Kadeon's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Kadeon watched her wrap her hand, counting the layers of bandage. Three days between feedings meant she'd been cutting herself every seventy-two hours since she found him. Two weeks of that. Five times she'd bled to keep him alive. He looked at the rows of resurrection blooms lining the workbench, their petals glowing red in the dim chamber. Each one represented a choice she'd made. A cost she'd paid. The debt he owed wasn't abstract anymore. It had a number. He moved to the workbench and studied the arrangement. Twenty blooms, maybe more, crowded into clay pots along the carved surface. She couldn't maintain this alone while assassins closed in. She'd be feeding the flowers while someone put a blade through her ribs. He turned to face her. "You can't tend these and watch your back at the same time." She picked up the gold dagger, wiped the blood from its edge. "I don't have a choice. Without the blooms, I can't heal anyone. Without healing, I'm just a fugitive princess with no value to anyone." Her voice was steady, but her hand shook slightly as she set the blade down. "The flowers die in four days without blood. I die eventually either way." Kadeon looked at the hidden entrance above them, then back at the blooms. Two days until the assassins arrived. Four days until the flowers died. She needed protection and the flowers needed blood, and she couldn't give both at the same time. He made the calculation quickly. "I'll watch the approach from the greenhouse. You stay down here and tend the blooms when you need to. When they come, you seal this door and don't open it until I call clear." She started to argue but he cut her off. "The debt's not paid until you're alive to collect it. That means the flowers matter because you matter." Something shifted in her expression then. Not trust exactly. But recognition that he'd stopped measuring the debt by what he owed and started measuring it by what she'd already given.