Free Once Upon a Romance 03 - With True Love's Kiss by Jessica Woodard

breath, and looked at
Robin.
    “You’ll need
to hold her shoulders still.”
    She waited
until she saw his body weight shift, pinning Isabelle firmly, and then she
began to smooth the mash deep into the wound. Isabelle’s body jerked, and she
let out a pained cry, but she couldn’t move. Bianca kept her hands steady,
making sure she covered every surface, packing the wound well, and moving with
as much haste as she could. In reality it only took a few moments, but Isabelle’s
half muffled sobs made it seem like an eternity. When Bianca was done she
tumbled off her friend, and then crawled over to where she could lay her face
down level with Isabelle’s.
    “I’m sorry!
I’m so sorry, Isabelle!”
    Isabelle
looked at her with tear stained eyes. “Oh Bianca, love, don’t say that. It isn’t
your fault it hurts.” A shiver passed over her. “It doesn’t even,” she
shuddered, “hurt that much, I’m just—” Again she shook. “So cold.”
    “I’ll get
your blanket.” Bianca wiped her eyes and laid a clean cloth across Isabelle’s
back, then tucked her up under the heavy blanket. By the time she had Isabelle
firmly wrapped, the injured woman had closed her eyes, losing contact with
consciousness once again.
    “It is not
cold.” Robin stood just behind her, and spoke quietly.
    “No, it isn’t.”
Bianca tried to answer the unspoken question. “Sometimes a person will react
that way, when their body is damaged. The pain gets muted, while their mind
gets cloudy. And they’ll shiver as though they’re freezing, no matter how warm
they are.”
    “Is it a bad
sign?”
    “It’s a
reaction to what happened, nothing more. She needs to rest, and give her body
the chance to heal, and let the poultice work. If her fever breaks, we’ll know
it’s working. If not…” Bianca shook her head. “I suppose I’ll have to try to
lance it.”
    “It is
fortunate that you are such a skilled healer.”
    The
compliment startled Bianca enough that she turned to face him. There was
nothing but sincerity in Robin’s face, but she scoffed.
    “I am not a
skilled healer at all.”
    “Why do you
say that?”
    “A skilled
healer would have been able to prevent this. A skilled healer would know another
solution, besides cutting her open, and causing her even more pain! A skilled
healer would—”
    “Bianca!”
Robin broke in, snapping her name. “Are you the only human in all the realms
with no regard for yourself? You are skilled—for certain, I never would have
known how to help Isabelle—yet you treat yourself like a tool, merely an object
used to accomplish an end, and not even a valuable object at that!”
    “I don’t, I—”
    “You do! You
expend yourself as though you mean nothing!”
    “So what if
I do?!” Bianca was, at last, well and truly angry. “What is so wrong with that?
What is wrong in placing value on another’s life? What is wrong with being
willing to sacrifice? Perhaps you would rather I treated others like game
pieces? To be manipulated?”
    “No! I would
rather you treated yourself with one small crumb of the care with which you
treat others! I would rather you acted as though your life meant something! I
would rather you behaved as though you cared whether you lived or died!”
    “And I would
rather die myself, than to have yet another person lose their life because of
my actions!”
    The words
echoed in the sudden silence of the cave. Bianca glared up at Robin, waiting
for his next admonishment, but none came. All the anger had fled from those
shocking blue eyes, to be replaced with concern.
    “What are
you talking about, Bianca?”
    “Didn’t Dame
Merriweather tell you all about me, before she sent you on her little errand?”
Her voice was bitter, she didn’t even try to hold it in. “Don’t you know?”
    “I do not.”
    “Then you
must be the only one in the kingdom.”
    Robin took
her hand, and drew her to the fire, away from Isabelle. There he pressed her
down, waiting