"Then you were complicit in my being stubborn, Healer Sage," Solomon pointed out, but even though his tone was still edged, it had lost some of the hardness. The admission had disarmed him, so that he still stood out of sheer will, holding himself rigid like someone afraid he'd fall to pieces if he moved wrongly.

Then finally he exhaled and relaxed bit by bit, and lowered himself trembling back to the bed. His legs felt like rubber. "I don't know," he said. "No." He looked away in a vain attempt to keep her from seeing his face. Vain, because he didn't even know what he was feeling in order to show on it. "There's a difference between needing help and being invalid, Raine. Which am I?"

She was the healer, and she was ordinarily so capable of being objective. If she thought it was necessary to wait at his elbow like this, what did it mean for him?