Kethril (8 page)

“Don’t move for now,” Vevin told her while
putting a comforting arm on her shoulders. “You were very sick and
your fever just broke yesterday.” He squeezed a little more water
into her mouth then took a cloth off her forehead. She could hear
him put it in water and wring it out. When he replaced it, it was
cool.

This time she made sure her throat was clear
before speaking. “Where are we?”

“We’re in the village of Rethram outside of
the Willden.” He gave her a little more water.

Water made the hunger worse. “Village? How
long have I been asleep?” Her voice sounded pitiful to her
ears.

“Off and on for five days,” he answered near
her ear. Vevin continued running fingers through her hair as he
talked. “I was so worried about you. You fell sick the night after
we left. I used a lot of magic to enable everyone to travel faster
and longer. There was some doubt if we’d make it out of the
Willden, but we succeeded after two days. The worst of your fever
broke after leaving the forest. It took another couple of days to
get here. That was yesterday morning.”

“I’m hungry,” Liselle said plaintively. She
wanted to ask more about the journey, but her stomach was demanding
attention.

“I have some broth, which is all your
stomach and throat can handle,” Vevin propped her up with pillows
behind her back. “There’s a healer here that gave orders for your
care. She’s young but capable.” Liselle heard a sizzle, knowing
that Vevin used magic to warm the broth. “There we go. Here take a
sip.” He held the spoon to her mouth.

Broth had never tasted so heavenly. Her lips
were tender and cracked, so she tried to gather healing power only
to find it suppressed. “Ah, ah. You’re not allowed to perform
magic. It could tear your body apart after being weakened by
fever.” The flower in Liselle’s hair tightened and she could see it
in her mind as well. It was agreeing with Vevin.

After she finished the broth, Vevin
rearranged the pillows and let her lie back down. It didn’t take
long to fall back to sleep.

***

“Liselle, it’s time to wake up.” The voice
wasn’t one she recognized. Liselle groaned at it in protest. The
voice persisted. “Come now, I know you’re tired, but you need to
wake up.”

She tried to open her eyes. Something still
covered them. Liselle tried to bring her arms up again. It was
difficult. “You want to remove the bandage over your eyes? Go
ahead, but open your eyes slowly,” the woman’s voice told her. It
took all Liselle’s strength to remove the cloth before someone took
it from her hands. “There you are.”

At first, everything was blurry shapes, but
then it started to come clear. The candlelit room contained the
wooden bed she was in, a simple table and chairs, and a hearth with
a crackling fire. It looked more like a living room than a bedroom.
Vevin sat next to her, Tathan and Anilyia were on chairs near the
table and Sir Danth stood apart from the others, next to the
fire.

“Hello.” A young woman was sitting next to
her on the bed. Her voice was pleasant. “I’m Ponella. You’ve just
gotten over a terrible fever.” Her hair was brown and she was
dressed in simple clothes. There were old claw scars on her face.
“I’m told you used magic before that and need nourishment. We’ve
brought you some food,” she pointed out to bowls and plates set out
on the table. Tathan grabbed one and handed it to her.

She took a bite out of some cheese and
grabbed a slice of bread to go with it. Ponella watched Liselle
take the first few bites. “Good, you can eat. The rest of the
healing should go well now.” Ponella put the back of her hand on
Liselle’s forehead. “There’s no fever. How are your eyes?”

Liselle stared at the healer while chewing.
It always seemed like someone wanted to talk to her whenever she
was ravenous. Too much time had passed since she performed the
magic and her body was wasted. Fever and time lost in getting
nourishment added to the toll. After chewing most of the food,
Liselle answered. “The candles hurt them a little, but it’s not
bad. I can heal myself.”

“No!” Vevin, Ponella and Tathan all
exclaimed in unison. Ponella explained. “Magic takes physical
strength. When a person as weak as you are uses it, it does
permanent damage to bones, heart, brain, and other internal parts.
It could kill you.” She leaned over and put her finger just in
front of Liselle’s nose. “Don’t you dare use even the slightest bit
of magic, is that clear?” Liselle opened her mouth and gently bit
the proffered finger. Ponella was not amused and stared until
Liselle let go. “Is that clear?” she reiterated.

“Yes.” Liselle might have tried to fight it
harder but her magic was still being suppressed, whether by Vevin
or the flower that was squeezing her hair, she didn’t know.

“You’re a very healthy woman. The fever took
its toll on you, but you’ll recover soon and can leave anytime.”
Ponella gathered her bag. “Eat well and take care of yourself.” She
shivered before reaching the door. “Brrr, I sense an early and
harsh winter coming. You may want to put more wood on that
fire.”

After the healer was gone for a few moments,
Sir Danth went to the door and looked out. He came back with a nod
of his helmet and re-took his position.

“Good, I don’t like her. I don’t like any of
them,” Anilyia said. The princess tried to grab a piece of food
from the table. When Liselle glared at her, she stuck out her
tongue and took a bite anyway.

“How are you really doing, Cousin?” Tathan
moved to the vacant side of the bed Ponella had just vacated.
Liselle stuck out her tongue back at the princess when Anilyia had
to surrender the hand.

Liselle thought about the question for a
moment. “I’m hungry, weak, tired and confused about everything. You
tell me how we got here, I’ll eat and when we’re both done, I’ll go
back to sleep and take care of the other two.”

“Alright, so you remember Sir Danth battling
ghosts and then you filled his armor with blue fire and brought him
to his senses, yes?” Tathan asked.

“Filled him with fire?”

“Oh yes!” Vevin nodded vigorously. “Your
blue fire was coming out of his helmet. We thought you were
destroying him.”

“Your fire cleansed me and clarified my
thoughts, Milady. It also saved my sanity,” Sir Danth told her with
a bow. It was obvious that everyone else was still cranky with him.
“Your power is extraordinary in both its magnitude and gentleness.
I will die for you should you wish it, Milady.” He banged his fist
to chest, creating a loud clang that made her wince.

Vevin glared at the knight. “I wish it.”

“Vevin, please,” Liselle said with her mouth
still partially full. She swallowed the bite, scraping her tender
throat. “I know you’re mad at him, but it’s not his fault. There
was something evil back there. You need to understand that, while
Sir Danth was affected, he did not
cause
the evil.”

Vevin glared at the knight a moment longer.
“Alright, but if he ever endangers you like that again, regardless
of whether or not it’s his fault, I’m going to kill him.” Liselle
noticed that Anilyia shifted her chair a bit further back from
Vevin and glanced at Tathan as though wishing he would bring his
hand back.

The knight bowed. “I accept that, Sir
Dragon.”

Liselle didn’t have the strength to listen
to them. “Let Tathan tell the story so I can go back to sleep.” She
did have the strength to take a chicken leg from a plate. It wasn’t
as good as the Rojuun drumsticks, but she was hungry. Not being
able to get those drumsticks was probably the worst part of having
made the entire race hostile towards them by rescuing the
princess.

Tathan continued, “We woke you up the next
afternoon for food and you said we needed to get out of the forest
. . .”

Liselle’s mouth was too full to answer so
she nodded and gestured with the chicken leg for him to
continue.

“Vevin carried you all that night and the
next day. He used a lot of magic to keep us all going and we made
good time. The next evening we stopped to rest when you began
talking in your sleep about flowers and dark skies.” There was a
concerned frown on Tathan’s face. “You were whimpering and moaning
until we woke you up. You said the flowers were keeping you safe
and fell back asleep.”

“I remember that. I think the dark sky was
the entity controlling the ghosts of Sir Danth’s people.” She took
another bite.

“I don’t like that dark entity thing.”
Tathan looked back at the knight who shook his head in accord. “I
noticed you were sweating and when I felt your forehead, you were
running a fever. We camped awhile in the early morning hours before
sunrise and you were tossing and wailing in your sleep. I made you
some broth that I knew was good for fevers and made you drink some.
We kept waking you up to take more.”

“I remember waking up once,” Liselle said
around half-eaten food.

“Sir Danth told us that the spirits were
getting closer and closer,” Tathan said. Liselle nodded in
agreement. “He thinks they were making you sick and causing your
fever.” Liselle nodded again. Vevin narrowed his eyes at the
knight, obviously blaming Sir Danth for the whole thing . . .
especially the part where the knight was swinging his sword at
Liselle. “We had to sleep, so Vevin stood watch, not trusting Sir
Danth to do so,” Tathan said. “We traveled all the next day and
reached the edge of the Willden after sunset. That’s when things
went bad.”

“The evil attacked,” Liselle said. “I
remember Vevin being above me in dragon form and her highness
begging me to wake up.”

Princess Anilyia stood and waved her arms.
“Well yeah! We could actually see the ghosts coming from the forest
leaking black ooze out of their eyes. Then your boyfriend went
dragon and was going to eat me!”

Vevin protested. “I was not going to eat
you, I promise!”

“You were too! I know you were even if you
have everyone else fooled, you
evil
dragon!” She spat out
the word evil.

“I am
not
evil!” Vevin protested.
“I’m not! You quit being mean to me!”

“You are too evil!”

“ENOUGH!” Tathan yelled in a booming voice
that surprised everyone and battered Liselle’s skull causing her to
cringe and cover her ears with her arms. “Nobody’s eating anybody,
nobody’s killing anybody, nobody’s attacking anybody and nobody’s
hurting anybody. Is that clear?” He glared at them.

“Nobody does a lot of bad stuff to anybody.
Nobody’s a real jerk. I don’t like the guy named Nobody,” Vevin
said. Tathan’s glare snapped onto the dragon who looked innocently
up at the ceiling. Liselle tried to repress a giggle, but failed.
Soon the room filled with laughter, easing the tense
atmosphere.

A few minutes later, Tathan finished with
the basics of the story. “Sir Danth and I protected Vevin’s flanks
while he defended the front. We were able to hurt the phantoms, but
not enough to make them go away. While you were lying underneath
Vevin, your body caught fire and it spread out to the phantoms,
burning them.”

“I thought you were going to burn me, but it
didn’t hurt at all,” Anilyia told her.

Tathan nodded, “It didn’t hurt any of us.
“It
did
make the phantoms scream and caused the black
tendrils to shrink back. Then all the flowers in the forest caught
fire as near as we could tell.”

“Oh yes!” Vevin exclaimed. “It was like that
time in the caves where all the plants used you, only this time it
was different because you were working with the flowers and they
weren’t using you and it wasn’t against the sstejj, it was against
phantoms and the dark misty thing, and you weren’t conscious this
time, and it was really, really beautiful because you and the
flowers are beautiful and you work together.”

Everyone stared at him and tried to digest
all of his words. He looked around and decided to clarify. “It was
like that one time, only different.”

Tathan shook the confusion out of his head.
“So after that, the spirits were gone. It took us a minute to
realize it and Anilyia was yelling at you to wake up. She said you
did for a moment but passed out.” Tathan motioned toward the
princess. “After that, it was all quiet. We traveled through the
night even after leaving the Willden and didn’t stop until midday.
At night we traveled again until we got here.”

“And it won’t be soon enough before we
leave.” Anilyia’s arms were crossed and it was evident she was mad.
She didn’t seem to be the only one with that sentiment.

“What’s wrong?” Liselle asked.

Tathan rubbed his face. “We’re in an
abandoned house away from town. The townspeople saw you were sick
after coming from the forest and they weren’t willing to take a
chance you might bring disease.” His jaw was set in anger. “Their
healer wouldn’t even come out, so she sent her assistant Ponella,
who couldn’t wait to get out of here. They asked us to leave as
soon as possible. A few wanted to try to force us out, but realized
that would be a bad idea when Sir Danth and I drew our swords.”

“Tathan . . .” Liselle frowned at him
disapprovingly.

“Don’t judge me, Cousin,” he replied with a
gentle smile. “You needed rest. This house has been abandoned for a
long time and it’s a good ways away from the forest. Sir Danth said
there are no spirits around and I believe him. It sounds like they
might be trapped in the Willden.”

“That would account for the stories of the
forest being haunted.” Liselle felt better with the food in her
belly, but her body was exhausted. It was taking all her effort to
keep her eyelids open. “Can I at least sleep until morning? I’m so
tired.”

“Yes, of course.” Tathan stood, kissed her
forehead and went outside, followed closely by the princess. Vevin
lay down next to her and fell asleep too. Sir Danth gave Tathan and
Anilyia a minute to leave before going outside as well. Liselle was
asleep by that time.