Chapter 4 #3
She removed her spectacles and rubbed at her temple, a headache creeping into her. Her neck and shoulder muscles were tense, as well, but she could hardly complain if those were the worst of her maladies, not when so many had lost so much more. Some had lost everything.
She swallowed and looked away, wishing she weren’t always on the verge of tears, but in the aftermath of all the atrocities, it had to be normal.
“You could give me the ingredients for making one of your cobblers,” Vorik offered. “Or is that a matter of kingdom security?”
“I don’t know. Would having that information encourage your people to attack more of our islands to gain greater access to berries?” She wished it were a joke.
A troubled expression in Vorik’s eyes suggested he did too. “You look like you could use a neck rub.”
“Are you offering?”
“I would, but…” He gazed at the castle staff, any of whom might spread gossip if they touched.
Normally, gossip wouldn’t trouble Syla, but these were different times. Everyone from generals to relatives to lords and ladies she’d never met were scrutinizing her.
“Your people might object,” Vorik finished.
“Yes.”
He cocked his head. “Would you object?”
“I should.” But she wouldn’t. She was relieved he was speaking with her after she’d tricked him.
Many men, she believed, would not want to spend time with a woman who’d gotten the best of them.
Had their situations been reversed, she didn’t know if she could have forgiven him.
“But I’m so often tense that I’d be foolish to reject neck rubs from anyone.
If a cane with a capable bent offered one, I would have to take it. ”
“That’s an interesting image.”
As she lifted her spectacles to return them to her face, Vorik raised a hand.
“May I hold those for a moment?”
Though puzzled, she handed them to him. Maybe he wanted to look through the lenses and see what it was like?
She was on the verge of explaining how the corrective power would hurt his keen-sighted eyes, but he merely lowered them to his side and nodded to her.
Thanks to her blurry eyesight, she almost missed the gesture.
“If you focus on your peripheral vision rather than what’s straight ahead, it may help you relax. Especially if you make it a regular practice.”
“You mean the vague blurry stuff to the left and right?” Syla waved to suggest what she saw.
“And up and down. If it helps, it’s a little blurry for everyone.
Or at least less sharp. Especially out here.
” He snapped his fingers near his ear. “But if you’re able to be aware of what’s to the left and right and above and below, instead of being focused on what you’re looking at, it means your body is in a calmer state.
By shifting your awareness to the periphery, you may be able to guide your body into a calmer state. ”
Syla eyed him—or rather, his blurry form—skeptically. “I’m a healer, and I’ve read hundreds, if not thousands of books on all aspects of the body, and I’ve not encountered anything about that.”
“Do your people know everything there is to know about the body?”
Syla resisted the urge to say they knew more than his people.
Her instinct was to look down upon the stormers because most didn’t read or write—and because they’d savagely attacked and killed so many of her people.
But she admitted that having an oral tradition didn’t mean they were less intelligent, just that they had less stored knowledge in the form of books.
“Not necessarily.” Syla attempted to smooth the skeptical expression from her face and focus on the blurry curtain to one side and the even blurrier Sergeant Fel looming a dozen paces away.
“Have you tried to heal your eyes? Is that possible?”
“I looked into it and read everything we have on the subject of optometry, but myopia, which is what I have, isn’t an injury or disease, so you can’t cure it the way you might stitch a wound or help the body fight off a flu.
It’s usually a result of an elongation over time of the eyeball, which causes light to focus in front of the retina instead of directly on it, and that makes the vision blurry. ”
Vorik considered that with a thoughtful expression.
What a strange thing to be discussing with one’s enemy.
But it was safe, she admitted. They weren’t divulging any secrets, unless the axial length of the eyeballs of kingdom subjects might determine their capabilities at firing cannons.
Fortunately, most of the men who went into the military weren’t that prone to myopia.
“That ailment is rare among my people,” Vorik said. “Even our elders don’t usually have much trouble.”
“You’re clearly a genetically superior people.” Syla shifted slightly to move what was visible in her peripheral vision. She couldn’t tell if it was doing anything to calm her down. Maybe one had to be able to see more than blurs.
“We are not that many generations removed from being the same people.”
“I know. I was being sarcastic. I don’t think you’re superior.”
“No?” Vorik raised his eyebrows and touched his chest.
“You with your dragon magic might be.”
“Yes,” he said agreeably. “What causes the elongation of the eyeball?”
“There’s some debate, since not everyone who seems like they would be a candidate becomes myopic, but we think those most at risk are the people who spend a lot of time reading or focused for hours at a time on other near work.
I’ve read voraciously since I was three, and I got my first spectacles at seven or eight. ”
“At three, I was running around, looking into the sky for dragons and dreaming of flying on them.”
“The eyes are supposedly most relaxed when looking into the distance. You’ll probably never develop myopia.”
“I also challenged my older brothers to duels with sticks.”
“That sounds like a way to lose an eye.”
“It is. That’s a more common injury among our people.” Vorik offered her the spectacles back. “Perhaps, in addition to spending time relaxing your eyes and being aware of your periphery, you should focus more on the distance.”
It amused her that he seemed to take it for granted that she would take his advice on the peripheral viewing. Maybe she would try it now and then, when she wasn’t busy helping defend her kingdom from invaders—or defending herself from plotters.
“I bet you get all kinds of practice looking into the distance,” Syla said. “I should be like you and spend time riding a dragon.”
“Yes. Agrevlari would be happy to carry you on his back.”
“If you’re also there?” She put her spectacles back on. “With your arms around me?”
“Yes.” His eyelids drooped. Now that he was no longer blurry, she had no trouble interpreting that look and recalled discussing riding dragons together in a rather aroused and somewhat frenetic manner when they’d been about to have sex.
Her body heated at the memory.
“It might be better for me to ride Wreylith,” she murmured.
“Is that likely to happen again?”
“Ah, we’ve left the safe topic and turned back to discussing advantages and disadvantages.”
Vorik inclined his head, his mouth quirking with sad acknowledgment. “You could try juggling.”
“Pardon?”
“That wouldn’t help distance vision, but it’s good for the periphery. You can’t focus on all the balls at once, but you can see them all if you are calm and aware of what’s around you.” He tapped the side of his eye.
“I can barely catch one ball that someone warns me they’re going to throw,” Syla said, an automatic protest, though she appreciated that he’d been willing to veer back to the safe topic.
“All the more reason to learn a skill that improves your ability to throw and catch. Would you be open to learning?”
“Would I have a charming and handsome instructor with gifted hands?”
His eyelids drooped again. “Very gifted hands.”
Syla opened her mouth, but a boom came from the direction of the harbor.
“Was that a cannon?” Syla leaned as close to the window as she could, her spectacles clunking against the glass as she tried to peer in that direction.
The courtyard walls were being rebuilt, however, and there were no gaps through which she might see toward the ocean.
The harbor was below the bluff on which the castle perched, regardless.
Fel rushed forward, reaching for her as he came shoulder to shoulder with them.
“I’m not planning to jump out the window,” she told him.
“It wouldn’t be the first time you escaped that way.” Fel didn’t grip her arm, but he did loom close.
“If you’re referring to when Wreylith absconded with me, it was more of a kidnapping than an escape, and it was through the roof, not the window.”
He gave her a dour look.
“Fireworks.” Vorik had leaned close to the window from her other side and pointed at a narrow red blaze that streaked into view against the darkening sky.
“We don’t have any celebrations planned,” Syla said. The solstice festival had taken place well before the invasion, and there was certainly nothing to celebrate now.
“It’s Night of the Hatchling,” Vorik said. “A celebration time for our people.”
“Night of the Hatchling?” Syla eyed him.
What kind of holiday was that?
“Dragon eggs take a long time to mature enough for the babies to come forth. They lay them in the spring, but this is the time of year when they’ll hatch. Since they’ve been bonding with us, we’ve started to celebrate their birth, the potential for future allies to join our people.”
Fel also squinted suspiciously at him. “Are you saying your people are lighting fireworks off from their ship?”
Several additional booms sounded, strong enough to make the floor thrum underneath them, and two more flares streaked into view over the harbor, one red and one orange. The unsettling colors reminded Syla of dragon fire.