Master Andrieu was three stitches deep in a soldier’s thigh when the boy burst through the infirmary door.

  “If it’s another sword cut, wait your turn,” he muttered without looking up, his fingers steady despite the chaos that had consumed Durnhal for the better part of two hours. The gash beneath his hands was clean—a graze from a pike head, nothing that would kill the man if he could keep still long enough for proper suturing.

  “It’s the Duchess,” the boy gasped, chest heaving. One of the gate runners, by his look. “She’s collapsed in the chapel. They can’t wake her.”

  Andrieu’s needle paused mid-stitch. Around the cramped infirmary, the wounded stirred restlessly on their pallets—seven men packed into a space meant for four, the air thick with smoke and the metallic scent of blood. His assistant, barely awake on his feet after hours of grinding herbs and boiling wine, looked up from his mortar.

  “She’s bleeding,” the boy pressed, eyes wide with the kind of fear that came from seeing too much death in too few hours. “Bad. There’s blood on the chapel stones, and she won’t wake up.”

  Gods preserve us. Andrieu tied off the stitch with quick, practiced movements and reached for his leather satchel. Bleeding bad enough to cause collapse—he’d seen it before. A gut wound, maybe. Or something torn deeper inside. The kind that could take a life quiet as drowning. No one had said how it happened, but it didn’t matter. If they’d waited too long…

  “Bring my kit,” he barked to his assistant. “All of it. And the sleep sponge—the one with the good opium.”

  The boy was already turning to go. “They’re waiting in the chapel, Master. Please hurry.”

  Andrieu wiped his hands on a blood-stained cloth and followed, his boots echoing against the stone corridors. Behind him, the soldier on the table groaned and tried to sit up, but there was no time for gentle reassurance now.

  The chapel’s main hall was a scene from a fever dream. Bodies covered every available space—wounded soldiers, burned civilians, children huddled against the walls with wide, frightened eyes. The air reeked of blood and smoke and fear-sweat, cut through with the acrid bite of cauterized flesh.

  Someone had tried to scrub the flagstones where the Duchess had fallen, but dark stains still bloomed across the stone like grotesque flowers. Around those stains, a rough circle had been cleared—patients moved back, their cots repositioned to create a path through the crowd. In a far corner, a still form lay beneath a bloodstained cloak.

  Near the altar, Andrieu caught sight of Lieutenant Verren’s distinctive silhouette, standing rigid as a sentinel beside the doorway to the vestry. The officer’s face was carved from stone, but his eyes tracked every movement in the chapel with the focused intensity of a man expecting another attack. Captain Serwin stood closer to the main entrance, speaking in low, urgent tones with two of his sergeants—still coordinating defenses even here, but his gaze kept drifting toward the vestry door.

  In the shadows near the north wall, Lord Daskar leaned against a pillar, his usually immaculate appearance disheveled, coat streaked with dust and something that might have been blood. He wasn’t pacing—that would have been beneath his dignity—but his fingers drummed a restless rhythm against his thigh, and his pale eyes never left the vestry entrance.

  “This way,” Mother Elna’s voice called from the doorway Verren guarded. The priestess emerged from what looked like a small side chamber, her grey habit even darker with bloodstains than when he’d last seen her. “We moved her to the vestry. Away from...” She gestured helplessly at the crowd of wounded faces turned their way, all watching, all waiting.

  Andrieu pushed through the narrow space that had been cleared for him, stepping carefully around outstretched hands and bandaged limbs. The patients tracked his movement with desperate hope, but he had eyes only for the doorway ahead. Verren stepped aside as he approached, offering a terse nod of acknowledgment, but the lieutenant’s jaw was so tight it looked ready to crack.

  Andrieu paused beside the lieutenant. “What happened?” he asked quietly.

  “Six of them broke into the chapel,” Verren replied, his voice barely above a whisper. “Killed Marcus when he tried to protect her.” His jaw tightened. “One of them put a blade in her before they fled.”

  The vestry beyond was cramped but blessedly quiet after the main chapel’s oppressive atmosphere. It was meant for storing ceremonial vessels and vestments, barely large enough for the makeshift bed they’d created from altar cloths and a wooden plank. Candlelight flickered from iron sconces, casting dancing shadows across stone walls hung with religious tapestries.

  And there she lay. Pale as carved marble, her dark hair plastered to her skull with sweat, breathing so shallow he had to watch for the rise and fall of her chest to be sure she still lived. Someone had cut away the bloodied fabric of her dress, leaving her in a thin chemise that showed the spreading crimson beneath.

  Behind him, he heard the soft scuff of boots as someone else entered the vestry—Verren, most likely, unable to stay away despite the lack of space. The lieutenant positioned himself just inside the doorway, close enough to respond to any threat, far enough back to let the cerusician work.

  “How long has she been like this?” he asked, kneeling beside the makeshift bed and pressing his fingers to her throat. The pulse was there, but fast and thready—the desperate rhythm of a body fighting to stay alive.

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  “Since she collapsed,” Elna replied, her voice tight with worry. “Perhaps a quarter hour. The bleeding started again just before she lost consciousness. I’ve tried pressure, but...” She paused, wringing her hands. “We’ve had to change the bedding twice already. There’s been more bleeding than just from the wound.”

  Andrieu pulled back the cloth covering the wound and swore under his breath. The original puncture looked clean enough—a thumb’s width below the left ribs, the kind of wound that could heal well with proper care. But blood seeped steadily from the edges, and the skin around it had taken on a greyish cast that spoke of deeper trauma.

  More bleeding than just from the wound. His trained mind began cataloguing possibilities, none of them pleasant.

  “Bring more light,” he ordered, his hands already moving to examine the injury. “And hot water—as much as you can manage. This is worse than it looks.”

  His assistant appeared with the medical kit, breathing hard from the run. Andrieu rummaged through leather pouches and glass vials, his mind racing through possibilities. The wound itself wasn’t deep enough to have reached vital organs, but that other bleeding Elna mentioned...

  “The sleep sponge,” he decided. “She needs to be unconscious for this.”

  The sponge came out of its oiled leather wrapping heavy with the scent of mandrake and opium, bitter herbs that could steal away pain along with consciousness. He moistened it carefully with wine from his kit—too little and she’d wake during the procedure, too much and she might never wake at all.

  “Hold this beneath her nose,” he instructed Elna, “but be ready to pull it away if her breathing slows too much.”

  From his position by the door, Verren watched with the stillness of a man carved from stone, but Andrieu could feel the weight of his attention, the barely contained tension radiating from the officer. Outside in the main chapel, the waiting continued—dozens of wounded people, and beyond them the lords and soldiers who had brought their duchess to this place, all depending on his skill to bring her back to them.

  The Duchess’s eyelids fluttered as the narcotic vapors reached her, her face relaxing into the deeper stillness of artificial sleep. Andrieu waited until her breathing steadied, then began the delicate work of exploration.

  Wine, heated until it steamed, to clean away the blood. His smallest probe, no thicker than a goose quill, to trace the wound’s path without doing further damage. The blade had penetrated deeper than the original wound suggested, angling downward beneath the ribs. His probe traced its path carefully—missing the spleen, passing dangerously close to the stomach, but the angle troubled him. The force of the blow, the direction of entry... it had driven deep into the lower abdomen.

  “More light,” he said quietly, his hands moving lower to examine what the probe had told him.

  Behind him, Verren shifted slightly—the first movement the lieutenant had made since entering the vestry. Through the doorway, Andrieu caught a glimpse of movement in the main chapel as someone—probably lord Daskar or Serwin—moved closer to hear whatever news might come.

  The extra candles revealed what he’d hoped not to find. Dark stains on the makeshift bedding beneath her hips, distinct from the blood that had soaked through from the knife wound. This was different. Lower. And accompanied by something else—small fragments of tissue that spoke of a deeper loss.

  He worked in silence for several heartbeats, his hands moving with the unconscious precision of years spent exploring the hidden geography of human bodies. What he found confirmed his growing suspicions. The trauma had rippled through her body in ways that went beyond what the blade had touched directly, but the full scope of it would require delicate conversation—the kind that belonged in private chambers, not crowded vestries with ears pressed to every door.

  “How bad?” Elna asked finally, her voice barely above a whisper.

  From the main chapel came the soft sound of movement—people leaning forward, straining to hear. The weight of their hope pressed against the vestry door like a physical thing.

  Andrieu didn’t answer immediately. His examination had revealed the full scope of what had happened here—not just the visible wound, but the hidden loss that came with it.

  “The bleeding will stop,” he said at last, his voice carefully neutral. “But there was damage beneath. More than I first thought.”

  He reached for his needle and thread, the finest silk he carried for the most delicate work. One stitch, then another, closing the knife wound with movements that had become second nature over years of practice. His hands worked quickly but gently, sealing the visible injury while his mind grappled with the invisible one.

  There. The abdominal wound properly closed, the bleeding finally beginning to slow. But as he worked, cleaning and bandaging, his trained eye continued to take in the other signs—evidence of a trauma that went beyond steel and flesh, a loss that would never be spoken of but would be carried nonetheless.

  He said nothing. Elna saw his stillness, the way his movements grew more careful, but she asked no questions. Behind them, Verren stood like a statue, but Andrieu could sense the man’s desperate need for answers, for some word to carry back to the crowd waiting beyond the door.

  “She’ll live,” he said finally. His words carried clearly into the main chapel, and he heard the soft susurrus of relief, whispered prayers of gratitude. “But recovery will be slow. And difficult.”

  “How difficult?” Elna’s voice was barely above a whisper , but from his post by the door, Verren leaned forward slightly.

  Andrieu tied off the his work and sat back on his heels, suddenly aware of the ache in his back and the weight of exhaustion pressing down on his shoulders. Around them, the chapel continued its chorus of pain and prayer, but here in the small vestry, a different kind of silence had fallen.

  “She’ll need careful tending,” he said simply, his words meant for everyone who waited beyond these walls. “And time. A great deal of time.”

  What he didn’t say —couldn’t say with Verren listening, with the crowd beyond hanging on every word—was that some wounds cut deeper than flesh. Some losses couldn’t be stitched closed or healed with wine and prayer. The Duchess would live, but she would wake to a world subtly changed, carrying a grief she didn’t yet know was hers.

  He began packing his instruments away, the familiar ritual of cleaning and storing bringing a kind of peace. Outside in the main chapel, he could hear the quiet sounds of people settling back into their vigils, the tension easing but not disappearing entirely. Through the doorway, he glimpsed Verren’s face—still carved from stone, but with something like relief flickering in his eyes.

  Beyond the lieutenant’s shoulder, he caught sight of the others: Serwin speaking quietly with his sergeants, probably organizing the watch rotations that would keep the Duchess safe during her recovery; lord Daskar straightening from his pillar, the worst of the fear finally leaving his pale features; Mother Elna moving back toward her other patients, ready to continue the work of healing that would stretch long into the night.

  Outside, Durnhal still smoldered, still counted its dead and wounded. But here, at least, death had been cheated of one more prize.

  For now, that would have to be enough.