good side, I mean. I need to be able to get to that gash.”

He nods and shifts positions, all the time keeping an eye on me. My breath catches as I see his back; two jagged scars rip down his skin, one on either side of his spine. They’re an inch thick and still a light pink, as if the wounds had only healed recently. The tattoo still shows on the pearly skin of the scars, but it’s still impossible to not notice the raised marks.

I shudder as I try to imagine what could have caused the scars. “Your back…”

He scoffs. “Are you squeamish, princess?”

“What happened?” I choke out.

“I already told you in the prison. I got my wings ripped off.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I glance up, meeting his gaze for a fleeting second. The red of his eyes is haunting, and as it focuses on me, it’s alluring.

“You’re hurt pretty badly,” I mumble, focusing my attention back on his more recent wound. I realize a moment too late how stupid the words are. Of course he knows he’s hurt badly. He can feel the throbbing pain, the torn flesh and ligaments.

“Yeah.” He shrugs. “But I’m alive, so it doesn’t matter much.”

I look over his expression; it’s still suspicious, but not pain-filled. Not pained at
all
. “Does your species have a higher pain tolerance than humans?”

“No.”

“Then why don’t you look like you’re hurting?”

“Because I’m not. I can’t feel pain anymore.”

For a moment, I’m relieved. Lor may as well be a pot-roast, and if I make a mistake, it won’t matter all that much. But then I see his expression. His suspicion has vanished, replaced by sadness and something else. Anger.

“You miss feeling pain,” I say, and it’s not a question.

He runs a hand over his head, as if trying to push away his angry thoughts. “It sounds crazy, but… yeah. I miss it. I mean, pain is such a
natural
thing. It’s vital. So when you can’t feel pain, it’s like… I don’t know. It’s just…” He trails off and bites his lip.

“It’s like someone has ripped away a part of you, and you’re no longer whole,” I say slowly. “You can’t feel, you can only react. And reacting is so much less rewarding.”

He raises an eyebrow at me. “You can’t feel pain either?”

“I don’t think I could really feel it properly before… someone. Now I feel it too clearly.”

“You’re not talking about physical pain, are you?” he asks.

I narrow my eyes. “Why would you say that?”

“You’re so careful with the needle. And you forget to do that kind of stuff after you lose physical pain.” He cocks his head to the side. “Emotional pain. That’s your issue, isn’t it?”

I close my eyes, trying to shut him out. “You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I do. Your eyes tell the whole story. They’re scarred.”

I wince and don’t reply. After a few moments, I work up the courage to open my eyes. Lor is staring at me, this time his gaze more evaluating than critical. Then he smiles. It’s not that crazy grin of his, and not a façade. It’s just a small, reassuring smile, and it looks nice on his rugged face.

“You shouldn’t miss the pain,” I whisper.

He shakes his head and replies in a voice just as soft, “And you shouldn’t hide from it.”

I’m not hiding. I won’t hide. I can’t.

I repeat the words to myself over and over as I move the needle toward Lor’s chest. He flinches away, probably from some instinct that hasn’t vanished with his ability to feel pain. Then he clears his throat and stills, his fist tightly clenched at his side.

The tendons running down his arm are so taut, they look like they’re about to burst from his skin. He stares at the needle, eyebrows furrowed, like he thinks the thing might attack.

A small smile twitches at the corner of my lip. Of all the things an Angel could be afraid of… “You’re scared of needles.”

He clenches his other fist into a ball. “It’s a long story.”

“What kind of long story?” I inch the needle closer to him, careful to keep my hand steady. If I wobble, and Lor gets much more scared, then he won’t let me sew him up. And if he loses too much more blood… No, I can’t think about that option.

“It’s… complicated,” Lor replies.

“Meaning you have no good excuse for being afraid of them, so you’re just going to avoid my question?”