Chapter 37
I jolt, aches fading. I’m not broken against stone. Instead, I’m swathed in softness, a blanket tucked around me, a crackling fire nearby. I blink against the light, then focus on someone sitting beside the bed.
Alaris. His elbows are on his knees, his dark hair falling across his eyes.
“Alaris?” I croak, my throat dry.
His head snaps up.
“Ly.” His voice is thick with relief. “You’re awake.”
“What’s going on?” I mutter, squinting. “I was just on the balcony…”
His hand lifts from the chair arm, drifts toward my face, and stops. He curls his fingers and sets it back down. “You’ve been unconscious for three days.”
Three days?
I process the words slowly, along with the room around me. I’m in Arastos, with Alaris. But a moment ago, I was in the palace. Events and places layer over each other. I close my eyes, trying to stop the spinning images.
“Please talk to me. What happened?”
The slight break in his voice brings me back to the surface. Whatever dreams I’ve been stuck in, I’m here now. Here, I note, in Alaris’s bed.
“I saw visions of…versions of myself.” A pang goes through my temple. “Ugh.”
Alaris’s lips part, like he wants to ask more, but he bites down on the words, his jaw tense.
He takes my chin with delicate fingers, and guides my face this way and that, leaning forward to examine my eyes. “Don’t push yourself. Take it slow.”
The tightness squeezing my head eases as soon as I stop trying to focus the swirling sounds and images. I breathe in his scent, and it orients me even more. I examine him. Exhaustion shadows every angle of his face.
I swallow. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” He half-laughs, but the downturn of his mouth at the end takes away any humor. “I’ve spent the last three days thinking that if I take my eyes off you, you’ll stop breathing again. So no, Ly, I’m not okay.”
There is a wild gleam in his eyes. A lump forms in my throat. All I get out is a weak: “Sorry.”
He shakes his head, his tone firm. “Don’t be.”
I am though. I have so many questions, and fears, and too many images crowding my head. I had no idea using an oraculi could do this to me.
“I should get to the…” I raise a hand to point to the bathing room.
“I’ll call Flora to help you.”
Flora steadies me as I hobble to the adjoining room.
I startle when I catch myself in the mirror.
My hair has grown out. Rose gold waves wind past my collarbone, only the bottom third still stained with charcoal.
Flora ties it back and helps me into a fresh nightgown and robe.
I have to sit as I wash my face and rinse my mouth, but I shuffle back into the bedroom on my own power.
I walk myself to the bed behind the curtains. My bed.
Alaris watches every step but doesn’t stop me. “Flora, bring some water and light soup.”
She curtsies and leaves.
As soon as my calves meet the mattress, I plop down, legs shaking under my robe.
“Lie back, you shouldn’t be up yet,” he says, his eyes taking in everything.
I scoot back until I’m reclined on the pillows. I squirm under his gaze. I can’t tell if it’s worry or suspicion or anger tightening his features, but the intensity of it is unmistakable.
Flora returns with the soup on a rolling table. With a nod from Alaris she curtsies and leaves again. I almost call after her to stay.
“Eat,” he says, crossing his arms.
I sense he’s not in the mood for argument, so I welcome the distraction of soup. My hand shakes, the spoon clattering against the ceramic as I dip in slowly. I lift a spoonful, only to slosh broth over the edge. I crunch my brow to focus.
I don’t look up as he comes closer.
His hand wraps around mine, taking the spoon. “Stop. You’ll burn yourself.”
I flush as he sits on the bed next to me. He dips the spoon into the soup. Tests it against the inside of his wrist. Blows on it. Then lifts it to my lips.
I squirm. There has to be some way to avoid this. “Can’t I just have something else?”
He holds the spoon where it is, eyes glinting. “You need salt. And fluids.”
“But…”
“Open, Lysandra.”
At the sound of my full name, my lips part, and he gently places the metal against my bottom one. I drink from the spoon, unable to meet his gaze.
My throat aches. Swallowing is difficult. I’m weak from hunger, but my stomach still roils at the bite. I cover my mouth.
“Can you take more?”
I nod and he fills another spoonful.
If he’s uncomfortable feeding me, nothing in his face shows it. His attention is on my lips, on every swallow. He feeds me half of the bowl before I shake my head at another bite.
The soup helps almost instantly. Warmth spreads through my limbs, and the trembling in my hands steadies.
He sets the bowl and spoon aside. “Better?”
I nod.
“I’ll have them bring bread later.” Once more, he takes my chin in gentle fingers and examines my eyes. “How is your head?”
“Clearer. Better.”
He nods and curls fists on his lap. “Then tell me what happened.”
“I…I’m not sure.” I bite my lip. I have no idea how to describe these…visions? Prophecies? Dreams? “But I’m just fine now.”
“Ly. Do not play games with me.”
“I’m not. I really don’t know what happened.”
“Difficult Ly. Worrisome Ly. Then I’ll tell you what I know.
” That simmering energy that feels a lot like anger buzzes from his skin.
“Three days ago, I found you unconscious, barely breathing, a broken oraculi next to you. No healer could tell me why you wouldn’t wake up, why your skin burned with a deadly high fever, why your heart rate oscillated between high and low.
At one point, you stopped breathing. I watched you every minute of every hour, unable to wake you. ”
“I’m sorry—”
“Don’t apologize to me. But don’t hide from me either.” His eyes harden. “And don’t tell me you’re fine.”
I tangle my fingers in my lap. The least I can do is try to give him answers. “I wanted to come to the office and help, but I was too scared. I know the wither is so much more important, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the wards…”
“I understand. Keep going.”
“I thought I could use an oraculi to find out who he is.” I take a shuddering breath. “But it didn’t show me him. Well, it did, but only after…other things.”
I put my hand to my forehead. Every time I touch on a piece of what I saw, the larger picture scatters.
He studies me. “What did you see?”
In scrambled starts, I tell him about waking up afraid after my birthday. About making different choices in the months that followed. The things I did—or could have done—instead of going on the river to Delvos.
Each time, ending in the masked man’s arrival. In death.
I tell him about waking up and demanding help from Rinalda, leading to my incarceration in the stone tower. I can still feel the leather strap pulled tight around my throat, the edges biting into my skin, my heels scraping the floor as I tried to kick free.
The gagging sensation that follows makes me glad I’ve only had soup.
I tell him about my desperate push to rush into marriage, and my trip to Nyvos. I touch the place where the blade went between my ribs. The skin is whole, but I can feel the cold point pushing through muscle, the ground coming up fast as I collapsed on the embers.
And I tell him about losing myself in drink, and my fall from the balcony. My stomach rolls with the thought of that terrible drop.
“Is this what oraculi usually do?” I ask. Did the oraculi spin Alaris into days of dreaming, to learn about the wither?
The extended quiet makes me look up at him. His knuckles are white, his fingers threaded in front of his mouth. He stares into nothing. He doesn’t even blink.
“Alaris?”
He lowers his hands. “No.” He pauses again. “No, I’ve never heard of an oraculi having this effect.”
He’s silent so long, my heavy eyelids droop.
“Do you have power over the flame?”
My breath catches, and my eyes spring open. “What?”
“Do you have power over the flame? Do you command any powers of Ignar?”
“I…” The familiar answer rises before I can stop it. “It’s not always reliable. When I’m afraid, or under stress, it doesn’t…”
“Is that true? Tell me the truth, Ly.”
“I am.” I squirm. “You’re spending far too much time worrying about me.” I pull the fur higher, like it can shield me from his questions. “I only used the oraculi so I can help. I never meant to distract you…”
“If you lie to me, I’ll spend even more time and resources figuring out the truth myself.
Ly, I beg you. For my sake and for yours, give me an answer I can believe.
” He tips his head back, his expression cold.
“If you don’t, the wither will have to wait, because I’m going to do whatever I need to make sure this never happens to you again. ”
I suck in a breath. It’s my biggest secret, but there are so many strange and dangerous secrets between us now.
“No,” I say finally. “I’ve never called the flame. My siblings all command it. I am the only one who can’t.”
He goes quiet. His gaze is on the middle distance, fixed on something I can’t see.
“Alaris?”
“I’m thinking,” he says without moving.
My eyelids are losing the fight. Each blink lasts longer than the one before.
“Don’t.” His voice cuts through the fog. “Don’t go under again. Stay here with me.”
“I’m just tired.” My words are thick. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” The spinning shapes and colors felt different.
He doesn’t look convinced, his grip tight on his knees.
“I promise. This is just…” I yawn so wide my jaw cracks. “This is just sleep.”
He exhales through his nose. His jaw works once. Then he reaches across and pulls the fur around my shoulders, his fingers brushing my collarbone. “I’m going to wake you every few hours to check.”
“Fine. Give me four hours.”
“Three hours.”
I close my eyes. The last thing I register is him standing and the quiet scrape of a book being pulled from the shelf.