My heart squeezed. So calm, so efficient. Who was this young woman she had suddenly become? She’d been busy costuming Arwia while we were gone. She said her idea would ensure the nin would be taken seriously when she made her claim to the ensis, but neither of them would tell me how they were going to make her appear to be a warrior when she was so small. According to Nanaea, I had to see it to believe it.

I glanced past Humusi and Nanaea to Rish where he lay on one of my pallets, sleeping soundly, his silky curls spilled across his forehead. He clutched his stump to his chest in his sleep, but the bandage was clean. No blood. No seepage. He was healing.

And now to tend to Dagan.

Kasha squatted, grinding pokeroot into aloe with the mortar and pestle near the tent flap for someone who’d been burned with pitch. “Will you hand me my healing satchel? I want to give Dagan something to calm him.”

“Sure.” He reached behind him and pulled it up by the strap, then handed it to me. “I accidentally knocked into it and some of the bottles fell out, but I put them all back in and the rest of the ones in that bag over there, too.” He pointed to a small sack that lay near my healing table, hidden underneath a pile of blankets. It was the sack that had held the gochala and the rest of the tinctures that Iltani had stolen from the merchant. I’d forgotten all about it!

“My thanks, Brother. Now focus on your task. I’ll be back soon.”

He bobbed his head and I left the tent, striding purposefully around Nasu and Arwia, who were both staring stonily at the fire. But I slowed my pace as I walked past Assata, gently squeezing her shoulder. She flinched, her eyes haunted by ghosts.

Dagan sat on a quilt in the corner of the tent in darkness, his head in his hands. His big shoulders shook with grief. Tears filled my eyes and love blazed through my chest as he sobbed. Quickly, I lit several candles, and knelt by him.

“Arammu, look at me. Look at me, at your Kammani. Please, my love.”

I took his face in between my hands, but he was inconsolable, his grief cracking his spirit in half. “First Rish was hurt and now Shep is dead. He can’t be.”

Sitting next to him, I wrapped an arm around his shoulders as he wept, and tried to pour comfort from my heart to his, but nothing would give him solace. Eventually, though, he lay down on his side, and I stroked his hair, murmuring in his ear, found the chamomile oil in my healing satchel, and dabbed several drops on his tongue. Before long, his thick black lashes fluttered closed, and his even breathing told me he’d fallen into a fitful sleep.

Wearily, I eased away from him and returned the chamomile oil to my bag. As I tucked it into one of the pockets near the poppy, a strange red glass bottle nestled next to the laurel caught my eye. I pulled it out, and nearly burst from excitement.