4th of Darkfall, 412 AH
A flat crack of wood on wood woke me. The shallow sleep I kept dropping into gave way, and the pain at my temple flared up first, sharpening the moment I moved my head.
A man crossed the room. Light brown hair, a soft face, brown eyes. None of it told me who he was. Then he reached the bed, and it stopped mattering, because his hands were on my face.
Both of them. One on each cheek, tilting my head up toward the light so he could look at me. He squeezed too hard and my head hurt. Every part of me wanted to pull back, but I held back the urge for now. That must be the father, then.
"Klaus." He took his hands from my face and held up three fingers between us. "How many?"
A concussion check, presumably. One question wasn't enough to tell me what he was testing yet, but the intent was clean, and that was probably the part that mattered to him.
"Three," I said.
The breath he'd been holding went out all at once. His shoulders relaxed. The relief on him was enormous. All that, for a kid who wasn't even in the room anymore.
"Good boy," he said, low, and pulled me into a hug.
I held back a grimace. A grown man does not enjoy being called that.
He smelt of soap and a faint green smell under it, herbal, some tincture or wash. His heart went quick against my ear, still coming down from the urgency that had carried him through the door.
He pulled back to look at me again.
"Does your head hurt, are you dizzy, when you turn it, is it worse when you turn it? Are you hungry, you have to be hungry, when did you wake, was it just now, did Aldric bring you water, did you keep it down—"
"Yes to most of those," I cut him off. He showed no sign of running out on his own, and I wanted to go back to sleep.
He went still.
"You sound different."
This man knew the boy well enough to notice the difference after two short answers. Pretending to be his son was going to take more effort than this.
All right, I need to be more careful.
"My head hurts." I played it up again and broke his gaze, pressing my palm flat to my temple. I'd have to get better at acting sooner rather than later.
Silence.
"Mm." He nodded.
"The healer said there might be gaps," he murmured to himself. His thumb touched the edge of the bandage at my temple. "A knock like that can muddle things for a while. They'll come back."
He wanted the alibi to be true. All I had to do was not drop it.
He sat back on the edge of the bed, scrubbed a hand down his own face, and addressed the ceiling.
"Why would he climb that wall anyway? There's nothing up there but old stone and a long drop. Damned thing, standing there all these years waiting for one of my children to fall off it." A breath out through his nose. "And now the healer tells me there may be gaps."
The ceiling kept its own counsel. I'd have told him the wall won, except jokes was the one thing I couldn't afford to do right now.
"I have you back, though," he said, more to himself than to me.
"All right." He clapped once. "Here is your work for today. Are you listening? This is important."
"I'm listening."
"You lie here. You drink the water. You eat what comes. And you let people take care of you," he said. "That's all. Can you do that?"
That was mostly the plan already. Rest until the concussion eased, and keep my answers short while I worked out how a kid was supposed to act and sound.
"I'll try." I nodded slowly.
"Is he dead?" A voice arrived from the doorway before he could answer.
She was maybe five or six, a round-faced scrap of a child who came in at a dead run and pulled up a few feet short of the bed. Light brown hair like his. She studied me with gravity.
"He looks a bit dead."
Hard to argue that, knowing what happened.
"He's not dead, Rosabel," he said, warmth coming into his voice. "He's resting. Which is exactly what you could help with. I have an important task for you. Go to the kitchen. Tell them your brother is awake and he's to have broth, small amounts. Can you do that?"
"Small amounts." She nodded, spun toward the corridor, and broke into a run.
"Don't run!" he called after her.
Her footsteps slowed for half a second, then broke into a run again. He watched the empty doorway with a smile before turning back to me.
He took my hand.
"There you are," he said, very quietly.
I wasn't. It was still his son's body, but someone else was inside it now.
It wasn't like I could bring him back anyway.
A plate shattered somewhere down the corridor, followed by a woman's sharp voice. A higher one threaded beneath it, already explaining at speed. The words were too fast and too far to catch, but the cadence belonged to a small person talking her way out of trouble.
His head turned toward the sound. He sighed. "I should go and see to that."
He didn't move.