Counting Shadows (Duplicity)

tingling sensation.
Focus
, I tell myself.
Or count, or do something to keep from fainting. Anything.
Lor’s tattoo catches my eye, the uninjured part wrapping around his shoulder, and I stare hard at it. It’ll work as a distraction.
    Blood trickles over his chest, blending with the black of his tattoo, seemingly giving life to the inked flames.
    I know those flames so well. Every curve of them, every highlight and boldly shaded area. The tattoo looks just like I remember it on Ashe: beautiful and stunning. But somehow it’s… different. It had been a piece of artwork on Ashe; he’d never gone shirtless, because people would stare, and he’d be ashamed.
    But on Lor, it isn’t artwork. It’s like another limb that he proudly carries close to him. Still beautiful and stunning, but completely natural.
    “You want something, sweetheart?” He’s lifted his head off the pillow, and is staring at me with one eyebrow raised.
    “No.” My voice is a little weak, but stronger than I expected.
    “You’re staring at me.”
    I shake my head, clearing my thoughts, and take a hesitant step toward Lor. “I’ll stitch you back up. Just let me grab my medical kit.”
    I make the offer before I can stop myself. The smart thing to do would be to call in a male healer to do the job, one who hasn’t been ordered to kill Lor. But right now I feel curious, not smart. I want a closer look at that tattoo. A small part of me is suspicious that it’s drawn on with charcoal, or that it’s nothing but an illusion that’ll disappear the moment I touch it again.
    Lor’s grin returns, although it’s not as vibrant as before. “You? Sweetheart, you do remember you’re a princess, don’t you?”
    “Yes,” I snap. I walk over to my closet, where I keep everything but the things I’m supposed to. There’s no clothes in here, but instead shelves of books and everything required to search for the man. Maps, pens, ink pots, letters, money. All the things I need, and all safely hidden in a place no one would dare to look. After all, princesses are given certain amounts of privacy.
    I shuffle through my belongings, and pull out the medical kit I remember stashing in the closet a while ago. Nine months ago, to be exact. The month after Ashe died. I’d decided that I would never be caught in the same situation as Ashe, and that I needed to be prepared to run. So I’d stashed some money and basic traveling items into the closet, including a medical kit. That way I was always ready to flee.
    If only I’d been this prepared ten months ago.
    I walk back to Lor and sit next to him on the bed. He watches me closely, trying to cover his suspicion with a look of nonchalance. It doesn’t work. Every day, I wake to see my own hard, scrutinizing gaze in the mirror. I’m too familiar with the expression to not recognize it right away.
    “Relax,” I say. “I know what I’m doing.”
    He grunts and eyes the medical kit. It’s a wooden box with a willow carved into the lid, the branches of the tree criss-crossing into intricate runes of the Old Language. ‘
Power’
is what the runes spell, according to Jackal. He said the box was originally made to hold pen and paper.
    I open the box’s lid and take out a needle, pushing a strand of flax thread through the eye-hole. I try not to think of how close I am to Lor, of how foolish I’m being. One grab, one punch, and he could…
    No, I really can’t think of that. I need to focus, because I haven’t stitched a wound in years. Not that I’m going to tell Lor that.
    It’s not like I’ll make a mistake; I might not have Ashe’s perfect precision, but I have his memory for details. And I remember perfectly the day Jackal brought an uncooked pot-roast into my chambers, dumped it onto my desk, and demanded I sew a line of stitches into it. A straight line, not to deep, not to shallow. And I remember failing, and the weeks of pot roasts it took to get that line absolutely perfect.
    “Roll on your side,” I say to Lor. “Your good side, I mean. I need to be able to get to that gash.”
    He nods and shifts positions, all the time keeping an eye on me. My breath catches as I see his back; two jagged scars rip down his skin, one on either side of his spine. They’re an inch thick and still a light pink, as if the wounds had only healed recently. The tattoo still shows on the pearly skin of the scars, but it’s still impossible to not notice the raised marks.
    I shudder as I try to