Crimson Veil

Chapter Twelve — Under Watch

✦ Eve's POV ✦

Having Black Division soldiers stationed outside the ward turned out to be exactly as disruptive as I had predicted and also, grudgingly, somewhat reassuring, which I chose not to examine too closely.

There were two of them on rotation — I learned their names within the first day because I made a point of learning names, and because standing in a corridor outside a healing ward for hours at a time was boring enough that when a healer came out and asked them directly they answered. Bowen was the larger one, which was saying something, with a face that had been rearranged by enough impacts to have developed a kind of geological quality. Sev was younger, quieter, with watchful eyes and the habit of going so still between movements that he occasionally startled people who had forgotten he was there.

They were, as Adam had promised, unobtrusive. They did not enter the ward. They did not speak to patients. They stood in the corridor with the professional stillness of men who had done surveillance work before and knew how to take up less psychological space than their physical dimensions suggested.

The patients who noticed them — and most did, eventually — had a range of reactions. Some were visibly reassured, in the way that people in recovery sometimes found comfort in visible protection. Some were curious. One elderly veteran from the northern territories took one look at Bowen and said, with the frank admiration of someone who had seen a lot of soldiers, "Now that is a man who has been used." Bowen's expression didn't change but I saw his jaw shift in a way that I suspected was suppressed satisfaction.

Sera thought the whole situation was fascinating and made no effort to hide it. "So he just — decided," she said, on the second day, leaning against the supply cabinet with her arms folded and the expression of someone thoroughly entertained. "You didn't ask. He didn't suggest. He simply informed you that you now have a security detail."

"That's an accurate summary."

"And you argued."

"Briefly."

"And he didn't move an inch."

"Also accurate."

She was quiet for a moment with the quality of someone turning something over. "You know what's interesting," she said.

"I have a feeling you're going to tell me."

"He could have sent Caine to tell you. He does that — sends Caine for things. He sent Caine to tell you about Kael recovering, he sent Caine to arrange your treatment sessions." She tilted her head. "He told you this himself."

I did not answer that because I did not have an answer that would satisfy her and also not confirm the thing she was clearly already thinking.

"Mm," said Sera, with great contentment, and went back to work.

~ ~ ~

Dax noticed on the third day.

He came into the ward for a follow-up on his shoulder — a genuine follow-up this time, which I gave him credit for — and stopped in the corridor when he saw Bowen and Sev, then looked past them into the ward at me with an expression that moved through several stages before settling on something carefully neutral.

He sat on the treatment bed and let me check the shoulder and said nothing about it for five full minutes.

"Black Division," he said finally. Not a question.

"Yes."

"Stationed outside your ward specifically."

"Yes."

He was quiet for a moment. I checked the range of motion in the shoulder and made notes and did not elaborate because there was nothing I could elaborate that would make this conversation simpler.

"Are you in some kind of trouble?" he asked. His voice was genuine — the warmth in it real, uncomplicated by anything other than actual concern.

"It's a precautionary measure," I said. Which was true.

He looked at me with the direct quality that I had come to appreciate about him, even when it was inconvenient. "Eve."

"Dax." I looked up from my notes. "I'm alright. I promise."

He held my gaze for a moment, then nodded — accepting it without entirely believing it, which was the reasonable response. "If that changes," he said.

"I know where to find you," I said. "Shoulder is improving. Keep doing the modified rotation exercises. Come back in a week."

He left, pausing in the corridor to look at Bowen and Sev with the expression of a man making a private calculation he had decided not to share out loud.

~ ~ ~

My third session with Mira that week went longer than the others.

The shielding technique was stronger now — I could feel the difference, the way the boundary held without me having to actively maintain it, becoming something closer to instinct than effort. Mira watched me work through the exercises with the expression of someone who was relieved and also wouldn't say so directly.

"The projection," she said, at the end of the session. "Have you tried it again since the first time?"

"Small extensions. Mostly in the ward — checking the overall emotional register when I need to triage incoming patients."

She nodded. "Good. Keep the radius small for now. Don't reach toward the tower again without me present."

"I wasn't planning to."

She looked at me over the desk. "Aldric will have someone watching you. Not physically — he'll have someone with a minor sensing ability, something subtle, keeping track of whether your gift shows any activity." She paused. "You need to be careful what you let show and when."

The idea of being watched that way — of my gift being monitored from a distance by someone working for a man who wanted to weaponize it — sat in my stomach with a cold weight. I pressed it down. "How do I mask it?"

"The shielding works both ways. The wall you've built to manage what you receive also dims what you emit." She folded her hands. "As long as you stay behind it, you read as ordinary. Ungifted."

"And when I extend outward?"

"That's when you're visible." She met my eyes steadily. "So don't extend unless you have to. And when you do — make it fast."

I nodded.

"There's one more thing," she said. She reached into the desk drawer and produced a thin cord of braided dark leather with a small flat piece of carved bone at its center, hung with what looked like a simple loop closure. She set it on the desk between us.

I looked at it. "What is this?"

"Old craft. Older than the Veil." She pushed it toward me. "Wear it at the wrist, under your sleeve. It won't suppress your gift — nothing should suppress your gift, that way lies the problem you already had — but it will help anchor the shielding. A physical focus." She paused. "Think of it as the still pool with something solid at its center."

I picked it up. The bone piece was carved with a simple pattern — no symbols I recognized, just a series of fine lines that caught the light. It was warm from sitting in the drawer.

I tied it at my wrist under my sleeve.

"Thank you," I said.

She looked at me for a moment with those deep water eyes. "Don't let them use you," she said. Quiet, direct, the way she said everything that mattered. "Not Aldric. Not anyone."

I thought, briefly and without meaning to, of a voice that was low and even and said you don't get to decide that with a finality that was somehow not threatening.

"I won't," I said.

I went back to the ward, and Bowen and Sev were in the corridor where I had left them, and the ward smelled of herbs and clean linen, and somewhere across the stronghold Adam Voss was doing whatever Adam Voss did in the hours I wasn't treating his injuries or arguing with him or trying not to think about him.

I put on my healer's apron and went to see the next patient.

~ ~ ~