I shook my head, feeling how hard I was trembling when Nua placed gentle hands on my shoulders from behind.
“Right then.” Gillie’s throat bobbed once, betraying the nerves he was trying to hide.
He grasped my left bicep in a firm but gentle grip, flexing the fingers of his other hand around the hilt of the blade. The little fire in the room crackled, and I fixed my eyes on a flickering candle flame and let out a slow, shuddering breath to try and calm my frantically beating heart.
I howled when Gillie sliced through my stump in one clean swoop, his face tight with grim determination. It hurt so much worse this time, maybe because I’d been anticipating it.
I cried out again when he jammed the branch arm directly into the bleeding wound. Blood poured between the branches and dripped into the bath, and I was trying to thrash as Nua held me steady with firm hands.
I may have passed out for a second when I felt the central branch scrape against the edges of my humerus, shoving into the marrow. Gillie’s free hand was gripping my shoulder tight, holding it still while the other kept the branch arm locked in place.
“I’m sorry, lad,” he said, voice rough. “We’ll have to stay like this for a while.”
I panted like a wounded animal, my hand scrabbling over the floorboards before locking onto Nua’s knee and clutching it too tight. Letting out a weak sob, I tipped my head back onto his shoulder, my body trembling violently.
The hard edge of the tub was digging into my armpit, but I couldn’t move an inch. Nua kept me locked to him even though I was no longer thrashing and trying to escape the pain.
“What’s the first thing you’re going to do when your arm is up and running, Ash?” Gillie asked me, clearly trying to distract me.
I licked my dry lips, my breaths shuddering out of me as my brain struggled to even form words, let alone a coherent answer.
“M-m-make bread,” I said shakily, even though I had no idea if that was true.
Gillie laughed. “I look forward to eating it.”
“You can become ambidextrous with your dagger,” Nua said softly from behind me. “Or get something else.”
That successfully distracted me, my brain pinging with the realisation that, if this worked, I could use something better than a dagger to kill the Carlin. Something deadlier.
“I w-want a bow,” I said before I’d even realised I was going to speak.
Gillie grinned wide. “Good choice.”
“We’ll get you a bow.” Nua rubbed my shoulder.
I panted shallowly, listening to my blood drip between the branches of my new arm and into the bath.
“Th-thank you,” I rasped, my eyes filling with hot tears. “Both of you.”
I felt Nua’s cheek rest briefly against the top of my head. His voice was thick when he said, “You don’t need to thank us.”
“And you might not be feeling so magnanimous tomorrow, lad.” Gillie chuckled, still holding the branch arm tight to my wound. “This will ache like a bitch.”
I managed a wobbly smile, finally looking over at my new arm. Gillie’s hand was completely coated in my blood, but he held it steady.
“I don’t care,” I whispered. “It’s worth it.”
Gillie was right. My new arm ached like a bitch.
I hadn’t managed to sleep at all, lying on my pallet of furs and staring up at the dark ceiling as my arm throbbed and the bone ached.
It was secured to what was left of my real arm with tight straps and a harness that dug into my shoulder blade. We’d had to sit in the bathroom for a long time until the bleeding stopped. Nua had carefully washed the blood from between the branches while Gillie strapped it up and I whimpered in pain.
Blood was still oozing from the edges of my skin, so I had a thick linen pad propping the arm up to keep my furs clean. I hadn’t realised it was possible to feel aching cramps, sharp stings and the raw rub of exposed flesh all at once, but I was experiencing it now.
On top of all that, my head was pounding from the whisky. I felt even less coordinated now than I had with my stump, so I didn’t dare risk struggling to sit up and knocking the branch arm. By the time Nua appeared from the bedroom just after dawn, my mouth was achingly dry and tasted like death.
“Oh, Ash.” He knelt beside me and carefully helped me up. My breath hitched from the pain as I leaned back against the wall.