“The priority was to restore you to complete function,” she said. “The actual trauma wasn’t bad. The poisoning was acute, but not as difficult to overcome as others might have been. The only issue was keeping you breathing, for a while. You should be able to enter battle if you need to.”

Tavi nodded slowly. Then he sat up, and said, “You look terrible. Get some rest. Battle’s coming.”

Dorotea looked over at Crassus again. “I won’t leave him.”

“You’ve already said you’ve done all you can,” Tavi said, gently. “And other lives are going to depend on you. You’ll rest. That is an order.”

Dorotea’s eyes flickered back to him, hot for a half second, before her mouth turned up into a slow, tired smile. “You can’t give me an order, sir. You aren’t the captain of the Free Aleran. My orders come from him.”

“But I can order him,” Tavi said testily. “Bloody crows, what does a man have to do to get a little respect around here? Am I the First Lord or not?”

Dorotea’s smile widened, and she bowed her head. “Very well. Your Majesty. There are guards around and over and quite likely under the tent. But speak, and they will be here.”

“Thank you.”

Tavi waited until she had left to ease himself out of the tub. He felt shaky, but no worse than he had any of a number of other times he’d endured a healer’s attentions. He climbed out without help and found a clean set of clothes laid out for him.

Tavi got dressed, though it was painful to bend at the waist. The strange sword he had been stabbed with had left an equally strange scar, a stiff ridge of nearly purple tissue, and the area around it was exquisitely tender. He slid into his pants and belted his tunic on cautiously. A quick spike of pain went through him and made him clench his teeth over suddenly frozen breath.

The awareness of a gaze upon him made Tavi look back, and he found Crassus awake again, bleary eyes focused on him.

“M’ mother,” Crassus said. “She was alive. And you didn’t t-tell me.”