Chapter 16 Rhea
Rhea
Three days in the infirmary. Three days of being poked, prodded, and examined like I’m some rare specimen in a glass jar.
“Follow my finger with just your eyes,” Sandtide orders for what feels like the hundredth time. Her finger moves left, right, up, down. “Now touch your nose, then my finger. Again.”
I comply, though my jaw aches from clenching. Yesterday it was arranging wooden blocks into specific patterns. Before that, reciting number sequences backward. Naming cities in alphabetical order. Drawing a map of Embernia from memory.
“Satisfied?” I ask as she scribbles another note.
“Not remotely,” she responds without looking up. “Your reflexes are improving, but your irritability remains consistent.”
“Being imprisoned tends to have that effect.”
Sandtide glances up. “This is a healing room, not a prison cell.”
“Tell that to my bladder. I’ve pissed in more jars this week than in the rest of my life combined.”
She huffs. “Hydration is critical to recovery.”
“You’ve had me drinking enough water to drown a dragon.”
“And your color and strength are better for it.” She puts down her notes. “Now, lunch.”
On cue, an apprentice brings in a tray laden with roasted meat, vegetables, and a chunk of dark bread that smells like heaven. My stomach growls despite myself.
“All of it,” Sandtide warns. “I’ll check the plate.”
She’s not bluffing. On my second day, I tried hiding vegetables under my bread crust, and she made me eat double portions.
As I eat, I hear voices outside the infirmary door—familiar ones. Nate Torchfist, Adelaide Icesurge, and Phoebe too.
“She needs rest, not agitation,” Sandtide says firmly.
“We just want to see her,” Adelaide insists.
“Five minutes,” Nate adds.
“Please,” Phoebe begs.
“Not today.” Sandtide snaps. “Perhaps tomorrow, if she continues improving.”
Part of me wants to call out, demand she let them in. But a larger part feels... relieved. I’m not ready for their questions, not ready to bury my nose in ancient scrolls like the Commander wants me to do. Not when I still feel like scattered puzzle pieces trying to form a complete picture.
So I say nothing, and after a moment, their footsteps retreat.
“Thank you,” I mutter, surprising myself.
Sandtide raises an eyebrow. “For what?”
I shrug, suddenly uncomfortable. “For keeping them out.”
“I’m not doing it for you,” she says, but her eyes soften slightly. “I’m doing it for your recovery.”
I do wonder, however, why Vaylen hasn’t visited. The question is answered the next day.
I’m halfway through my soup when the infirmary doors burst open. Two riders are carried in on stretchers, their uniforms torn and bloody. The smell of burned flesh hits me like a fist as they set them on the beds further away from me.
The orderly routine of the infirmary transforms in seconds. Apprentices scatter like startled birds, grabbing bandages and tinctures. Medics converge on the injured riders, their movements precise despite their haste.
I don’t recognize either rider—a woman with a gash across her forehead and a man whose arm hangs at an unnatural angle. Both wear the charred remnants of Sky Order uniforms.
Pushing my tray aside, I swing my legs over the bed. My head doesn’t spin, which feels like a miracle. Three days of forced rest and food have improved my strength, even if I’d never admit it to Sandtide.
“Cauterize it now,” Sandtide commands. “Hold her down.”
A woman’s scream tears through the room. I flinch, my hand instinctively twitching with tendrils of wind power.
Metal instruments clank against trays. “More pressure here. No, damn it, more!”
The man’s voice rises in delirious moans. “They came from nowhere... from the sun... couldn’t see...”
I creep closer, drawn by a morbid curiosity and something else—a hunger for information about what’s happening beyond these walls while I’m trapped eating soup and answering memory questions.
“Get back in bed, Wyndward,” Sandtide calls without even looking my way.
“I can help,” I say, knowing the offer is ridiculous.
“You can help by staying out of the way.”
Curtains snap closed around the injured riders, cutting off my view. I catch glimpses of shadows moving behind the fabric—hands raising, bodies bending.
I retreat to my bed. The inaction is worse than torture. It’s suffocation. I pull the pillow over my head, pressing it against my ears to muffle the screams, but they burrow through anyway.
Behind my closed eyelids, shadows gather. Fragments of nightmares tickle the edges of my mind. A girl named Fern. Amber eyes watching me. Darkness and light, pain and fog.
“Stay out,” I whisper fiercely, as if my missing memories are predators I can scare away.
When the screams stop, it feels like a deep exhale. Release. I stare at the ceiling, wishing for sleep—I’ve slept a lot these past few days, and it’s been restorative—but it doesn’t come.
Sometime later, the door to the infirmary creaks open, and there stands Vaylen, looking like he’s been dragged behind a dragon for miles.
His uniform is torn at the shoulder, dirt smudges his face, and dark circles pool beneath his eyes.
When our gazes lock, something electric passes between us—not quite tension, not quite relief.
He approaches and closes the curtain around me.
“You look better,” he says, his voice rough.
“You look like shit.” The words tumble out before I can stop them.
A tired smile cracks across his face, and I find myself returning it. I pull my knees up to my chest under the long cotton gown they’ve given me, wrapping my arms around them as if they might shield me from the intensity of seeing him again. The infirmary suddenly feels too small, too warm.
Vaylen drops onto Sandtide’s stool with a heavy sigh. His shoulders slump, and a strand of hair with that distinctive gold streak falls across his forehead. My fingers twitch with the impulse to brush it back, to trace the line of his brow. I clench my hands tighter around my knees.
“Wanna talk about it?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
He runs a hand through his hair, making it stand up in unruly spikes. “New Ferro. Been trying to root out Screechclaws for three days straight.”
“Oh, I guess that’s why you haven’t—“ I catch myself. “What’s happening there?”
“They’ve changed tactics,” he says, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “They’re hiding in abandoned buildings, striking in small groups and stealing supplies, then disappearing before we can mount a proper response.”
I frown. “Stealing supplies? That’s new.” That I know of, Screechclaws only care about killing dragons and riders.
“Exactly.” His blue eyes, despite the exhaustion clouding them, fix on mine with unsettling intensity. “Something’s changed. We lost two riders trying to flush them out of the western quarter.”
My heart squeezes. “Who?”
“Dawnblade and Morningtide. Good people.” His voice drops. “We got four of those bitches, but the rest scattered like dogs.”
I don’t know these names, but the knowledge still hurts.
“Any… dragons?”
Vaylen shakes his head, which is a relief.
“I’m sorry about the riders,” I say, my voice dropping low. My throat tightens as I think of lives lost while I’ve been lying in bed. After a moment’s hesitation, I reach for Vaylen’s hand, my fingers trembling slightly.
His eyelids flutter when our skin touches, something vulnerable passing across his face. He interlaces his fingers with mine, and for a moment, we’re just two people holding on to each other in a quiet bubble.
Vaylen takes a deep breath and when he lets it out, he seems to drop half his load. His shoulders relax, his grip softens.
“I wish we could figure those bitches out,” he says, staring at our joined hands. “Last year’s attack on Hearthdale was nonsensical. We never found out why all the women and children were gone from the village. Or where the sword I found came from. And now this.”
I pull my hand away, suddenly restless, swinging my legs over the bed’s edge.
“What sword?” I ask.
Vaylen watches, brow furrowed. “We found an ornate weapon after the attack. It had strange markings, unlike anything our blacksmiths forge. Definitely not Screechclaw made either.”
The word markings triggers something, a glowing flash, the sensation of being dragged through earth.
“Show me,” I say, my voice sharp. “I need to see it.”
“Rhea, you’re still recovering—“
“I’ve been lying here for three days while people are dying!” The words tear from my throat, all the frustration of confinement bursting forth. “I’m not broken, Vaylen. And if there’s even a chance this connects to what happened to me...”
I grab the folded leathers that sit on the night table. An apprentice delivered them yesterday along with a pair of boots.
“If there’s a connection between my disappearance and that weapon, it might jog something in my memory.
Besides, keeping me in this dragonforsaken infirmary is wasting time we don’t have.
They could send me to trial at any minute.
” I straighten, meeting his gaze with fire in mine.
“So either help me or get out of my way.”
Vaylen stands, towering over me. For a moment, I think he’ll force me back to bed. Instead, his features rearranging into something almost resembling pride.
“Sandtide will have my hide for this,” he says, offering his arm for support.
“Let her try,” I mutter, waving his arm away. “I’ve got a year’s worth of fight stored up.”
Vaylen steps out of the circle of the curtain while I change, then we slip out.
He takes me through corridors I’ve never seen before, narrow passages barely wide enough for his shoulders, dimly lit by oil lamps that flicker as we pass.
He moves with the confidence of someone who’s memorized every inch of Fort Ashmire, occasionally stopping to listen before leading us down another twisting hall.
“Where exactly are we?” I whisper as we descend a narrow spiral staircase.
“The fort’s old archives. Predates the Sky Order by centuries.”