Chapter 69
Chapter
Sixty-Nine
W e make the royal library our temporary camp. While it’s been ransacked just like every other room in the palace, the ceiling is whole, the books undamaged by the endless rain. Nemeth makes a fire in the large stone fireplace at the far end of the vast hall, and I spread out our blankets and clothes to dry them.
Wearing nothing but my least-damp chemise, I curl up in the blankets by the fire and watch Nemeth as he picks up book after book. I can tell he’s fascinated with them, turning the pages with near-reverence and a hand so delicate that you’d think he’s touching my cunt instead of one of the many dusty books here. “There’s so much knowledge here.”
Normally I’d roll my eyes at someone fawning over books, but this is my Nemeth. I know how much he loves reading. For some reason, seeing him caress the pages of the book makes me happy. It makes me feel like things are a little more normal. That my world isn’t ending. “Well, since I’m officially the last one in the palace, I declare this entire library to be yours.”
He glances up at me and grins broadly. “I’m not sure you can do that.”
“I can.” I wave a hand at him. “Take as many as you like.”
He sighs and replaces the book on the shelf he took it from. Then, he hesitates and pulls down another. “I wish we could, actually.”
“Why can’t we?” I roll onto my stomach on the bedding and prop my chin up on my hands, watching him.
“Because we can’t waste the time.” Reluctantly, Nemeth abandons his newest book and gives me a sober look. “There’s not enough food or medicine?—”
“Don’t give me that line again,” I warn him. “We both know that. But if these books are important to you, they’re important to me, too. Why not take them with us?”
“Candra, are you listening? There’s no medicine and no time to waste?—”
“And there still won’t be if we leave the books behind. It’s not going to magically appear.” I shake my head. “Let’s face it, love. We’re doomed with the books or without them. Take the damned books. Maybe something of Lios will remain after all of us are gone.” After all we’ve been through, the grief is hitting me. With it comes acceptance.
I’m not getting out of this alive. We chose poorly, and now we’re being punished by an endless amount of rain from the goddess and the destruction of my people. Really, it’s only right that I die for my selfishness, but I would prefer not to. I would also prefer that Nemeth return to his people, safe. He’s spent his entire life preparing for the tower—he deserves to have something of his own now that his service is done.
As far as I’m concerned, we can take all the damned books.
Nemeth shakes his head. He moves to my side, angry and determined. “You are worth a thousand books.”
I chuckle, because of course I am. I’m amazing. “I know that. You know that. But the books do not expire if they do not get their potion on time. I will.” My hands slide to my stomach, and I sigh wistfully. “I just hate that…”
I can’t say the words aloud. That with my death, I’m taking our child with me. Strangely enough, I hate that thought more than I hate that of my own death. To think that a child is something I never even anticipated, that I never even cared to have. And now that I find myself pregnant, I’m furious that I won’t get to see it born.
Truly, the gods are cruel.
“Do not say it,” Nemeth warns. He moves to my side and thumps down beside me. “We’ll get through this. We’ll go to the Alabaster Citadel. Perhaps the clergy there will have extra supplies. Then we’ll head on to Darkfell.”
I turn on my side, regarding him. He lies next to me on the blankets, but his body is a mass of tension. There’s no fatigue in him like there is in me. Instead, he seems to be brimming with determination, the green set of his eyes hard. If I wasn’t so tired, I’d be climbing all over him in this moment, because there’s nothing sexier than my Fellian when he’s on a mission to protect me. “It’s been a long time since I’ve gone to the Alabaster Citadel,” I confess. “Is it still many days by ship?”
Nemeth nods, his eyes burning bright in his hard face. “We’ll find a craft. I can enchant it with a spell that will pull us toward our destination. We can fish along the way. No matter how much it rains, there will be fish in the sea.”
He’s got a point. “So we’ve got transportation and food. You should be fine.” I give him a little smile. “You can even load the ship full of books.”
“We’ll kill the horse we rode here. He’s not looking well anyhow, and there’s nothing left for him to eat. It’ll be a mercy for him, and a blessing for us. We’ll find some herbs, and we can use his organs as part of your potion?—”
“Nemeth,” I say softly, placing my hand on his arm. “Perhaps it’s time for us to accept things?—”
“No,” he says, just as swift. “No, Candra. I won’t let you or the baby come to harm.” He turns and wraps his arms around my waist, pressing his head to my stomach. “ Our baby.”
A lump of emotion forms in my throat. I stroke my fingers over the sweep of his horns. His sadness is tearing at me, and I have to improve the mood somehow. “The baby we’re not supposed to have,” I tease. “I guess your Fellian blood is more compatible with my cursed, awful blood than we imagined.”
He chuckles against my stomach, his face pressed to my chemise. “It’s because of that drop of Fellian in your ancestry. Maybe that’s what’s cursing your blood. You’ve got too much Fellian in you.”
“Right now I don’t have any Fellian in me,” I purr.
And then pause.
Because…what if he’s right? What if the problem in my blood isn’t a curse from the gods but because I’ve got too much Fellian ancestry, like he says? What if the cure for my curse is Fellian blood ?
Nemeth sits up suddenly, staring down at me with wide eyes.
“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” he asks.
I nod, a little stunned. “I’ve never heard of something like this working,” I confess. “But we were told the Fellian blood is a rumor. Then again, I was also told that those with cursed blood cannot get pregnant.”
“Maybe you can’t from a human man.” He puts a large hand over my stomach, his two blunted claws strange and short against the others, his shorn ones marking him as mated. “But I am Fellian. Perhaps it’s my blood you need.” He looks up, casting his gaze around the room. “Do you have medical texts here?”
“As if I would know?”
“I just want to be certain before we try it,” he says. “I don’t want to inject you with something your body might consider poison.”
There’s no time to look through the enormous library for answers. It could take weeks, and we don’t have weeks. “I say we try it. What have we got to lose?”
“Everything, Candra. We stand to lose everything .” The look he gives me is pure anguish.
“You’re wrong.” I shake my head. “We have a few days at most. By tomorrow, I’ll be violently ill. By the day after, I won’t be able to stand. I’d rather not wait that long.” I take his hand from my stomach and kiss his knuckles. “I trust you.”
“This isn’t about trust,” he tells me, exasperated. “This is about science.”
For him, maybe. For me, it’s about faith. I might have lost my faith in the gods, but not in Nemeth. I give him an impish smile. “Let’s try it anyhow.”
He groans, and I know I’ve won the argument.
Nemeth’s blood could be my salvation or my doom. It seems strangely fitting, I think. I’m calm as I carefully plunge the needle into Nemeth’s arm and pull back the lever, taking just enough of his blood to fill the syringe. Nemeth wanted to do this part himself—he wants to spare me any of the trouble—but I can handle this.
If it works, Nemeth is the answer to my sickness. The thought that all I need is him and his blood is oddly freeing. I imagine I’d still need a dose daily, but the thought of being bound to Nemeth instead of a daily concoction of boiled animal pancreas and a mixture of herbs feels easy and right.
In my eyes, this is just another facet of our love.
Of course, if I’m wrong…I won’t think about that. I’ll focus on the positive instead. I wipe the needle carefully once I remove it from his arm, watching him from the corner of my eye as he folds his arm up, pressing a bit of fabric at the pinprick of blood to staunch the flow. “How are you feeling?”
“Nervous,” he grumbles. “What if we’re wrong and this makes you sicker?”
“Then it speeds up the inevitable and makes it easier for you to travel, since you won’t have me dragging you down.” He growls, and I pat his knee. “We’re out of options, love. This is the only choice we have left.”
“I don’t like it when you’re right,” he mutters. “You gloat.”
“Let’s just do it before we talk ourselves out of even trying it.” And before I’m far too sick to fight off any bad side effects. I’m confident, but at the same time, I’m well aware that I’m being effortlessly positive because we’ve got no other choices. Besides, Nemeth is doing enough worrying for both of us.
He tenderly takes my arm in his grip and hesitates. His eyes close and I can tell he’s agonizing. He doesn’t want to do this. He doesn’t want to risk me. I wait patiently. He braces himself, lifts my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles, and then picks up a towel and wipes the bend of my arm clean. When he puts the needle to my skin, he looks at me again. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. It’s going to be all right,” I reassure him. “Maybe this is what the gods wanted for me all along. Don’t you think?”
Nemeth shakes his head. “I don’t feel like the gods are watching us at all.”
And with that cryptic statement, he pushes the needle in.