Inside the cramped rock recess, the sound of tearing leather ceased as Paxa Sel pulled the two halves of Fellis’s climbing glove clear of his left hand. The healer dropped the blood-stiffened cowhide into the gravel. Her expression tightened into the grim, packed mask she wore whenever she opened a fracture packet.
The back of Fellis’s hand was a swollen, blackened mass of bruised tissue and torn skin. The iron band of the falling deadfall had struck across the outer margin of his palm, shearing the skin in a three-inch slanted jagged cut that exposed the white sheen of the extensor tendons.
Paxa didn’t waste time with soothing words. She took a linen sponge from her satchel, soaked it with boiled willow-bark wash from her copper flask. Then she pressed it firmly against the jagged cut to clear the pooled blood.
Fellis drew his breath in through his teeth with a sharp, hissing gasp, his heels digging into the shale, but he didn’t pull his arm away. He kept his eyes fixed rigidly on Yseld’s bronze belt buckle. His jaw was clenched so hard that the muscles in his temples stood out like cords.
“Talk to me, Paxa,” Kezra said, crouching beside the healer’s shoulder.
