Chapter Twenty-three
Hell. I was in some version of hell. I could swear I could believe in it. Was there anything worse than sitting in a freezing tub, so close to naked the distinction was irrelevant, throwing up the lining of an empty stomach with my head trying to explode with every heave?
I supposed it would have been worse if Taro weren’t right there, if having him touching me didn’t ease the pain somewhat. I couldn’t imagine how bad it would feel if he weren’t there. Or if I’d been a regular, without the nice buffer from sensation that being a Shield offered.
It wasn’t long before I just couldn’t bear to be in the tub anymore. It was too confining and it was making me crazy. With the help of Benedict, who was apparently the only other member in the residence, Taro got me out of the tub and out of my wet chemise and into my bed. Naked, because cloth felt unbearably abrasive against my skin. That meant I couldn’t bear to have the covers over me, either.
It was a good thing I had no pride at all.
Instead of soaking me, they tried draping clothes drenched in ice water over my ankles, wrists, throat and forehead. That felt awful. And I just disrupted the whole setup every time I threw up, which seemed to happen every other heartbeat or so.
Taro, taking Ben’s advice, forced water down my throat. I threw that up, too. That time, there was blood.
That threw Taro, who had been staying surprisingly calm, into some kind of panic. “Tell me what to do!” he shouted at Benedict.
“I know nothing of healing!” she shouted back.
“You have to know something!”
“She’s your Shield!”
“And you’re far older than us! Surely you’ve learned something other than how to bait Derek all those years!”
“You’re asking for a tanning, boy.”
I hoped they weren’t going to start some stupid loud argument. My head wouldn’t be able to stand it. I curled onto my side, wishing my stomach into steadiness. I didn’t know how much longer my throat could tolerate the constant throwing up. It felt like it had been torn bloody.
“Come on, Lee. Don’t do this!”
My head hurt so much, but I opened my eyes just a little. Taro was sitting beside me on the bed, tilting my world crazily, and I lifted my left hand to rest it against his arm. “Be all right,” I tried to say, though it came out in a croak.
“Damn it, Lee.” He squeezed my hand.
“You say that a lot.”
“You deserve it. You’re always doing stupid things.”
I was sure there was something wrong with that, I was sure I was usually a sensible person, but I couldn’t remember why I thought so.
“That stupid healer,” Taro muttered. “I knew he was an idiot. I should have insisted that someone else see you, when all the huge brainless wonder thought you should do was drink tea. Wouldn’t admit he hadn’t a clue. Ignorance and arrogance is such a bad combination. I’ve never heard of such quackery. Except for that lug on that damned island. Remember him, Lee? That monster who was using Aryne. Surely one of his vile potions would have been better than nothing at all.”
I felt so bad for Taro. He had to be so worried. I had no doubt I looked awful, and he was thinking that I was about to die and take him along. I knew what that felt like, that uncertainty, that helpless fear. “S’all right,” I said again.
“It’s not all right, damn it. Why didn’t you tell me you were still wearing that damned bob?”
What a bizarre question. He must have seen the bob when he undressed me. It didn’t have anything to do with what was going on.
I was so, so tired. Apparently too tired for the cramps to work as painfully as they had been before, which was a glorious relief. The headache was there, but no longer so piercing that my skull was in danger of flying apart from the force of it. That was nice. And hey, it had been, what, thirty heartbeats since I’d last thrown up? Paradise.
And then I lost track of things for a while. Taro was a constant, of course, draping careful fingertips over my temples and down the side of my face. There seemed to be a lot of slamming doors, and at times I became more aware of myself when a fresh strip of ice water was draped over my skin. I didn’t understand what was being said around me for a while. But then Ben was there, and there seemed to be shouting.
I hated shouting. It was nasty and totally unnecessary. “Taro?” I said.
“I’m sorry, Lee.” He squeezed my hand, too hard this time, and it hurt. “Ben couldn’t get a healer to come to the residence. Apparently a bridge collapsed over the Silver River and there are a lot of victims. We’re supposed to bring you to them, but you won’t be considered a priority once we get there.”
Oh, Zaire, lying around in a hospital like this, waiting for hours until someone could look in on someone with something as insignificant as a fever? What was the point?
Silver River. Because of the color of the water, much lighter than that of the other rivers, and because it was favored by merchants, wide and just deep enough to manage boats and barges but not deep enough to encourage currents that might capsize vessels and destroy precious cargo. I’d never really looked at it before, though there were poems that painted beautiful images of moonlight dappling the little ripples. It was too bad I’d never gone to look at it.
My parents would like that river.
“I’m going to find you a healer, Lee.”
And that was when I realized he planned to leave me. “No,” I said, and I tried to hold on to him. But my grip was weak to the point of uselessness.
“You have to have a healer, Lee. I don’t know what else to do for you, and I’ve got to get a healer who’s not working at the hospitals. I think I have the best chance of finding one.”
That was true. Taro could convince anyone of anything.
“Ben and Elata are here. They’ll look after you.”
But they couldn’t ease my pain as he could. “Don’t go.” I couldn’t bear to have him go.
I felt a light touch on my temple. “I love you,” he whispered. And then he was rising from the bed, shaking off my weak grip. The door slammed again.
The pain in my stomach leapt into something unbearable, and I screamed, twisting against the hands that held me to the bed. It was too much. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t find peace. I just screamed and screamed until I could scream no more, could bear the pain no more.
When I opened my eyes, I could tell from the light in the room that I had slept. I felt damp and grimy, my whole body heavy in a way that was almost pleasant. I felt numb, and my tongue was thick and unwieldy in my mouth.
Ben was sitting in a chair beside my bed. Benedict wasn’t anywhere in sight.
“She had to go for her watch,” Ben told me.
I swallowed a few times, and even then I could barely whisper out, “Taro?”
Ben shook his head. “He is still looking for a healer. I fear he won’t find one, though. That bridge killed and injured dozens upon dozens of people. And it’s caused disruption and stoppage along many streets. Even if there were a healer to spare, one who had chosen not to go to a hospital during such a disaster but was willing to come here, it would be extremely difficult for Taro to get him here.”
Oh. That was too bad.
Wait. Wait a moment. Wasn’t Ben supposed to be trying to reassure me, and telling me that, of course, Taro would be able to convince a healer to come to the residence, even if he knew it wasn’t true?
But maybe he didn’t know the part he was supposed to play. He wasn’t part of a Pair. If he had a companion of any kind, I had never heard of them. So maybe he didn’t know how these events went. Poor man. He was supposed to tell me I was overreacting.
“It won’t be long now,” Ben was saying. “I know this has been hard on you, but the end is supposed to be painless.”
The end? What end? What was he talking about?
“It’s really an honor to be chosen, you know.”
Why did that sound familiar? Who’d said that to me? So many people I couldn’t properly count. I just knew that whenever someone told me something was an honor, it usually really wasn’t. “Reanist,” I said.
He sniffed. “Of course not. Gods. What nonsense.”
That was true. And I wasn’t an aristocrat. Pure merchant class, all the way back to my great-grandmother, at least.
Damn it. Why couldn’t I think? “Water?” I asked.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea, Shield Mallorough. I’ve given you some blue root to ease your pain.” He had? Really? I had no memory of that at all. “Mixing water with it, that’s likely to start the stomach cramps again. You don’t want that, do you? Not with Source Karish gone. You’d feel them fully, without him here to blunt them for you.”
Aye, that made sense. I let my eyes drift closed.
Ben kept talking, though. “It’s really not that common, you know, for partners to be able to ease each other’s pain the way you and Source Karish are able. It happens, of course, obviously, but it’s rather rare. Only truly fortunate Pairs are able to enjoy such benefits from their partnerships.”
Wait, wait, wait. How did he know we were able to ease each other’s pain? It wasn’t something we really talked about.
“Source Karish is a rather remarkable person, isn’t he?” said Ben. “Of the finest family, so handsome, so personable, and so very talented. One would have expected him to have an equally talented partner.”
Where was Taro? Why was he taking so long? If he would just come back, I could curl around him, and just touching him would make me feel so much better. Perhaps better enough to sleep. I just needed some sleep.
“It’s so strange how things turn out sometimes,” Ben said. “I’d hoped, so much, that one of my children would be a Source or a Shield and have the kind of life you enjoy.”
Would he please just shut up? I’d never be able to get back to sleep with him nattering on.
“Sources and Shields are better off even than the aristocracy, in a way. No matter how wealthy or how highly placed an aristocrat is, a change in fortune can have him disgraced and digging out his dinner from someone else’s land. But a member of the Triple S, no matter what they do, they’ll always have a roof over their head, clothes on their back, food on their table.”
Sleep, or the potential for it, was slipping farther away as the pain in my head grew more prominent.
“But none of them had any talent. In anything, really.”
Who never had any talent? If he insisted on going on and on and on about nothing, he could at least make sense as he went about it.
My skin was heating up. Those strips of cloth dipped in ice now seemed a wonderful idea. I could see the bowl they’d been using earlier, sitting on the vanity. It probably wasn’t so cold anymore, but even warm water would be soothing. “Water?” I asked.
“I said no, dear. It’ll make you feel worse.”
“No.” He didn’t understand. Why couldn’t I speak properly?
“It won’t be long now, I promise.” He put a hand on my left arm, brushing my skin. It burned.
“Don’t,” I said.
There was a clatter of hooves in the street, which happened often enough, but it made Ben rise to his feet and leave the suite for a few moments. When he came back, he announced, “Source Karish is back.”
He sounded surprised.
Thank Zaire. He was back. I would be able to sleep.