Kaylar stayed and supervised until Oralee had everything settled with Rosalea. I would almost worry that there was a disease here that made life mages ill with two changers out, except one was poisoned. He flicked his tail with irritation. He had been mulling it over, it was possible the person who had cut her was not the person who poisoned her, but he could only think of four people that had been around her. He watched as Oralee rewrapped the wound on her hand - the stitches should be able to be removed soon, he supposed.
Galena moved in a bit afterwards, bowing to him. “What did you need?”
“Can you help Oralee? The last treatment I used ended up burning our new girl.”
Galena looked in at Rosalea and winced, then nodded, “Poor thing. I will ask that Yelena come check in on us also.”
“Thank you.”
He turned then and walked out, moving a bit to another room, and slowly pressed aside the curtain and looked in. Maliff was reading. His green skin had brown patches on it, and his very pink eyes almost glowed at him in the dimmed light. He was wearing a whole flowing robe of living jasmine flowers and mint; the smell was very soothing in the air. “She is sleeping, my lord,” the elf spoke softly. He indicated the bed where a young woman with her long black hair braided and arranged on the pillow beside her. Her face was gaunt, and she looked about as thin as Rosalea.
Kaylar laid down, filling the space a lot as he did so. He put his nose down near them both, and he accepted attention from Maliff as he listened to Rhainnon breathe. The rasp was still there, but as yesterday and the days before she did not seem like she was getting worse. He regretted again avoiding bringing Rosalea here in the first place or at least much sooner than he had.
“The herbs help; I have been looking after her as I promised,” Maliff said, rubbing at the space just beneath Kaylar’s eye. Kaylar could feel the elf’s concern about the situation, but mostly he was worried about Kaylar’s feelings. Maliff was a more complicated person than average, both going with the grain of the way he had been raised as an elf, but also against it. Most elves of his kind grew bonsai trees upon their shoulders to show their status, but his had been broken away from his body when Kaylar had first met him wandering the woods. He had made no effort to recover it, but still grew elaborate plants against his skin that would dazzle any elf and earn him respect.
“I appreciate you looking after her, and the herbs smell enchanting,” he said softly. He turned his head as he heard the girl stir; she blinked awake and looked over. “My lord,” she said hoarsely. Her voice was nearly gone.
“Rhainnon,” he said. When she reached for him, he picked up his head and put his nose between her arms. “How do you feel?”
“Tired. I heard people rushing through the hall earlier, and Yelena said someone else was sick,” her voice was hoarse.
“Yes, but I am hoping everything is all right now.”
Maliff stood and picked up a tea cup. “Rhainnon, this will soothe your throat.”
Kaylar moved out of the way. Rhainnon seemed stable, so as long as Rosalea could recover, he could save them both. Then he could deal with the problems that a headstrong, evasive, angry, and vagrant teenage-girl was bound to bring to him.
***
Rosalea awoke; she had never been in such pain in her life. She felt as if every inch of her was burned worse than the fiercest sunburn she had ever had. It felt like she had been half cooked or something.
“You are awake!” someone said. She looked up to see the cat-like face she remembered from before. The woman sat on the bed with Rosalea and touched her forehead. “You are still very hot.” Rosalea saw her ears were… odd, not quite like how she had seen elves pictured and not at all right for a human. She had an almost silver sheen to her skin.
“Who are you?” Rosalea managed hoarsely.
“My name is Oralee. I am Master Kaylar’s head maid,” she said. She pressed a cold and wet cloth to Rosalea’s forehead. Rosalea laid back. She felt exhausted. She was aware of being damp all over.
“Did I get burned?” she asked. She could barely remember getting taken by the dragon let alone how she got here. Who was this Master Kaylar person?
“When he gave you magic to survive the poison, it burned you. That was a few hours ago. This is the first time you’ve woken up in four days, kid.”
If I have slept so much, how come I feel so utterly exhausted?
There was noise of a curtain being pushed aside, and she looked toward it. There was a large arch on the opposite side of the room, and it was from there that the curtain hung. The dragon entered. She felt her heart try to fall through her spine.
“I thought I heard you,” he said. “I am impressed by how quickly you are back up.”
“Yelena believes that she is finally cured of the poison. There are no more symptoms of it beneath her bandage. The stitches cannot come out until the blisters fade though.”
Rosalea glanced back. The dragon was Master Kaylar? She had been poisoned? Why was the dragon trying to save her, if he was just going to kill her? Wasn’t that his plan all along? She was confused.
The dragon smirked at her. “I am not as terrible as you have been brought to think,” he said to her. She flushed and made more of a point not to look at either one of them. “Who gave you that injury? On your hand?”
Oh yes, he cut me, she remembered the man who had taken her knife. Then she froze; she was not sure she wanted the dragon to know.
“Yes, who cut you?” the dragon demanded again. She realized that though he had “heard” her think, he had not been able to “see” what she visualized. That makes it like mental speak, except that he hears what I am not purposefully projecting. She tensed as she heard the dragon shifting back and forth. But then she looked up at him and shook her head no. She concluded right then that she was not going to give this dragon any cause to go back and terrorize the people of Mire more than he already was. “Was it the same person as bandaged you?” She closed her eyes and tried very hard not to think of Haidi. Rhainnon was her best friend, and there was no way she was going to cause that family any further harm. The dragon grumbled, the sound deep and intimidating as it reverberated through his chest. “Listen, do you not understand? The person who put the bandages on you tried to kill you with Areeyo weed.”
Involuntarily, Rosalea looked at her right hand, where she had been cut again. There was a fresh bandage, but on her arm and all over her left hand, there were white blisters. Something really did burn me, she thought, tenderly flexing her fingers.
“Yes, that was me,” Kaylar acknowledged, breathing out so heavily with frustration that Rosalea felt his breath on her skin. “You really will not tell me who did this?”
Rhainnon— she broke it off. She closed her eyes tightly, hoping the involuntary thought did not clue the dragon in. She was somehow not as surprised as she would like to be that Haidi had poisoned her, and even without thinking about it, she understood exactly why Haidi would want to poison her. It was possibly Rosalea’s fault that Rhainnon had been taken away from her.
“Master Kaylar worked hard to help you. You dishonor him by refusing him answers to simple questions,” Oralee chided, dipping the rag she was pressing to her face into a bowl of icy and slushy looking water nearby and then dabbing it along her arms.
Rosalea just kept her eyes closed and tried to not think about anything. She heard the dragon’s scales rattling irritably as he seemed to physically try to shake the situation off. “No matter, Oralee, dear. Rosalea, your magic is not recovered enough to have you moving around or getting riled. Oralee, please get her some bread sprinkled with sugar and butter and then get her to take some medicine.
“Very well,” Oralee said and left, Rosalea was alone with the dragon, who was still staring down at her. Rosalea focused on her pain, she was burned, some of the blistering on her left hand was so bad she could see her own reflection.
Kaylar sat in silence for several seconds that felt like eternity. “You can hide as long as you want to try to, I suppose, however petulant and silly it is.”
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
Rosalea clenched her teeth and looked up at him, speaking as Oralee returned. “Internal privacy is not such a colossal request, is it?” Her voice was hoarse. She began coughing for the effort it took to speak aloud. Her throat was raw like she had been screaming and screaming or something and then had little to drink.
She was grateful for the tea she was handed, but as she drank it, she felt immediately fuzzy, and she realized it had something in it. Oralee put the bread plate in her hand, and it smelled so warm and fresh and sweet that Rosalea picked it up and began eating… she wasn’t sure if she finished it or not, but there was relief in the act of something warm and soft and filling to eat, even through the sensation that her brain was muddled by something she just drank.
***
Kaylar huffed. Oralee caught the tea cup before it fell as the girl went out almost immediately. She had at least eaten most of the bread first.
“Half dead, half asleep, and full of defiance,” Oralee said, looking quite indignant on his behalf.
Kaylar wanted to say that she did not know half of it. The girl was so intent on defying him she was refusing to think around him. He was not used to being caught hearing thoughts, so it caused another layer of annoyance that she seemed specifically aware of it. As people processed the world, he could only hear their thoughts that had a sort of spoken-to-self quality. He could not sense what they visualized or just processed, such as recognizing things in the environment or perceiving colors. Since she could tell that he could hear, she was doing her best to not even allow herself to think around him. It will be tricky. If she will not think, then she will not recognize my intent or change her prejudices while she thinks I can hear her trying to sort it out.
“Do you think that she is worth all of this trouble?” Oralee asked as he was silent. “She doesn’t seem like your sort of person, if I am not out of place to say so.”
He could feel Oralee’s anxiety, and so he pressed his nose to her. “No,” he reassured her, “never out of place with you. You are right, she is not my sort of person.” Kaylar preferred personalities that were open with him and easy to foster a sense of connection and loyalty to and with. This was not Rosalea. She was going to fight him for every piece of information and defy him in every way she could.
Oralee leaned against him. I helped to write the very laws that would get this girl killed if I cannot figure out how to manage her prior to the liana’s call for her. He had never been put in a position to be in conflict with the law, and he did not like the idea that he could be put into a position to kill a stubborn human.
He supposed there was also the option to find ways to push on her and torture her until she broke and became compliant. But he was not that sort of dragon, and he’d probably just rather kill her and be done with it if things were looking that way.
But Rosalea was more dead than alive today, and even that didn’t make her malleable in the slightest. She was smart and stubborn, and perhaps with cause, she hated him.
He breathed out. Well, she will save Rhainnon, at least. I suppose if that is all I end up accomplishing, I will call it a success. Still, the impending struggle and potential necessity for him to do unsavory things grated on his nerves, and he felt moody and petulant in a way he was quite unused to.
“Is there anything that I can do for you?”
“Keep tending her,” he told Oralee as he turned to move away. “She is Rhainnon’s only hope.”
Oralee nodded. “Of course, Master Kaylar.”
He smiled at her. And she beamed back for it. He moved out of the room. She thought of Rhainnon. She came from Rhainnon’s house. I am going to guess that it is possible that one of them cut her, and it is certain that one of them bandaged her. I was not paying attention to them when I was looking at Rosalea. Perhaps it is not just defiance that makes her feel she cannot tell me; perhaps I can be charitable and suppose she thinks she must protect them. It was an annoying take on the situation for her to have, but he supposed not entirely incorrect. He was extremely angry at any sort of attempted homicide within the boundaries of his town. There are entirely too many dissatisfying elements to this situation. He thought again about the burns, and the potential magical bond shared between them. Many dissatisfying things indeed.
***
Rosalea awoke when it was dark. There was no one in the room, but she felt much, much better. A damp, cold blanket fell from her shoulders and chest as she sat up. She wished it were lighter in the room; she could not see herself.
As she moved to disentangle herself from the blankets, she froze as she heard someone stir in the room. A match lit and then a lamp. She did not recognize the woman sitting with her. She was dark-skinned, not nearly silver colored, and her eyes were a deep brown. Her brown hair was in tight curls about her head, standing up a bit from her scalp before cascading down to her shoulders in a thick and fluffy way. “How do you feel?”
Rosalea had expected her to sound more like Genya, but she spoke with a very Myraduilian accent. She tried to speak, but her voice only managed a croak that sounded a little like the word, “Thirsty.” She shivered. Why was it so cold?
The woman stood and poured some water from a pitcher. “I am Galena. Let me have a look at you and see how your burns are doing.” She did not give Rosalea the cup, but instead held it to her lips directly. Rosalea huffed, but drank, it was just water and not tea. The water was not particularly warm, but much warmer than the bed she was sitting on. She moved to get up, shivering.
The woman pressed her down, “I think you should stay down.” She seemed to notice Rosalea’s shivers, “You are cold?” She carefully touched Rosalea’s hands. Rosalea looked down, and the woman smiled, “Look, the blisters are nearly gone. Our doctor is very good, the medicine seems to be working very well. It is hard to tell in this light, but I think your skin might be the right color.”
“I’m cold,” she said.
“Well, I have been keeping this part of the room cold,” she said. “Release!” she moved her hands apart. It instantly felt warm again. “To help the burns you see.”
“What burned me?” Rosalea wished her voice sounded a little less croaky.
“Master Kaylar gave you his own magic so you could live through the poison. I suppose you two share some like magic, but it is still not something anyone does without consequences. Sometimes those consequences include madness, but you seem pretty sane to me. You sane?” she seemed to speak in an upbeat fashion, and Rosalea felt she was teasing a little.
But, she didn’t have energy to keep up with teasing, so she just nodded… she was pretty sure she was sane.
“Good, can I see your hand? I think we should change your bandage again.” Rosalea held her wrapped hand out, watching with a sensation of anxious déjà vu as her fingers were exposed again. The cut was visibly stitched shut and scabbed over, there were still bits of purply veins around the area, and it was still definitely a little infected because it was red and puffy. “Pretty wicked looking,” she said. “But the blisters are about gone, see?” Rosalea thought that was probably right. It was hard to tell by the lamp light though. “Can I get you anything?” Galena got a fresh bandage from the bedside table and carefully laid it over the cut. It had an ointment on it that soothed the pain a little and made Rosalea breathe a little easier.
Rosalea drank some more of the water. She was feeling wakeful and shook her head. “Well, I am afraid I am under orders to try and make sure you sleep until at least dawn.”
Rosalea sighed. “I have been sleeping for days.”
“Well, Kaylar says your magic has to recover quickly. What if you have a little of this,” she said, removing the cover from a bowl of soup, which with her weather magic she had no trouble heating. Rosalea felt the absence of connection with her magic as soon as she saw the steam rise. The room was dim not just because the lamp was only offering a little light, it was dim because Rosalea was used to seeing magic telling her about everything she could see.
She felt a hollowness in her the moment the warm soup smell reached her, and she nodded, she could use some soup.
Galena told her a bit about the treatments she had as Rosalea ate, making small talk that Rosalea appreciated. As soon as she ate, she felt a tiredness settle over her again, the warmth through her was soothing where the cold had not been. Seeing that she was done, Galena traded her a bowl for a tea cup. Rosalea held it close, and she could smell that it was similar to what she’d had earlier, and she gave the weather mage a look.
“Come now, a few more hours sleep will not hurt. You will feel a lot better in the morning, you will see. Besides, you were awake more now than you have been since I met you. You do not need to rush things.”
Rosalea sighed and took two sips of the tea and handed it back. She instantly felt groggy.
She laid back again, the bed still felt a little chilly, but she imagined her body would warm it soon. Galena brought the covers up over her, and stroked her hair for a little bit. “Still, I am really glad to see you are about out of this. I thought for sure you wouldn’t make it the last couple of nights, and it is such a relief. I really wanted to see you make it through.”
Rosalea nodded, and even fuzzy and groggy, it still made her feel a little good someone wanted her to live through something… even if she did still have a whole dragon to contend with. She blinked heavily, trying to summon a response, but she fell asleep again.
She awoke to noise in the room. She looked up to see the metallic-skinned person she was more familiar with. It was also clearly very early in the morning. She sat up. She felt much, much better than she had in apparently several days.
Oralee looked over and smiled at her. “You are awake. And don’t you look better! Looks like Galena’s weather magic helped you a lot.”
“Keeping my burns cool?” Rosalea asked a little hoarsely. Her voice sounded better too.
Oralee nodded. “Here, I have some breakfast for you.” She brought it over to the bed. It was some fruit and eggs and bread. Rosalea ate the fruit first, since it was one of her least favorite parts, and then started on the bread. She was actually quite hungry. Oralee kept producing food for her until she had eaten all she could.
Rosalea felt very full and then annoyed as she instantly felt tired all over again. She did not want to sleep more. Fortunately, Oralee did not seem intent on trying to make her drink some of the tea again. She slowly got out of the bed, and stretched. She felt sore all over. Probably from having been in bed so long. I thought the dragon was killing people, but there are a lot of people here.
She looked around herself - the room was massive, it could fit a big dragon in it. However, the furniture was all for human-sized people. The tapestries looked like something she expected a human… or maybe elves to make. She looked at the woman she remembered calling herself the head maid, and thought perhaps that explained her appearance; not an elf, but not a human, but someone between.
It would take a lot of effort to maintain a castle this size. And why would the dragon go through all of this effort to save my life from poison if he wanted to kill me? For the first time, she started to feel maybe she had not perfectly understood everything. She looked at her bandaged hand, and she found she was still angry at the dragon. He caused people a lot of pain, even if he was not as bad as she might have thought at first.
As if wondering about him has summoned him, he appeared from behind the curtain. He looked her over. “Good, you are on your feet,” he said.
Rosalea looked away. She did not know what to say to him, and did not know what he wanted from her. She wished she was not here, and she felt paranoid now that he had been listening to her.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I am better,” she said, not looking at him.
“Good. I need you.”
Of course you do, why else would I be here? Rosalea felt trapped and the compressed rage she had been feeling since she was trapped in Mire. She looked at him, prepared to not comply.
The dragon sighed.