Chapter 12
I wasn’t sure how long it took us to get to the Raiken.
I sort of lost that plot thread on the way there.
It didn’t really help that I didn’t understand what anyone was saying either.
I just wanted to be home, even though I wasn’t sure where that was.
The unfinished house in Ireland with the magpies guarding it, maybe.
“What’s this?” Fellisse’s booming voice pulled me back to the here and now.
I had my face firmly buried against Inkiri’s chest, but I looked up when Fellisse spoke. We were in a room now, and there was lots of stuff here—glass jars on shelves and lab equipment, going by the microscope on one counter. I had a feeling this was a doctor’s office.
I felt Inkiri’s breath on my cheek. “Sweet thing.”
“There he is. Put him down and let me have a look, Inki,” Fellisse said.
I grumbled and dug my fingers into Inkiri’s shirt. “Can’t you just hold me a little while longer?”
“Sadir.” Inkiri briefly buried his face in my neck. “Let Fellisse have a look at you. I was worried for you. You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine. Sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Inkiri clicked and proceeded to lower me onto an exam table. I really didn’t want to be on an exam table. Then again, I also didn’t want to worry Inkiri.
When he’d put me down, he took his triple swords from Fellisse, who was also armed. Inkiri had gotten a message to Fellisse to bring the swords, then. That didn’t seem like a good thing. It implied he thought he might need them.
“I see what Vergis means about the deep frustration of not getting your café au lait in the morning.” Fellisse looked at my elbow. It was really just a scratch, but he turned it this way and that.
A door behind Inkiri opened, and I craned my neck to see Hove and another bagu walk in. This one had light blue skin, a lot like Inkiri. It stood out somewhat to me now, because most of the bagu in the city were darker, either indigo or deep lapis.
Hove spoke to Inkiri rapidly, and he was all business now, nothing at all like yesterday.
“Ouch!” I flinched. Fellisse was dabbing at my arm with a cotton ball. The Aer version of a cotton ball, anyway, probably dipped in whatever they used for antiseptic here. It hurt.
Fellisse clicked. “I don’t want this to get infected. I don’t see anything else that worries me, but maybe a little coddling is in order.” He looked up at the other two and said something to them.
Inkiri nodded once, his eyes narrowing. “Rory, stay with Hove, please. The other prisoner just came to, and I’d like to join them to ask questions.”
“Do…you have to? He tried to kill you.” Fellisse was bandaging my arm, and I was going to blame my watering eyes on that.
“Sweet thing.” Inkiri hugged me despite Fellisse’s annoyed growl. “You don’t need to worry. You’re fine here. They won’t get to you, not when Fellisse is watching.”
“And I too,” Hove said.
“I’m not worried about me, I’m worried about you.”
That made Hove laugh.
“You both are trying to be funny today,” Fellisse said. “Rory, Inkiri can manage. But he can manage even better if he knows you’re here with us. Yes?”
Fellisse was good. The fury of a tantrum flared in my belly before it died away just as quickly.
My bottom lip quivered, but I nodded. I didn’t want to be in this situation.
I didn’t want Inkiri to be in this situation.
I wanted to be back in our room, in bed, with Inkiri there and making love to me, his soft clicks and my too-loud moans the only sounds around us.
At the same time, I didn’t want to make him look stupid, or even more stupid, for being saddled with a crybaby of a mate. I nodded. Inkiri clicked and bent to lick my throat before he walked out of the room.
Fellisse finished his bandaging, which really was excessive if I was being honest. I still looked away from where he was dealing with my wound though.
Unlike the hotel with all the wooden sliding doors, the walls here were stone, the doors a more familiar style and made of lacquered wood.
It looked like the building we’d gotten married—mated in, but since I’d been hiding my face against Inkiri’s chest, I wasn’t even sure whether this was the same place or somewhere else.
“There is students come here in moments,” Hove said. “You did?” he asked Fellisse.
“Yes, all done. It’s not too tight, Rory, is it?”
I flexed my arm, and now that I was calmer, it actually did hurt.
“It’s fine. Uhm, I’m sorry about the shirt.
” It had come from one of the bags the store had delivered.
Lissir had bought more than just the one outfit for me, and I still needed to thank him for all that and apologize for ruining one of the nice shirts already.
Fellisse put the medical things away. “Eh, don’t worry about the shirt. Hove, can we get him a new one?”
Hove nodded. “Easy. My quarters, Lisse?”
Fellisse shot Hove a smoldering look. “I know the way.”
Hove looked at me. “He knows his way in the pleasure too.”
Fellisse let out a belly laugh and patted my back before helping me down off the exam table. Well, lifting me off it actually. Even most of the younger bagua were still taller than me.
“Rory is not yet used to discussing lovers, Hove. Humans don’t do that.”
Hove held the door for us. “No? But—” He gestured, searching for the words. “How is it, how can you know that a lover be adequate? When no one talks?”
Hove and Fellisse took up positions on either side of me, and just when we were about to round a corner, a group of six bagua hurried our way.
They carried books and small bags and vanished into the exam room.
Huh. Had to be the medical lab where they learned how to take care of patients.
They were all younger, all dressed in light gray, and they all inclined their heads toward Hove.
I picked up on them all calling him visdena.
“Is that what your title is, Hove? Visdena?”
He nodded. “Yes, is visdena. Also an adequate lover, or no?”
Fellisse chuckled. “You’re very adequate, Hove. Speaking of your title, where is the dena today?”
“He will join Inkiri,” Hove said.
“The dena is your boss?” I asked. It was beginning to make sense.
Hove beamed. “Also yes. A good boss.”
We walked along hallways made of stone the same color as the city wall. There was no whitewash here like there had been in the other building. This could’ve been a boring, cold castle, but it wasn’t, and not just because small groups of students passed us by.
There were inlays in the walls, like grout, but instead of dull grayish white, these were shiny like colored glass. They formed patterns that cut across the walls in curves and swirls and flowery shapes.
“Hey, where are Lissir and Nokim? And where’s Vergis run off to?” I asked.
“They weren’t back at the hotel, so probably out at the honkora. Or shopping,” Fellisse said.
Hove opened a door, and we were finally done hiking through the building.
His room was surprisingly normal—a low table with a pile of floor cushions next to it to the right, a cabinet with a flurry of papers sticking out every which way to the left.
The cabinet was similar to old bureaus, but bigger, and the state of chaos it was in said a lot about the amount of work Hove had to do and how he did it.
Tall windows on the third wall made the room light and friendly, pale yellow curtains adding softness and warmth. To the right, stairs led up to a loft, which I hadn’t expected in an old castle.
Hove closed the door behind us. “We sent Raikengana to find them. Vergis is finish the ko for the wall.”
Fellisse turned to me. “Ko means the magic for the wall.”
Shouting from outside made both Hove and Fellisse head for the windows and look out. I trailed behind, not sure what I was supposed to do.
Hove said something in Lugarra, and he didn’t sound happy.
“What? What’s happening?”
“Fire,” Fellisse said. “Across the bridge.”
Hove said a few clipped words to Fellisse before heading out with a nod in my direction.
I looked out the window, where black smoke was curling against a cloudless blue sky. “What happened? Where’s he going?”
“He has to assess the situation.” Fellisse walked over to the table and pulled two cushions out, then he sat and patted the cushion next to him, froze, tilted his head, and added two more to that pile before patting it again. “Come sit, Rory.”
Huh. Perhaps he’d read about the princess and the pea.
“Shouldn’t we… I mean, there are so many wooden buildings. Shouldn’t we go help?”
Fellisse shook his head. “Many, if not most, will be guarded by magic against fire for that reason. We can do nothing right now that others can’t do better, so we wait.
Rory, you are Raikenga now, maybe not raised, but through Inki.
Raikengana don’t flinch at the task put before them.
They accept it. Our task now is waiting. ”
He patted the small cushion pile next to him again. I sat, and we waited together.