Iyer's eyes shifted under his eyelids as the physician fed him another spoonful of Valerian root solution. Arynn watched on with a face hewn from stone, and her canines sunken into her tongue. The root would keep his body asleep while he healed from the bandaged wound in his chest, but with the quantities they were feeding him, she was afraid he would die from an overdoses.

The physician set the ceramic bowl down on the wooden table next to the bed, and bowed to them before he left the bedroom. Withian, who had been lingering in the doorway, moved to the side to let the man pass, and took a seat on the bed. He pulled a bowl with water into his lap and soaked a towel.

It was odd to see him sitting beside Iyer, eyes downcast and shoulders tense as he wrung the water from the cotton and leaned forward, mindful of the bowl in his lap, to dab at Iyer's brow. It was like Arynn was looking at Iyer, caring for his reflection. She turned her eyes away from them, and moved to another side of the room.

An earthen bowl sat on a blanket on the floor, surrounded by snuffed white candles and a bunked of dried sage. Arynn stepped closer, brows furrowed, to see that the bowl was filled with water. She sat on her haunches, and reached out a finger to touch the lump of clear rock that sat on the bottom of it, almost completely invisible in the clear water. She startled when Withian's voice came from behind her.

"Don't touch that," he said.

Her finger curled away from the crystal. "What is it," she asked, unbound hair falling from her shoulder as she turned her head to look at him. She rose to her feet, and stepped over the bowl to stand at the edge of the room, where a low railing was the only thing protecting her from a very high drop.

"Iyer uses it to see things," explained Withian. "He sits and stares at his reflection until he's in an altered state of mind. It opens his third eye, or whatever he calls it. Says it makes him see things that others can't. The crystal is meant to give him something to focus his stare on, and the sage is for smudging."

She placed her hand on the railing. "What kind of things," she asked. She could see the harbour from here, where ships lay anchored at the docks. August had been gone for a week now, which was about two and a half days longer than the trip to Solaris should take. For a fleeting moment, fear nestled itself inside her chest at the thought of him being captured by the Scorpions.

Withian dropped the towel in the bowl and put it back where he'd taken it from. He wiped his hands on his trousers, and pulled a hand through his white hair, and said, "He saw that our mother was going to die. He warned her not to run, because it would lead to her death, but she didn't listen. And then he saw you."

She turned around so quickly she fell against the railing. Her nails scraped painfully at the stone as she pushed herself up, wrists groaning in protest at the weight that suddenly rested on them. "What so you mean he saw me," she asked as she stood upright again, and stepped back over the bowl and candles.

"In one of his visions," answered Withian as he walked away from the bed and sat down in the chair behind the grand desk. "He described you perfectly—brown skin, dark hair and slightly up-tilted green eyes. He tried to paint you from memory, but he said that it didn't do you justice." A rueful grin spread on his face. "He said that you're the kind of beautiful men would go to war for."

Many had called her beautiful, but that wasn't what she wanted to be reduced to—it wasn't what she wanted to be remembered for. Arynn didn't want men to go to war for her; she wanted them to follow her into one. She wanted them to pledge their sword to her and fight by her side. "What did he do with the painting?"

Withian's eyes were pinned on her as she moved toward Iyer's bed, adjusting her sleeves as she walked. "He burned it," he said quietly as he watched her take the seat on Iyer's opposite side, and then let his eyes fall to the floor between his feet. "He wanted to remake it when you were here, but when he finally laid eyes on you, he decided against it."

Arynn's eyebrows furrowed slightly as she reached out her hand and traced the line of Iyer's brow, the ridge of his nose, the bow of his lip, with the iron top of her nail. "Why," she whispered, as her eyes drooped. She felt the weariness settle in her bones as she looked at his peaceful, sleeping face—the twin to Withian's, whose face had been made for war.

She couldn't remember the last time she had laid her head on a pillow, or stretched out her limbs to rest. She'd thrown herself into the storms of sword that came with the Rattlesnakes, let it consume her whole like she always did when she felt the last sliver of hope slip from her grasp. Her mind had shut down the moment she had picked up a sword and taken the first swing at her opponent, and her body would be soon to follow. The only rest she'd gotten, were stolen moments during sparring rounds, when the blows she dealt were too much for them to take.

"Because he has a lifetime to look at you."

Her vision blurred. A single tear rolled down her cheek as she lifted Iyer's hand to her mouth and pressed a kiss to the healing crescent wounds. "I'm sorry I didn't protect you," she whispered with the pads of his fingers pressed to her lips. "I should've snapped her neck instead of gaping like a fool. I should've seen the attack coming, but I didn't, and I'm sorry."

Arynn didn't know if he could hear her through the mumbling and the quickening breathing, but if he did, she hoped he could find it in himself to forgive her. She had failed him at the parade, but she would make it right. She would have him cured, and she would choke the life from the Roven girl. If Iyer Addinell were to die, it would be by Arynn's own hand. Anyone else who dared to take that from would die screaming.