Chapter Three #2
Bavil sucked in a breath and blew it out. “I still can’t really believe it. I feel like I’m lost in the middle of a strange world with no idea what I’m doing.”
Tor laughed and managed to lean over without falling over only because Pel propped him up. He offered Bavil a weak clap on the back. His coordination still wasn’t great.
“Welcome to my life. I don’t think I’ve had the slightest idea what I’m doing for months now.”
Pel turned to look at him. His tone was tart. “Excuse me?”
“Except for the inadvertently very wise choices I’ve been making when it comes to Pel,” Tor corrected hurriedly, and Bavil grinned.
“That’s been the most amazing thing ever.
But otherwise, I’ve been hiding from my brother and trying to deny reality, then there were exiles, then there was treason, and then there was saving my niece and nearly dying and ending up in a magical coma for the second time…
and now I’m in a cave meeting with exiles and possibly actually committing treason, and I can’t decide if it’s a bad sign that this just feels like another day. ”
The others laughed, but Pel slipped an arm through his. “We just need to explain it better to your brother. You’re not a traitor, and you know it.”
Tor did know it, but he wasn’t sure that mattered.
It helped to think that maybe part of the problem had been that someone had deliberately set Varex against him.
But his heart continued to ache at the thought that things had gone so wrong that no matter what the supposed evidence, Varex had believed Tor might have committed treason.
And Tor had frittered away years when he could have been trying to fix their issues.
Instead, he’d played right into the conspirators’ hands. He’d been mouthy and aggressive—and run away for months, letting them say whatever they wanted about what he was doing and why he was doing it.
Maybe it had been inevitable. Maybe they would always have found something for him to be guilty of, but there was still an ember of hot resentment in Tor’s gut that he’d made it easy for them.
On the other hand, if events hadn’t unfolded the way they had, maybe he wouldn’t have been in the right place at the right time to protect Cala. If they were right about the end game, then she was always going to be a target.
So he was glad about that, if nothing else.
A giant yawn took him by surprise, making his jaw crack.
“Why don’t you rest?” Pel suggested.
“But I just woke up,” Tor protested.
He could already feel his eyelids getting heavier, though, like his body had just been awake so that he could eat, and now it was shutting down again.
He yawned a second time.
“At least rest for a few minutes,” Pel cajoled.
Tor hadn’t even paid attention to what time it was, and while he wanted to ask, he found himself lying down instead, his body getting heavier and heavier by the moment.
Pel leaned over him and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
Tor opened his mouth to argue that surely he could do better than that, but he couldn’t get the words out before sleep claimed him.
The next time Tor woke, he at least wasn’t the only one who’d been sleeping.
It seemed to be morning. Bavil was still in his bed roll.
Beluna was messy-haired and yawning as she balanced a pot at the edge of the fire.
Smears of gray ash marked her dark fingers, and it looked like she was only half awake as she tried to make what he guessed was either fella-root or porridge. He sniffed. Fella-root.
Cavun was standing at the cave entrance, his broad shoulders making the cave feel even smaller. It looked like he’d been on guard last night.
Pel had been sleeping curled up with Tor, and his gaze was anxious as he met Tor’s. He relaxed visibly when he saw that Tor was awake.
“How are you feeling?” Pel asked.
Tor considered this. “Not so bad.”
Pel’s look was skeptical.
“No, truly,” Tor assured him.
Admittedly, his scale was probably still a bit skewed, but he felt more like himself today.
There wasn’t the same fog of confusion, and he remembered everything they’d discussed yesterday.
Tama’s magic was still inside him, but either there was less of it, or some of Tor’s own magic had replenished itself.
His insides were starting to feel more like his, anyway.
He also felt antsy and like he would crawl out of his skin if he didn’t do more than hunch in his blankets today, though.
Plus, he had to pee.
Tor blew out a breath. “Can you help me up?”
Pel looked at him with blatant skepticism. “Don’t you remember what happened last night?”
“I feel better than I did last night.”
This was true, if not the entire story. Tor offered a hopeful smile. “I need to stretch and get my body used to moving again. It helped last time to move around a bit.”
Tor had to figure this out, because he had to go help his family.
Pel finally conceded, “Let Beluna take a look at your injuries first.”
That actually made a lot of sense, so Tor permitted the inspection.
The wounds looked much more recent than two weeks ago, but that was his understanding of a magical coma.
It wasn’t exactly like being magically frozen—not that that was something anyone could do—but it wasn’t not like that, either.
The body sort of… stayed the same until the magical drain was dealt with, one way or the other.
Thankfully, the wounds didn’t look infected, just… fresh.
Beluna applied salve and bandaged them up again.
“Thank you.”
She nodded, and then she and Pel helped Tor get to his feet.
Climbing from the ground to fully upright was…
not great. Dizziness washed over him, and the world lurched alarmingly.
He swayed, but Pel was right there, wrapping an arm around him and keeping him standing.
Tor clutched at him and kept his eyes squinched closed until everything in his brain seemed to settle down.
Cautiously, he slitted one eye, made sure the world wasn’t out to get him, and then opened both eyes again. Everything stayed still. Tor blew out a relieved breath.
“That wasn’t so bad,” he said, even as he tried to take a step forward.
He nearly crumpled and was saved again by Pel, who’d been joined by Bavil. Tor looked down at his leg in outrage. It hadn’t even been dizziness that time! Instead, it had been a shooting pain in his leg.
“You were injured,” Pel pointed out, looking a hilarious mixture of concerned and exasperated. “Remember?”
Right. Yes. They’d just looked at his wounds. Tor wasn’t quite sure how he’d missed the aching throb, actually, except that there was so very much for him to concentrate on. If he was still this injured after Tama had healed him, then all of her efforts had gone into stabilizing his magic.
He shivered as he realized how close he’d come to dying—and since Pel was bonded to him, he might have killed Pel, too.
He didn’t ever want to put the man in danger, and that meant he needed to take better care of himself.
Except he didn’t know how he could have done anything differently, not once he realized Cala was in danger.
Pel’s arm tightened around him. “Beluna’s been taking care of them while we traveled. Tama’s healing helped a little, too, but I think she concentrated on your magic. So you need to be careful.”
Aware now that both his left leg and right side needed to be treated with care, Tor moved much more cautiously.
They managed to shuffle forward a few careful steps.
Tor was limping, but it was still movement.
His side pinched every time he breathed, but that was still better than not breathing.
Tor wasn’t going to be winning any races, but he was upright.
“Could we go outside for a bit?” he asked hopefully.
Maybe he should have declared it as a fixed intention.
He outranked everyone here, after all. (Bavil wasn’t officially a king yet.
It was at least a gray area.) But he was also aware that a stiff breeze might knock him over, and forging foolishly ahead was probably what had got him into this situation in the first place.
Even though Tor had hurt him, Pel had spent the last two weeks caring for and protecting an unconscious Tor, and he needed to recognize that.
Pel looked at him for a long moment, and then he let out an exasperated huff.