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“You are warm.”
If a dragon was saying that she was ‘warm,’ she most definitely had a fever.
“Let’s take a break then. I should probably lay down and nap.”
Madja pushed herself up, attempting to stand. Her body felt unusually weak and she swayed to one side, losing her balance.
Sevrrn caught her before she fell over. Effortlessly, he lifted her up into his strong arms and carried her away from the lake. She rested her head on his shoulder, enjoying the closeness. When he finally put her down on the bed of silks, she felt a twinge of remorse.
“Will you be better when you wake?”
Madja thought he sounded nervous, but decided that was preposterous.
“Of course,” she mumbled, cuddling up to a pillow and closing her eyes. “I just need a little rest, that’s all.”
“But what if you are not better?” he asked. “What if you are still sick? What do I do then?”
Her lips curved into a slow smile.
“Make me some chicken soup.”
3
Chapter Three
Even early in human history, there were legends of thieves that had made their way into a dragon’s lair, absconding with rare and powerful artifacts. Both of his brothers had been stolen from, one from a guileless human man and the other from a particularly crafty fox spirit. There were even rumors that his sister’s lair had been raided by Mahel, the Kaletani god of wind and war.
No one had ever stolen from Sevrrn or his lair.
There were a lot of reasons for this. Aside his immense power, his lair was relatively isolated. In ancient times, he had used his power to bend the light around the island, making it invisible to all but the most magically inclined beings. When the realms began to drift apart, most immortal beings were forced into the other realm. The unique location of Sevrrn’s lair had allowed him to remain in the human realm while still retaining the bulk of his magical and physical strength.
With the majority of his competition confined to the other realm, all that remained were humans and a few exceptionally powerful beings such as himself. As the locals seemed to regard him as some sort of god, they never attempted to steal from him. Once every few centuries, some foolhardy foreign warrior would come seeking glory, only to meet a swift death between Sevrrn’s teeth. As for his own kind, it was rare that they stole anything. Amongst powerful immortals, information was the only true currency.
And so, from the very first object he’d placed in his lair—a piece of quartz that reflected the light in a rather fascinating way—to his more recent acquisitions—three Erdan coins he’d gotten on his trip to the marketplace—Sevrrn had never lost a single thing. That was why his current situation was particularly disconcerting.
Madja’s forehead was warm. Very warm. Warmer than any human forehead had any business being. There was also something wrong with the way she was breathing. Each time she inhaled, she never seemed to take in enough air. Her pulse was erratic; sometimes too fast and other times too slow. Her scent was…not good. Sweat drenched her body and she did not smell like an ocean breeze, but more like a beach at low tide—salty and stagnant.
After several unsuccessful attempts at waking her, Sevrrn picked her up and carried her to the lake. He hoped that the cool water would serve to lower her temperature, clean the stench of sweat, and bring her to her senses.
Once they were in the water, Madja did wake, but only long enough to vomit. Some of the vomit got on Sevrrn’s arm and she mumbled a barely coherent apology before her head lolled to the side and she slipped back into unconsciousness.
He washed them both up and then carried her back to her bed. He redressed her in a clean silk robe, so focused on the task that he hardly noticed he was handling her nude body. He considered covering her, but it seemed counterintuitive considering how warm she was and so he left her like that.
When Sevrrn returned an hour later, she was shivering. He placed his hand on her forehead to find that she was even warmer than before. It made no sense. Somehow, he managed to wake her.
“Hi,” she said, looking up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. Her voice was u
“I brought you chicken soup.”
Never before had Sevrrn uttered a phrase with so little confidence.
From his night in the human town, he had grasped the basic idea of what a soup was: food prepared in warm water. So, that was exactly what he made for her.
Madja tried to sit up, but Sevrrn took the task from her. He lifted her, easing her into his lap and leaning her back against his firm chest. He picked up the bowl containing the soup and handed it to her, feeling a curious mix of pride and…apprehension?
She lifted a spoonful of the liquid, then gave him a questioning look. “Which part of the chicken did you cook?”
Unfamiliar with chicken anatomy, he shrugged. “The insides?”
“I see.”
That was all she said before bringing the spoon to her lips. She sipped, swallowed, and then moved to dip the spoon back in the bowl. That was when she vomited again. This time it was all bile and the fit seemed to take forever to pass. Even after she’d expelled the contents of her stomach, she continued to heave air, inhuman sounds coming from her small body.
When it was finally over, she slumped against him. Crumbled in his arms, she looked more fragile than she ever had before. And he felt so…
Powerless.
After holding her for a long while, Sevrrn spread her body out on the bed and lay beside her. He stayed with her like that, watching the sunlight pass over her, then the moonlight, and then the sunlight again. She did not wake, not to eat and not to drink.
In his lifetime, Sevrrn had never lost a single thing. And that was why it was particularly disconcerting when the smell of death began to creep over Madja.
Madja felt like she was reading a storybook, one that was missing most of the pages. Disjointed scenes played out before her and each time her mind thought it had grasped a strand of continuity, the page turned and she was somewhere else entirely.
Several times, she was interrogated. “What is wrong with you?” “Why is this happening?” “What do I do?” She wanted badly to assuage the raw desperation in that voice, but even if she could have found her voice, she didn’t know any of the answers.
Often, she saw the sky. When it was blue, the clouds looked like the cotton she’d once pulled from an old pillow. As the sky darkened, the clouds turned into unspun wool. Then there were no clouds at all and the sky was full of stars. That was when she flew.
As she soared through the sky, she tried to remember the constellations she’d learned as a child. But as soon as she began co
Yelling. Or maybe it was just elevated voices. Her head hurt a lot. The voices sounded familiar, yet indistinguishable. The more she tried to focus on them, the more her head hurt. Eventually, she gave up and let the page turn again.
Someone was holding her neck back and forcing a rancid liquid down her throat. She tried to struggle, but her body was incapable of doing more than a few small spasms. Even vomiting seemed like too much effort, though she did try. Her captor just made her swallow more of the vile liquid.
A woman’s voice. “There you go. You’re all right. Everything is going to be all right.”
Madja thought she saw her mother, but it may have been a trick of the light.