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Viago waits.
He has always been good at waiting. He is, at his core, a patient man. Methodical, not given to impulse. It is a trait that has served him well in his years as Fifth Talon, the ability to hold until the other players have made their moves, to see the terrain and plan accordingly.
He paces the hall in long strides, muscles coiled, spine rigid, his jaw clenched so tight the muscles ache. There is blood on his clothes—hers. Today, waiting is agony, unbearable. On the other side of the door, he can hear the murmurs of the healers, the rustle of hurried movement.
An hour passes, then another. He waits, and he waits and he—
The door opens.
The healer is a woman in her fifties, with sleek grey hair and blood on her hands.
“Well?” Viago demands.
“She’ll live,” she says, “but you should be prepared. She won’t be the same.”
He was warned. He knew the injury would alter things—how could it not? The dagger had severed her spine, and while the healers saved her life, they could not reverse what damage had been done, no matter how much gold he offered.
She has not spoken to him in days, not since he sat by her bedside while the healer explained what was taken from her.
She must blame him, he thinks. He certainly blames himself. He should not have favoured her so obviously, so she would not have been a target. He should have better hidden her return route, so they could not find her. He should have found her faster, before the injury, before—
It is his fault, and she must know it.
He does not know how to be gentle with her, and so on fifth day, when she is recovered enough from the infection to sit up in the bed, he strides in, all brusque command.
“It’s time to get up,” he says, his tone sharp.
Amelia snorts, derisive. “I can’t walk, Viago.”
When he wheels the chair into the room, she stares at it and at him. It is a rickety thing, the best he was able to acquire on short notice. It will take some time for a proper chair to be built.
“It’s time you got out of this room,” he says. “I’ll help you.”
“I don’t want your help.”
Viago merely shrugs. “That’s too bad, because you’re getting it anyway.”
She will let no one push the wheelchair.
“I can do it myself” is becoming a familiar refrain, whether it is true or not.
Viago watches her, though he tries to avoid the appearance of watching. She snaps at him when he hovers, when he offers assistance, and so he tries—as much as he can—to appear absent.
There is a tree on the estate, tall and laden heavily with figs. Looking at it makes his stomach turn.
There was a child once who would climb that tree, no matter how many times Viago lectured her or tried to redirect her to the climbing wall.
Now the wheelchair sits beneath its boughs, and the woman in it stares into the distance, and Viago thinks—
Enough.
There are too many memories here, too many reminders.
There are numerous strategic reasons to relocate to Treviso. The Antaam that come overland will come from the north, and perhaps here they can pause their advance. The Crows’ leadership is in shambles, there are so few of them left, the houses left leaderless, their heirs lost still in disarray. It is better than they band together, fragmented as they are, than let each House fall alone.
If there other, more personal reasons, he will keep those to himself.
“It wasn’t your fault, Vi.” Teia’s voice is as soft as her fingers through his hair.
It is so tempting to believe her, to believe he might be absolved. But Teia protected her people, while Viago failed. He was too complacent, too confident in his precautions. He should have known better—
“Viago,” Teia says, more firmly this time, and he exhales, trying to will his body to relax.
“Whose fault is it, if not mine?” he asks, his voice quiet in the dark stillness of her bed chamber. “I should have—”
“It was Kortez,” she reminds him. “Kortez and his sycophants. Not you. You didn’t do this to her.”
But Kortez is dead, and there is no use in blaming a dead man.
Teia is good with her.
He watches them together, keeping his own distance. Teia treats Amelia as she always has, with warmth and jokes, affectionate flattery. Yesterday, she even managed to make Amelia laugh, a sound Viago has not heard in weeks and that he did not realize how much he missed.
It comes less naturally for him. If he is gentle with her—if he tries to be soft with her—she only snaps at him.
It is easier to push instead.
He watches her work through the exercises assigned to rebuild her strength. She approaches it with a determined kind of stubbornness, working past the point of exhaustion.
Viago should tell her to stop, to slow down.
He cannot bring himself to. He has never gone easy on her, not since she was a child, and she would not appreciate it if he changed now.
Instead, he watches in silent evaluation, assessing her form as she works her way through her routine. He owes her this much, he thinks—to watch, to bear witness.
“She’s bored,” Teia tells him. “You can’t keep her locked up in your compound forever.”
Viago knows this is true, and yet he is loathe to acknowledge it. Since they came to Treviso, he has rarely allowed her far from his sight. ”I am her Talon,” he insists, though the justification is thin. “Besides—I’m hardly keeping her here. She goes to the market.”
“Practically under armed guard.”
This, too, is true. If he cannot watch her then he must set the rest of the House to do so, and she goes nowhere without a crowd surrounding her, protecting her. He failed once, already, to keep her safe. He will not make the same mistakes again.
“Vi—”
“She’s my Crow, Teia.” There is a warning in the words. “It is my decision, not yours.”
“At least give her something to do,” she insists. “Wasn’t it you who told me your deadliest weapon was your mind, not any poison-dipped blade? Why are you letting hers go to waste? She is not a child anymore.”
“This is not up for debate.”
He does not mean to consider it, but Teia’s words play over in his mind regardless.
He watches Amelia, and he knows the Seventh Talon is right.
She is not a child, not helpless, and yet he has let her believe that is what he thinks. He has left her without a purpose in his House, directionless.
The garden, then, is a compromise with himself. Behind the locked gates of the compound, it is as secure as he can make it. It is also a signal of his trust, as imperfect as his expression of it may be. His affection, such as it is, has always been tied up with usefulness, and that he believes her still useful is in some way the best gift he can give.
He does not know how to be gentle, and she would not want it if he were.
Viago leans over the table, examining the sketches spread out across its surface with a critical eye. The diagrams are neatly drawn and labelled, laying out the exact positioning of the raised beds and the plants that will grow in each. The garden has been carefully planned, each section dedicated to different types of plants—healing plants in the southwest corner, those with mind-altering properties in the northwest, and so on. Wide paths are drawn between them, to be smoothly paved.
“Hm,” he says, his tone unimpressed. “You have the monkshood in the wrong spot. It should be next to the false hellebore; their growing conditions are complimentary. And add lungwort. It attracts pollinators and repels pests.”
They are pointless corrections; the monkshood and hellebore would grow perfectly well where they are, the lungwort is hardly necessary. And yet it is necessary to correct her, not because she has done it wrong but because she expects it from him, because if he was satisfied with a first attempt he would be going easy on her, and she would resent it.
Amelia regards him with an unreadable expression. “Fine,” she says. “Anything else?”
Viago will insist that the gardens are useful, that their beauty is an accident and not a function. And yet he loves the smell of the soil, and the vibrant colours of the flowers. The gardens are alive, even when their purpose is death, a reminder of something he will claim he has forgotten.
Amelia glances up at him when he comes through the gates. There is dirt on her hands, and a dark smudge on her cheek where she has rubbed her face. The air is thick with the scent of foxglove and oleander, of green and growing things.
“Well?” she asks, expectant.
He looks around. The plants are still small, delicate things, their roots adjusting to new soil. It will be months yet before anything is ready for harvesting, and yet—it will grow.
He nods. “You’ve done well,” he says, his voice gruff to temper the praise.