32. Killian

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

KILLIAN

T he Hawk children were sitting in a little half-circle around me, staring with wide eyes and open mouths like I was doing magic tricks at a celebration and not training drills with my spear.

Anything I could have said would have been rude, so I simply let them watch, and practiced.

It was all I could do.

I was no healer, to make Hector better. I could feed him, yes, but that only took so long. I could sit and hold his hand while he lay unconscious, but what good did that do anyone?

Probably as much good as it did for me to swing my spear around for the entertainment of children, but at least training drills felt as though I was doing something .

Beside all that, every time I walked into the house, Paris gave me a look like I'd kicked him. He tried not to, always busying himself with whatever it was the husband of the Hawk Chief did every day, but his accusing eyes always strayed back to me.

Telling him that I hated myself even more than he hated me wasn't going to help anyone. That was just an attempt to feel better about what I'd done. Like a child who apologized for a wrongdoing and expected there to be no other consequences. We were living the consequences of our actions, and apologies would do nothing.

Brett had given Paris Avianitis. Paris had brought his family to Nemeda. Hector had come to the wall. And I had failed to keep my libido in check. We had all brought this situation into being, in one way or another. Now, we all had to live with whatever part we might have played in it. However good or innocent our intentions had been, however hard we tried to help now, we all had to watch Hector toss and turn and sweat and cry out, curling up in a ball with the pain.

His bones, Paris had said to Brett. That his bones had hurt when he'd gotten sick.

Perhaps it was a silly presumption on my part, but it made sense. I'd seen enough southlander bones to know they looked different from Nemedan ones. The notion that it was even possible to change, to gain a bird, seemed impossible. No wonder it hurt so much.

Combine that with the fact that the few people I knew who had survived Avianitis all had one thing in common: they were tiny. Paris was the biggest of the lot, but even he was short and slender, for a man. Esmerelda and Helena were both short and slim. There was a Crane who had come with a refugee family from the south who'd survived Avianitis in his teens, but he'd been a slip of a thing at the time, even if he was enormous now that he was twenty.

Hector? Well, he was no giant like Orestes, but he was taller and larger than anyone else I knew who'd survived the illness. He had impressive muscles, made even more substantial from his time in the smithy. If the illness was about bones, well, he was built sturdier than any of the others as well, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest.

It was one of the many things I liked about him—he was no wilting flower, and I'd never once been afraid he'd break if I held him too tight. Because that was what I did. It was practically who I was. I held onto everything too tightly, because I was afraid it would be taken away.

I was so fucking tired of everything and everyone being taken away.

Hector... no. I wasn't going to dwell on that. I had a gaggle of children staring at me. If I broke down crying, that wouldn't end well. It wasn't the impression I wanted to leave the Hawk children of the Crane Clan as a whole.

Not that there was a single Hawk alive with a judgmental bone in their body. No, they would just worry over me and try to caretake me like Brett always did when he could tell something was wrong. Fortunately, they were children. They didn't know me like Brett did.

As I practiced, I heard the flutter of wings—lots of wings—indicating an arrival. I didn't break motion, but when I turned in the right direction, it was impossible to miss the glossy black feathers that screamed Raven.

Minerva's lot, then.

A moment later, a feminine voice was raised in anger. "—out here playing with children while my brother—" It cut off with an anguished sob.

I didn't turn to them.

Didn't stop.

Nothing I could do or say would make things better. I couldn't make Hector better. Couldn't make anyone feel better.

Couldn't do a single fucking thing.