“Oh. Well, then. I suppose as long as they don’t take any important pieces.” She departed, Geth lugging the table behind her.
That left Lilette alone with Han. He eased himself onto the floor and carefully removed his shin guard and boot. The material beneath was dark and unnaturally heavy. He pulled up his pant leg, exposing a nasty gash in his calf.
Lilette took a step toward him. “When did that happen?”
“Chen gave it to me.”
She knelt before Han, inspecting the wound without touching it. “Can you move it?”
One side of his mouth crooked up. “I’ve been running on it for half the night.”
She shot him a glare. “Didn’t that hurt?”
He shook his head. “That always comes later.”
“I’m going for help,” she said, pushing herself up.
Han reached up and gripped her arm. “Just bring supplies.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “I’m not sure I’m the best—”
“Have you met our physicker? I can handle myself.”
That made sense, and it wasn’t like Lilette hadn’t dealt with wounds before. She stepped back into the hold, weaving her way among the injured. She asked about supplies. Someone had found an apothecary kit. She managed to procure a needle, pig-intestine thread, and a bucket of cold seawater.
Kneeling before Han, Lilette rolled his trouser leg over his knee, cringing at the feel of cold, sticky blood beneath her fingers. “You’re lucky. It’s with the grain of the muscle instead of against it. You’ll still have use of your leg. As long as rot doesn’t set in.”
She felt him watching her. “Have you done this often?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Fa and I could never afford the physicker.” She met Han’s searching gaze. “This is going to hurt. Do you need someone to hold you down?”
“No.”
She poured seawater onto his wound, washing away clots of blood. Through the seeping was an unnaturally dark strip. She picked out a piece of his trousers and separated the cut with the pads of her fingers, washing and cleaning it out as she went.
Han winced and tensed up beneath her, but he never made a sound. When she’d finished, she glanced up to find him watching her, his face soft.
A blush wound up her neck as she washed the blood from her hands with more seawater. Careful not to look at him again, she called for someone to help her press the sides of his flesh together while she stitched.
When she finally finished, she wrapped the wound with strips of boiled cotton, then mopped up the blood and water, wringing the filth into a bucket. She wiped imaginary blood of her hands and studied Han as he lay on the floor with his eyes closed. His scar was on this side. A lock of hair had fallen across his face, and she had to resist the sudden urge to smooth it back. She looked quickly away and began unstrapping her stolen armor and setting it in a neat pile.
Last, she felt the weight of Chen’s pendant. She began to remove it, but Han reached toward the pendant before his hand fell back to his side. “That’s the token of the imperial house.”
“It was his.”
Han’s gaze met hers. “Wear it. Promise me.”
She hesitated. “Why?”
“Just promise me.”
She wanted to say no, but he’d already lost so much. She could give him this. She let the pendant fall back against her chest. “All right.” She settled down beside him. “What will you do? You don’t have to be a soldier anymore.”
He took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to be anything else.”
“Will you come with us?”
Han opened his eyes to study her, and his gaze felt like the lick of flames against her skin. “You might need me yet.”
Lilette wrung her hands as something warm and soft built in her middle. “I . . .” Her words grew thick and heavy in her throat. “Thank you. For what you did.”
“Lilette . . .” He hesitated. “What did you mean when you said you were saved for this—just before you knocked me out?”
She cast him a sheepish glance. “My mother came to me when I lay dying. She said I had to save as many as I could. I knew that if I didn’t free the witches, they would destroy Harshen, and somehow that would put into motion events that would destroy the world.”
He blinked at her. “So now that you freed the witches, Harshen is safe?”
She let out a long breath. “Yes.”
Han was silent a moment. “I never forgot you.”
The delicious warmth in Lilette’s middle spread outward.
He closed his eyes again. “You climbed into the cherry tree. I could barely see you through the blossoms.”