(Alash Vortex POV)
The walk back from the compound was longer than the walk there. That isn't how distances are supposed to work, but my chest had kept count of every step, and by the courtyard I was breathing more carefully than I wanted anyone to notice.
Mia noticed. We stopped near enough to the carriage that I could have sat down in it, and I would have, except that she had taken hold of my sleeve.
She did it without comment, as she might have steadied a cup, and searched my face for whatever I wasn't telling her.
"Can you travel?" she said.
"Two healers say I can."
"I did not ask them."
"I can travel," I said. "In a carriage. With my feet up. I've been sentenced to it."
"And your chest?"
"Is being looked after by two healers and everybody else in this fort who can count. Mia, they're all treating me like a child."
"You are a child," said Mia.
Lyssairia made a noise that she turned, too late, into a cough.
"I'm a healer," I said, with dignity. "And a duke's son."
