Chapter 47
Amaris
“Amaris.”
She brushed away the faint whisper, wanting to continue her dreamless sleep.
“Amaris,” they muttered again.
She begrudgingly opened her eyes and adjusted to the light streaming into the hall.
“Adelaide?” she asked, stretching her arms and letting out a big yawn. She sat up, straightening her back. Sleeping on the floor had seemed like a good idea last night, but she was regretting that decision now.
“You’re alive,” Adelaide whispered, scooting closer and hugging her.
It took Amaris several more blinks to wake up entirely. Adelaide pulled back, and Amaris instantly awakened at the sight of her crooked nose.
“Your nose,” she said.
Adelaide touched it, wincing. She gripped either side of her face and took a deep breath. Before Amaris registered what she was about to do, Adelaide shifted her nose back into place. Grabbing for a ball of cloth beside her, she pressed it to the fresh blood trickling down her lip. Amaris blinked.
“Happens more often than you think,” she said in a nasally voice against the cloth.
“How do you feel?” Amaris asked, released from her stupor.
“I just woke up, but I think I’m fine.” Adelaide offered a shrug and sat up. She twisted her back but winced and grabbed her side.
“I’m well, too, thanks for asking.” Esaias sat up beside her and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
“No one asked,” Adelaide threw at him.
A few steps shuffled toward them, and Esaias slumped back on his cot, groaning. “Onika, your services are not required at the moment.”
Onika let out a frustrated huff of breath, completely ignoring him as she shoved him over and sat beside him. She was in a bright-green gown, probably from the Conjugation, but there were tears in the skirt and blood soaked through in large splashes.
“Eat this before I’m forced to stick my fingers in your mouth and rub jam over your gums again,” Onika said, handing him a bowl of porridge.
Onika turned to Amaris, sucking in her lips as she offered her a wry smile.
Adelaide brushed aside their bantering and demanded, “Tell me everything. What happened after I saved Esaias from certain death?”
Esaias shot her a scowl, but Onika swatted him on the arm.
Amaris looked around, taking in the decorations for the first time, or at least what felt like the first time.
She began with how she’d snuck off toward the ship but was quickly interrupted by Esaias to explain how they’d fended off Deavopan soldiers and then raced to the beach to save Adelaide.
With a flat look and then an eye roll, Amaris jumped back in.
She sat for what felt like forever, going over the night.
Each of them filled in their own gaps, reliving the battles they’d fought, but Amaris omitted her conversation with Drauna and Sephardi.
She assessed their injuries. Esaias’s face had stopped bleeding, and he was able to clear the blood from his eye.
He also seemed to be in decent spirits. She hoped he paid Onika well for her splendid job of managing his diabetes. No, mamat.
She finally pulled herself from their grasps and made her way around the hall.
She stopped by some of her gravest of patients, who she’d worried wouldn’t make it through the night.
Most were faring well, but others weren’t as lucky.
Soldiers who were awake and uninjured helped carry their bodies away.
She stepped from the hall after the last one was brought out, unable to stand the grieving beginning around her.
“Amaris!” Pricilla whisper-shouted from across the hall.
Amaris turned and they collided. Pricilla was covered in dried blood, but by the smile on her face, it wasn’t hers. She dragged Amaris out into the hall and secured them in a small alcove. She slammed the curtain closed and shook with what was either excitement or the need to use the restroom.
“What?” Amaris laughed.
“You’re from another realm!”
Oh that. “You believe me?” Amaris asked, brushing aside the hair fallen from her braid.
“Are you kidding me? Of all people?”
Amaris’s whistling laugh was replaced by a nervous giggle. She swallowed the lump in her throat. Fuck, here we go. It all spilled out, everything. She told her about Viv, Charlie, and Derek. She fended off several tears, but with Pricilla’s hands grasping hers, it pushed away the panic and anger.
Amaris even tried to describe what it was like being a firefighter paramedic.
Pricilla was astonished by the idea of running into a fire and begged for more.
She went into as much detail as she could about technology.
She even did her best to describe a car, which blew Pricilla’s mind, but the entire time Pricilla never once questioned it.
She sat with those violet eyes brighter than Amaris had ever seen them.
“You still believe me?” she joked.
“I won’t lie, it’s quite a lot to digest, but you’ve experienced magic! You’ve come from another realm!”
“I don’t know exactly how it happened. I mean, I fell through a tree.”
“It’s most likely a gate that connects our two realms,” Pricilla corrected. “I can’t wait to start reading more on this!”
“If you can find anything else on it. The journal is probably the only thing. For now, if there’s anything you want to know, go ahead and ask, because we are totally secluding ourselves in the library all week so you can teach me everything about this realm.
I can’t keep running around pulling shit out of my ass. ”
Pricilla laughed. “I can’t imagine what it’s like walking around with this secret.”
“You’re telling me. I’ve been dying over here!”
“Where do I even start?” She sighed. “Well, you passed through a gate. Does your world have magic then?”
Amaris folded her arms, leaning against the cold stones at her back. “I never thought magic existed until I came here, and that even took a while to finally grasp.”
“But one of our worlds has to have magic.” Pricilla paced the small alcove, her tulle dress bouncing around her with each turn.
“I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s not Earth, unless you call microwaves magic.”
Pricilla gave her a peculiar look but blew off her joke.
“Magic has to exist here,” Amaris began, studying the dried blood crusted into her knuckles. “Those books and the myths you’ve read must mean something. What about how quickly everyone heals here? You mended my hand in three days, for crying out loud.”
“Has anyone else experienced anything like that?” Pricilla asked.
Amaris shrugged. “Theodoric seems to heal fast, too, and Esaias.”
Pricilla pursed her lips and folded her arms across her blood-stained chest as she leaned into the opposite wall.
“And…” Amaris hesitated. Pricilla knew everything else at this point, what was another mystery?
“Something happened on the ship.” She rubbed nervously at her arms before Pricilla crossed the alcove and leaned beside her.
“There was someone onboard who…” Amaris felt the heaviness of the night, but Pricilla laid her hand gently on her shoulder, and it let up from its unbearable weight. “She knew my name.”
“Had you met her before?”
“No.” Amaris slid down the wall, throwing her hands over her face. “She knew I was from a different world.”
“How’s that possible?”
“The question of the hour,” Amaris groaned. “How’s it possible I’m here in the first place, and how did Sephardi even find out?”
“Sephardi?” Pricilla sat beside her, hugging her knees to her chest. A perplexing expression with soft eyes and pouted lips sat upon her face.
“She was the one who poisoned me. All because she knew I was from a different world. She called me an abomination.”
Pricilla clung to Amaris’s arm, wrapping around it. “You’re not an abomination to me.” She smiled. “More like a miracle.”
“Should we tell anyone about this?” Amaris asked.
Pricilla shook her head vigorously. “No. I’m laughed at for collecting books on myth and magic. If you tell people you’re from another realm, they might think you to be crazy.”
“Sephardi sided with the Accords because of me, and they were working with pirates—”
“Pirates?” Pricilla questioned.
“I overheard some of the crew members arguing about working with the captain since she was a pirate.”
“They were speaking Akaric instead of Tendasy?”
Amaris threw her hands up. “All I know is I could understand them, but some had heavy accents. They made some kind of deal.”
Pricilla wrung her hands together. “What was it?”
Amaris raised a shoulder. “I don’t know, but whatever it was, the soldiers said they held up their end.”
Pricilla blew out a breath and pressed the wrinkles from her dress. “Alright. Now might be more than I can digest. So, this pirate and Sephardi both knew you were from a different realm?”
Amaris nodded.
Pricilla stood and grabbed the edge of the curtain, drawing it back. “I don’t know where I’ll even begin, but I’ll start investigating this. There was a disagreement with a province under the Accords over twenty years ago. Bazrath nearly started a war. I’ll start there.”
“But what about the pirate?”
“Pirates haven’t been an issue for fifty years.
They attacked Godwin’s coast but were defeated.
Any remaining retreated deep within the Black Sea.
It’s unlikely, but it’s possible they sided with the Accords.
” Frazzled, Pricilla clung to the curtain as if it was the only thing keeping her standing. “I need to go to the library.”
“What about me?”
“For now, focus on your patients. I’ll let you know what I find.”
In a second, Pricilla was gone, striding at a brisk pace toward the library.