62

Mathin’s rough voice was glacial. “She was dying, maggot brain. Had I not ‘caused trouble’ you wouldn’t be holding her now.”

Worried, Jasmine’s gaze swung between the two men. “What’s wrong? It didn’t hurt me, Keilor.”

“You’ve done nothing, love. Be still,” Keilor told her, and said to Mathin with barely restrained violence, “She would not have been in that condition if you hadn’t botched your job in the first place. What kind of savage are you?”

Mathin’s eyes ignited gold and he leaned towards Keilor with a curl to his lip. “I am not invincible, any more than you are,” he said in warning. “Could you have fought off Yesande’s garrison and guaranteed you could have brought a sick woman through unscathed? I think not. I traded a small hurt for her life, and a complication for the same. You could not be there to see to her, so do not judge me.”