“Doesn’t it hurt?”“Of course it hurts! Half of my face is still on fire. And it’s your fire, too, so you should know damn well it’s—”“I-I know, but—”“The bleeding is the worst part. I have to keep changing and cleaning the bandages… Honestly, I’m half tempted to ask Cedric to send me to the Hungry Gods and have them eat the flames, as they did with Oleander...”“Deyara, it… It doesn’t work that way…” “I know. I was joking.”The normalcy of their banter, the casual way Deyara talked to him… It made Eri’s guilt all the worse.She should hate him. In fact, she would be in the right to kill him.Instead, the half-elf was diligently checking on Eri’s vitals. Elen stood in the corner of the room, presumably as a contingency in case Eri started acting strange again.Some part of Eri was grateful the matron decided to stay. He did not think he could bear being alone with Deyara at the moment.Her face… Half of her face was a ruin.At least, he assumed it was. He couldn’t see the true extent of the damage he had dealt. A piece of dark red cloth was wrapped around the upper left half of her face, the crimson hue the same shade as her blood-red hair. She had yet to unwrap it before him, but Eri could see some signs of the damage. Red cracks crept along the pale skin that was unhidden (...)