I sat up when Tain did. He pressed against the wall, his head jerking around, eyes wide. “Jov?” he whispered, hoarse. “Jov, is that you?”
“Yes,” I said, rubbing my eyes and finding a stool by his bed. “I’m here. You’re all right.”
His breath hitched as he reached a hand out, trembling. “Jov, what have they done to you?” His eyes scanned me, mouth working, as if he visually catalogued a score of wounds.
“I’m fine.” I went to take his hand, but he snatched his back with a shriek.
“Your hand!” he cried. “Fortunes, Jov! What have they done?” He cried, heavy wracking sobs. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m going to be all right. Just relax. It’s over now, Tain.”
He continued to sob, but when I touched his shoulders this time he didn’t recoil. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “Oh, Lini.”
My head snapped up and my hands dropped from his shoulders as if pulled by invisible strings. My mouth went dry.
When he looked up this time, some of the wildness had left his eyes. “Lini,” Tain said again. “She’s gone, isn’t she? She said she was going to go to the army and find help. She thought I was going to die, and she said goodbye.” He squeezed his eyes shut as though even looking at me hurt. “It was like I was underwater. I could hear her but I couldn’t say anything. And the next thing I remember, she was gone.”
My lungs wouldn’t fill properly. I tried to speak, but nothing came out.
“Tell me it isn’t true,” he begged, but all I could do was shake my head, mute.
He dropped his head back against the wall with a dull thud, face wet with tears. “Tell me.”
My voice came out tight and high as I told him what I knew. I couldn’t keep the anger and shame out of my voice but he seemed not to notice, barely looking at me as he digested it. Then he gave me a weak attempt at a smile. “She was right, though, the west bank’s probably not patrolled. If she wasn’t seen in the river…”
“She probably was, if she didn’t drown first,” I said harshly, his stupid hope like bellows on the flames of my rage. “But even if she wasn’t, the rebels presumably control all the estates. Do you think a lone Silastian woman could get through all those villages without being seen? Maybe someone with the physical strength—” I had to tear my gaze away and stare at the wall, willing myself not to finish the accusation.
“Jov, I’m sorry,” he said, reaching a hand toward me and letting it drop as it was ignored. “You know I’d never have let her go if I’d been able to do anything. This is the longest I can remember being awake since the poisoning. Honor-down, I don’t even know how much time’s passed.”
My face felt stiff as I answered. “Five days.” I almost hated him for crying, when I hadn’t. Couldn’t.
“And I’m going to live?” He stared down at his own hands and chest as if they belonged to someone else. “How? What happened?”
“You’ve been chewing feverhead,” I said. “It stopped your body from absorbing the poison, and now it’s just trying to repair. I don’t know how much damage it did before we got to it, though.” He likely had permanent digestive and breathing problems in his future even if he didn’t succumb to an infection or some other secondary condition in the short term. It took effort not to elaborate, when a part of me wanted to.
“Feverhead? I guess that’s why my hands look like spades?” He swiped them around in the air.
“There are side effects. You’ve been hallucinating for days. This is your first lucid conversation.”
It felt odd describing our last five days, which had felt much longer. The elaborate games of distraction and misdirection exhausted me: bribing Tain’s little messenger, Erel, and convincing increasingly irate Councilors that Tain was occupied elsewhere, keeping a handful of his servants and the few Councilors who believed Tain dead assisting us to hide this “truth” by pretending to have met with him. The climate of fear, suspicion, and hopelessness from which we’d hoped to protect the people of the city now ran rife through our own ranks.
“Do you remember anything about that jar of figs?” I asked. “Who touched it, who offered you one, how Marco and Eliska chose theirs? You were the only one poisoned, so I think it was done on the spot by sleight of hand.”
Tain shook his head, his eyes drooping. “I walked in with both of them,” he said. “I think we met in the gardens on the way to the front door. Argo told me he’d found a few things left by the door. I figured they were part of the food amnesty. I think … I think Eliska looked so excited by the figs that I took them with us. Or was it Marco?” He shook his head again. “I don’t have your memory, Jov, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” I said, though inside my frustration boiled. These details were critical.
“When we were meeting, I don’t know, I wasn’t going to take one—I could picture your face—but Eliska and Marco had both taken a few, and I’d opened the jar myself, so it just seemed silly.…” He trailed off, face darkening. “Honor-down, Jov, I’m such a fool. They’d never have been able to get me if I hadn’t been such an idiot.”
“So you chose your own?” I asked, ignoring that last comment for fear of saying something I couldn’t take back later.
He nodded. “I opened it, and offered it to both of them. I can’t remember who chose first, but they both took several. The jar was there and open as we worked.”
When I glanced back at Tain, his eyes had shut again. I stood and stretched. Another day. It was hard to even take heart in my friend’s apparent recovery; too much of that was bound up and soured with my guilt and anger about Kalina. And still, any day the rebels could storm the bridge, and it could all come to a head.
“Any change?”
Salvea’s gentle voice interrupted my bleak thoughts. She came into the room with Davior at her knees. Hadrea hovered behind, eyes firmly fixed on her mother. I’d barely seen her for days, and despite my best efforts, I found my gaze sweeping hungrily over her with a longing that alarmed me. Honor-down, I had missed her.
“He’s been awake and lucid,” I told Salvea, my voice squeaky as I dragged my gaze from her daughter. “But he’s fallen asleep again.”
“Did he eat anything?”
“I was so focused on talking to him, I didn’t even think of that,” I admitted. “There’s some broth by the bed I proofed last night.”
She settled herself by the bed, a mound of skirts and calm, and tasted the broth. “It is drinkable cold,” she said. “If he wakes again I will have him attempt it.” She glanced up at her daughter. “Hadrea, was there not something you wished to discuss with Credo Jovan?”
“Just Jovan.” I’d corrected her countless times, but her formal country manners prevailed. I watched Hadrea, my heart rate increasing. If I had known what to say to her, I’d have said it before now. I had nothing to offer. But I wanted … honor-down, I wanted her not to hate me, all the same.
She cleared her throat and I forgot to avoid eye contact. Piercing judgment pinned me to the spot. “I have found something interesting you should see,” she said. Her mouth twitched with cold amusement at the look of surprise that must have passed over my face.