Page 16
Story: A Kingdom Ruthless and Radiant (Age of Fae Romantasy #2)
Chapter 16
Fever Dream
R aewyn
Mortified at what I’d just done, I sat with my face in my hands.
Had he felt it—my wanton movement against him? My indecent curiosity?
The helpless attraction that had apparently stolen my brain away and left my shameless body in complete control?
How was I ever going to look at Pharis again?
I snuck a side-glance at him to see his reaction, and my brain shifted instantly from shame to panic.
Leaping to my feet, I ran to him and dropped to my knees at his side.
“What is wrong? Pharis, what’s happened?”
He had collapsed in a patch of fuchsia-colored wildflowers, his breathing labored, his face mottled and turning darker by the second. Had I hurt him somehow?
“Fire… weed,” he croaked.
Looking around at the tall leafy plants, I said, “But this is willowherb.”
“Same… thing. Find…”
He took several rapid, shallow breaths, sounding like his throat was closing in. “Look for… yarrow plant. Hurry… Rae.”
The blood drained from my head, making me dizzy. For a moment all I could do was gasp against the cold terror in my chest.
And then my heart exploded into a furious rhythm, and I was filled with crackling energy.
Pushing with all my strength, I managed to roll Pharis out of the fireweed patch. Then I got to my feet, looking around frantically.
“Girls, you must help me at once. We have to find some yarrow. You know what it looks like, right?”
My little sisters nodded, looking scared, but they immediately set out in search of the weed that must have served as an antidote for fireweed poisoning in Elven people.
The girls had gone foraging with me many times, helping me search out edible and medicinal plants growing wild on the outskirts of our village. I sent up a quick prayer that our search today would be fruitful—and fast.
I can’t lose him.
We. We couldn’t lose him. We needed Pharis.
It felt as if all my senses were heightened—my hearing picking up his unnatural breathing as my eyes scanned the meadow and my nose hunted for the tell-tale scent of yarrow.
Its flowers had a distinctive soapy, sweet smell, and the leaves were a bit spicy, their aroma somewhat like sage.
There—a hint of white on the edge of the forest where Pharis had been brutalizing the smaller trees.
I ran over to it, my heart soaring to have discovered it so quickly, but then it plummeted again when I realized what I’d seen was not yarrow blooms but poison hemlock, a similar looking plant.
“I think I found it,” Tindra screamed from the other side of the meadow near the narrow mountain stream.
“Found it,” Turi’s little echo came.
Gods, I hoped so. Throwing a hurried glance over at Pharis as I ran to them, I saw him doubled up in pain, gasping for air.
He’s dying. Please please please don’t let him die.
Reaching the girls, I looked from their eager faces to the plant they pointed to.
It was yarrow. The white cluster of flowerheads was underpinned by leaves with a feathery fern-like appearance.
“Bless you,” I said to them both. “This is it. Help me gather some—quickly now.”
Each of us grabbed handfuls of the plants and ran back to Pharis. He was on his back again, no longer writhing, but frightfully still. His face had gone from purple to white, and his skin was drenched in perspiration.
“Pharis. Pharis, can you hear me? What do I do with it?”
He didn’t answer. I wasn’t even sure he could hear me anymore.
The poisonous fireweed had acted so quickly upon him. No wonder Sorcha had made it the main ingredient in her vile concoction.
We had found the yarrow, but I had no idea how to administer it in this case. I had to try something though.
Rolling the petals between my hands to bruise them, I stopped when I felt wetness and pressed some of the crushed flowers to Pharis’ lips. Then I pushed some inside them, but his teeth were clenched, his jaw locked.
That couldn’t be good.
“Is he going to die?” Turi asked. She was crying. So was Tindra.
“No. absolutely not,” I told them, and I meant it.
I wouldn’t allow it.
“Girls, pluck the leaves and press them to his skin,” I ordered, and my sisters went to work, rubbing the yarrow leaves furiously between their little hands then sticking them to his bare arms.
“Pharis,” I said rather loudly, hoping he could hear me. “Open your mouth.”
He made a noise like a low moan and moved his head slightly. I felt almost faint with relief at the evidence he could still hear me.
As the little girls decorated his face and hands with the leaves, I opened Pharis’ shirt and rubbed the pulverized blooms on his chest.
Then I tried again to get him to take some yarrow internally.
“Open your mouth,” I shouted. “You have to take this. You’ll die if you don’t.”
I sounded as desperate as I felt, but Pharis did not unclench his jaw.
Deciding to take a different tack, I put my hand on his jaw and massaged the tight muscles, leaning close to his ear and speaking softly.
“Pharis… it’s Raewyn. Open your mouth for me,” I coaxed. “Open up and let me in. I would never hurt you.”
After a few seconds, he unlocked his clenched teeth and let his mouth fall open.
Hurriedly, I pressed some of the flowers against his tongue and rubbed them on the insides of his cheeks. He couldn’t be expected to swallow in this state, so I didn’t put enough in his mouth to choke him.
It seemed to be working. He began breathing more easily, his skin tone normalizing, though he felt burning hot, even hotter than normal.
Within minutes, his breathing was almost back to normal, and his rigid muscles relaxed.
“Will he be okay now?” Tindra asked in a weepy voice.
Tears streamed down her face as she patted the top of Pharis’ head.
“I think so,” I told her, though I had no idea what lasting effect exposure to that much fireweed would have on him.
All we could do was wait and pray that what we’d done would be enough.
It was a good thing Pharis had hunted the day we made camp because days later, he was still unconscious. Mostly.
He did stir from time to time, mumbling incoherently.
Several times a day, I propped the upper half of his body the best I could manage, to give him fresh water from the stream and some saol water from his flask.
It wasn’t easy. He was incredibly heavy, and without his cooperation, lifting him felt like trying to hoist a boulder.
Though he drank a little and moved from time to time, he was still feverish.
I began brewing tea with the yarrow leaves and flowers, hoping the continuous administration of the antidote would help, and used cool compresses in an attempt to bring down the fever.
Between my father and Pharis, caretaking had become my full-time occupation.
The girls were extremely helpful, finding some edible plants for us to chew on and refilling Pharis’ empty flasks in the stream.
On the third day following his accidental poisoning, I was wiping his face and chest with cool cloths soaked in the water, when he spoke words that were actually intelligible.
“The horses,” he said.
My heart leapt to hear him say something that made sense.
“Cimmerian and Ruby are fine,” I reassured him. “They love this meadow, in fact, and are probably going to get fat with all the standing around and grazing they’re doing. How are you feeling?”
He didn’t answer me, just shook his head and smiled before going back to sleep.
I took that as a good sign.
While the girls and I bathed in the stream each day, and even Papa managed to make his way there and back once, Pharis had not been able to move since taking ill.
So I decided to bring the bath to him, thinking it might make him feel better.
I peeled his shirt all the way off, talking him through rolling side to side for me and allowing me to pull off the sleeves.
While he was still up on one side, I used the fresh cloths to gently wash his back. Pharis groaned, but it didn’t sound like a pain noise, so I continued, lifting his hair to wash his neck.
After using the blanket to dry him, I rolled him to his back again and began washing the front of him. I cleaned his arms, lifting each heavy limb and bathing it, then moved on to his chest and stomach.
Reaching the waistband of his breeches, I decided to stop there.
He was getting better—I hoped. Soon he’d be able to bathe himself in the stream.
My cheeks heated as I tried to will away the immediate visual image and moved with my cloths and flasks to safer territory, his lower legs and feet.
As I washed his left foot, he flinched and let out a small laugh—ticklish, I supposed.
“Stop it, Mareth,” he said.
He sounded almost like a little boy in this moment, and I wondered if in his delirium he’d reverted to childhood when he might have had tickle-fights with his siblings.
It was then that I spotted something unusual. At first I’d thought it was a bit of dirt there in the arch, but when it didn’t wash off, I looked closer.
It was a small symbol. A tattoo.
I leaned down, inspecting it more closely and realized it was the same image that covered his chest and torso, that strange, hooked whirlwind symbol.
Lifting my head, I looked at his sleeping face. What did it mean?
And why did he have two of them, one so much larger than the other?
It wasn’t something I could ask him now. He didn’t even know where he was or whom he was with, poor man. Perhaps Pharis would tell me when we resumed our journey, whenever that might be.
I gathered up the cloths and was preparing to leave him for a few minutes to go clean them in the stream, when he spoke again.
“I love you.”
Freezing in place, I stared down at him. His eyes were still closed, and the words had been mumbled, though I’d understood them clearly.
Who did Pharis think he was speaking to in his fever dream? His sister? His mother, who might be alive and well in the reality he was currently experiencing?
Perhaps it was a woman he’d been involved with, though he’d claimed never to have been that close to any of them—emotionally anyway.
Completely unjustified jealousy bubbled up inside me.
And then he said something else.
Whispered it actually.
“Raewyn.” He smiled. “Little wildcat.”