Chapter 17-Cabin Fever
Ami's fingers shook slightly as she ripped up yet another spare sheet to make more bandages. When the cloth slipped from her fingers, she clenched her hand into a fist to stop the shaking. It was no time to go to pieces. All her friends had showed their strength and courage in the rescue mission–when they came back, it would be time to call upon her own reserves.
And yet, she was sure that barely half an hour ago, Zaccheus had been wounded. She had experienced an unbearable, stabbing pain in her chest, and their bond didn't transfer mere things like scrapes or bruises between them.
She had tried to reach out to him then, terrified that he might be seriously injured...but it hadn't worked. Three years ago, before their parting, they had agreed to seal off the mental connection as best they could with their magik–and distance and time apart had done the rest. She couldn't reach him, and he couldn't hear her.
The sound of voices and boots thudding overheard drew her attention, and she rose to her feet. "Ami–" It was Leanna who stood in the doorway, her face pale and her dark eyes huge.
"It's Zaccheus, isn't it?" Her voice sounded distant to her ears, and she moved towards Leanna as if she was in a dream.
"Yes, but also Princess Seren, Narain, and Matthias..."
Ami was already gone by then. She reached the deck, and the sight of her friends looking so battered brought her hand to her heart. Her eyes skimmed over Seren, Lita, and Nath. They looked weary and bruised all over, but none of them appeared to be seriously wounded. Her worry eased slightly, but not by much. It was just Zacch, then...but she didn't see him. Where was he?
"Ami–thank goodness you're up here." It was Althia, the other healer.
"Quickly–I'll see to Zaccheus. Where is he?"
"The second room on the right."
Ami nodded. "Take care of the less seriously hurt, Althia. Be careful not to overtax yourself. Anyone who's able should help Leanna." With those orders, she vanished into the room without a word to her friends; only the grateful look in her eyes showed how glad she was to see them. Time was of the essence now.
Zacch lay on a one of the two cots in the makeshift infirmary. As she hurried to his side, Ami noticed the pale, waxiness of his skin that had always been tanned to a golden hue from sun exposure. Her fingers drifted to his neck, where she felt a labored pulse. ‘Too much blood loss,' she thought to herself, moving aside his hand so she could look at the wound.
It wasn't as bad she'd feared–it seemed to have missed his heart–but it was bad enough. Chest wounds were dangerous, and the rough trip through the forest must have been agony for him. She fell to work rapidly, her mind surprisingly lucid. She didn't realize she was still holding his hand when the scarlet-stained fingers tightened on hers, and she gasped in surprise. "Zacch?" she whispered.
His eyes opened slowly, and she bit her lip when she saw that their beautiful emerald green was slightly glazed.
"It's me, Ami," she said, stroking his hand reassuringly. "Everything will be fine. Don't worry."
"I know," he breathed. "I knew–it was you. I wanted to tell you, in case it was too late...that I'm...sorry. Forgive me." He slipped away from her then, and his hand grew limp and fell to his side.
"It wasn't your fault," she whispered to his unconscious form before she gathered what she needed from the cupboard. She calmed herself, steeling her nerves for the unpleasant job of removing bits of thread from the wound.
Taking up a knife, she cut away the coarse cloth from all sides of the messy rent in his flesh and removed the pieces of his shirt. Then, more carefully, she removed the pieces of cloth from the ugly, jagged edges of the wound. When the physical parts of her task were done, Ami closed her eyes and gathered her magik around her. It wasn't so bad that he would die immediately...but there was still no guarantee that he would pull through. She would have to work quickly and cleanly, and even that might not be enough.
****~**~****
To Seren, order seemed to have disappeared with Ami. Althia took the two who were in the worst condition, Narain and Matthias, into the second room that had been designated an infirmary. She left the others to their own devices.
Aerlene, the elfin woman, had collapsed against the wall and begun sobbing, refusing to let Leanna bandage her cuts until Lita snapped at her.
"It's my fault I killed the prince!" Aerlene shrieked, half-mad with grief and guilt.
Seren stared at her, feeling as if a sudden tranquility had descended upon her mind. Everyone else was silent, and she spoke distinctly to the distraught elf. "He isn't dead, and it isn't certain that he may be dying. At any rate, your carrying on like this won't solve anything. Calm yourself, and let Leanna clean your wounds."
As the princess approached her, Aerlene covered her face in her hands. "What if I killed him?" she whispered.
Her arms went around the slender woman, and Seren held her tightly, careful not to jar her elbow, where the skin was broken. "It isn't your fault that he's hurt. You were fighting someone who was trying to coming up on him from behind."
Aerlene pulled away with slightly reddened eyes to do as she was told, and Lita gave Seren an approving hug with one arm. Her other hand dabbing at her cuts with a bloodied handkerchief. The silvery-haired princess smiled back, got a bottle of antiseptic, and fixed her friend's cuts: there was one on Lita's throat from the soldier who had threatened her...and another long, shallow slice on her thigh from the same person.
When she was finished tending to Aerlene's scrapes, Leanna splinted Nathair's arm. The beads of sweat were plain upon his face, but he didn't make a sound. He stayed completely still, his face remote, except for the few seconds it took for him to spit out a mouthful of blood.
"Are you badly hurt?" Seren asked anxiously, her former calm dissolving in her anxiety.
He shook his head with a reassuring smile, his navy eyes dark. "No, I'm fine. I just hope my gums stop bleeding soon–my jaw had a collision with the floor, is all. Those are some hard tiles you have in your palace."
Lita, whose hands were clenched tightly to hide their trembling, turned away from him to look out at the dense patch of forest. "I'm surprised it managed to dent that thick head of yours," she said tartly. When Seren glanced at her in shock, she ducked her head apologetically. "He got most of them looking after me," she admitted in a low tone.
Although Nath couldn't hear what she was saying, he understood her perfectly. With a crooked smile, he called, "You gave me a few scares too, if I recall correctly. I thought you'd get your throat slit for sure, you bold creature."
She shrugged. "I have a few tricks up my sleeve." Then she sent a pointed look at Seren. "Don't think I haven't forgotten about how you disobeyed me. You deliberately put yourself in danger for–"
"Darrian," Seren finished in a hushed tone.
Nath frowned, recalling the strange episode. "What happened? It looked as if you'd gone into some sort of trance."
Her head was starting to ache, and her ankle throbbed painfully. She sat against the wall and leaned her chin on her knees. "I can't remember what I saw...all I know now is that he was in grave danger."
Lita eased herself down next to Seren and put her arm around the younger girl. "Don't worry; he's in good hands with Kentan."
Seren lifted her head, and they saw the tears sparkling in her bright eyes. "I don't want to lose both of them!" she cried.
"And you won't," Nath said, rising stiffly. He pointed towards the forest with his good hand. "There they are."
****~**~****
"Where are Rei and Mina?" had been the first words out of Lita's mouth. Then she had seen the bad state Darrian was in–he was groaning, barely conscious. Seren ran to his side with a cry, pressing her hands over her mouth when she saw the cut in his side. Her relief at seeing Kentan safe and whole had diminished. Kentan and Jalen were practically dragging him onto the ship, and neither of them were in the pink of health: Kent looked like he was near collapse, and Jalen was limping.
"We need Ami," Jalen replied tersely, still supporting Darrian. "Hurry–he's lost a lot of blood."
Nath watched the proceedings, furious that he was helpless with only one arm functioning. "I'll get her," he said, "but Zacch's badly hurt, and Althia's still below."
As he disappeared below-deck, Zanna looked at Lita and Seren. "Zacch's hurt?" she breathed, her lavender eyes huge.
Lita nodded, her lips tight. "It doesn't look good."
Meanwhile, Nathair reached Ami just as her eyes opened again. "The others are here, and Darrian's injured," he announced.
Ami got to her feet instantly, dispelling the slight dizziness she felt. Her legs were shaky because of their prior inactivity. She plunged her hands into the water basin and scrubbed them furiously with some solution that made Nath's eyes water, watching the water turn to an opaque, sullen red. "Bring him in here, then."
He delayed for a few minutes, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on his friend. "Will he be all right?" he asked, his voice suddenly choked. He had never seen Zaccheus lie so still or look so pale. He was fond of the prickly, impetuous prince.
As she dried her hands on a towel, Ami said in a neutral tone, "I've done what I can. Either he'll pull through–or he won't. It's a very serious situation for the elfin kingdom to have their only heir so gravely injured."
Nath turned to look at her, his gaze accusing. "How can you be so cold? Are you thinking only of the political scenario?" he demanded incredulously.
It stung, but her voice was level as she replied, "If I go to pieces over him, Nathair, what will happen to everyone else? I could collapse right here and cry my eyes out over him, and we could lose Darrian. Don't think I don't care about him–I've done everything I possibly could. It all depends on the strength of his body now."
Ami turned away from him and began rummaging through the cabinets for more bandages and thread. When she heard his footsteps pounding up the stairs, she wiped away the tears that had gathered with her sleeve. She took a few deep breaths and prepared to treat Darrian's wound.
It was slow work getting him down the stairs, but somehow they all managed–Nath with one hand, Jalen with bruises all down his back, Seren with a sprained ankle, and Kent with his sprained wrist. Althia was taking care of the five rebels, including Andrew, who had arrived with the second group, so they remained with Ami.
She removed more of Darrian's clothing with impersonal fingers–the cut in his side was so long that she had to take off the trousers he wore as well. Drawing the sheet over him, she pressed her fingers to his temples, and his barely-conscious moans subsided instantly. He slept–not peacefully, but he would feel no pain.
The three men watched in silence, respect for the deft fingers that cleaned and stitched the wound plain on their faces. Seren clung to Kent's unhurt arm, her eyes wide and anxious. Ami took no notice of them as she closed her eyes and reached for her magik once more.
"Where are Mina and Rei?" Seren asked anxiously.
Jalen remained silent, a stony expression on his face, so Kent replied, "They stayed behind...just for a little bit, to cover our tracks. They lured the soldiers off, set some magikal distraction, and followed us. They should be here soon."
For lack of anything else to do, as time dragged on, Kentan nudged his neighbor and whispered, "Her magik, at first glance, is not very powerful. But when she began to heal him...the color brightened suddenly. She is much stronger than I thought. Who is she?"
Jalen's reply was equally quiet. "Amity Nemosine. She's a natural healer, one of the most skilled, and healing is an old gift among the naiads."
"But she has two names." Clearly, Kent was much more knowledgeable about the folk world than his sister had been before she'd met Darrian. She wondered if they'd had a mutual teacher.
"She took the second when she left her people." He didn't mention that she had also cut her hair...but it was growing back now, almost to her shoulders, and the blue glints were showing through more plainly than ever.
It wasn't long before Ami reopened her eyes with a sigh. Before they could ask, she smiled wanly. "He'll be fine, after a solid week of rest." She approached Kent without ceremony, holding out her hand. "Prince Kentan." He held out his right hand, as if to take hers in a handshake, but she shook her head. "No, the other one, if you please."
Coolness poured into his wounded wrist–the left one, which was his dominant hand. Kentan watched the blue glow around her hands and his wrist in fascination, not having had much experience with magikal healers. Darrian had fixed a number of cuts and bruises for him in the past but nothing serious; he was mostly untrained in the healing arts.
When she was finished, Amity tilted her head up to look at him: he was a good head taller than her, at least a few centimeters more. "I'm afraid I can't do anything for your other injuries at the moment," she told him, her voice as soft and serene as ever. "It's delicate work, and you've had multiple beatings over a long period of time. You'll have to wait until I'm back to full strength. Until then, you should be fine, with an adequate amount of rest."
Before he could reply, Ami turned to Jalen and arched an eyebrow. "Didn't I tell you to take care of yourself?"
He smiled weakly. "Sorry, ma'am. I tried."
"Take off your shirt and turn around" was her reply. His back looked like a giant, purplish bruise. As the dark bruises faded, she asked, "What happened to you?"
"Oh, I just flew a few feet here and there and landed flat on my back...nothing special." Despite the gravity of the situation, Nath couldn't hold back a snicker. Jalen flashed him a quick grin as he pulled on his tattered shirt, and even Kentan smiled. Seren was Ami's next patient; the sprained ankle was taken care of quickly. It would have been easier if she wasn't so tired, but as it was, sprained ankles and wrists were nothing new to Amity. Swords cuts and dagger stabs were.
"Where's Althia?" she asked when she was finished.
"Exhausted and in bed," Lita answered from the doorway. "She's drained of practically all her energy."
Ami jumped, startled. She hadn't noticed her entrance. Just then, the ship began to move with an abrupt jerk, and a few ominous creaks sounded from above. Ami had to grab hold of Jalen to keep her balance; Seren tumbled into Kentan, and Nath held onto the open door to stay upright.
"Lita, what's going on?" Ami asked, pressing a hand to her forehead and releasing Jalen. It wasn't until then that the heavy odor of antiseptic assaulted her. She was drenched in sickroom odors, but she had grown accustomed to them. Her nose protested, and she dropped her hand.
"Mina and Rei are back."
Jalen frowned suddenly. "Wasn't Talasi with them?"
Lita's silence was answer enough, and they heard Ami's quick footsteps ascending the ladder as the ship tilted and swayed alarmingly.
"Who's piloting this ship?" Nath demanded. The others were looking a little green, and he felt fortunate that he didn't get seasick.
"Mina, at the moment. You'd better go and help her before we all pitch into the ocean," Lita answered. "Seren, come on. Let's get Ami her things."
"She'll need help moving Rei," Jalen added, disappearing after the naiad.
When Kentan emerged from the ladder, blinking at the bright sunlight, Nath smiled wryly from his place next to Mina. "As you can see, we're short of a few hands at the moment," he called.
The prince shrugged, resigning himself to his fate, such as it was. "Tell me what I can do."
****~**~****
Rei's eyes glistened with tears as Ami took her hand. Jalen had installed her in the girls' dormitory, and on the way down the stairs, she had clung to him tightly. "We lost Talasi," she whispered. He didn't answer, merely touched the cut on her cheek gently. He brushed away the night-dark hair that had come loose and kissed her forehead.
"Rei..."
"I'm so tired," she breathed, her eyelids fluttering restlessly.
"That's right, you rest now," Ami said, adding a spark of her magik to the command. When Rei's grip on her hand loosened, her breathing grew deeper and more rhythmic, and Ami turned her attention to the arrow wound in her thigh.
It took longer than she anticipated, and when she opened her eyes, she immediately felt nauseous–and it wasn't just from the rocking movements of the ship. Her skin was clammy, and she was sweating.
"Ami? Are you all right??" was Jalen's concerned query.
She didn't have the strength to answer him; the profuse heat was replaced by a feeling of frigid cold. When she stood, the colors swam before her eyes, and she fainted into dark oblivion. 'Zacch...'
****~**~****
The next couple days were a horrific nightmare of sailing through rough, choppy seas, tending to the injured, and trying to man the ship without enough people. Everyone was sure that Mina would come down with pneumonia from being drenched in sheets of icy cold rain day after day, but she remained healthy. She did her mourning there, standing at the wheel and wrestling it this way and that when there was no one to help her. No one noticed the difference between the salt water tears and the raindrops.
Once they had lost the queen's men, they buried the dead on a remote island. They had lost one of the rebels, and there was Talasi... Reisha and Nathair, surprisingly, spoke the traditional prayer for the dead together: "...for we are ageless in death."
A smoother running of the ship resumed when more of their number healed, and Nath regained command of the ship (much to everyone's relief). Ami awoke when her magik restored itself and received a scathing lecture from Jalen for exhausting herself–until she asked him what other choices she had had.
As more people were on the mend, harsh admonitions to get back into bed became more frequent. Kentan scolded Seren for not keeping off of her ankle and was in turn yelled at by Mina for refusing to rest. Jalen tried to keep Rei in bed much longer than she was willing, and Lita mothered everyone collectively. The two worries they had left were Zaccheus and Darrian. The latter had not yet awoken from a deep, healing sleep, while the elfin prince had developed a soaring fever.
****~**~****
Artemis Divine had removed to his country estate after taking a blow to his head from the impudent rebels who had infiltrated the capital and made off with a notorious prisoner. No one was sure exactly who that infamous crook was, but they were sure it was someone awful.
The whispers among the guardsmen that they had seen Prince Kentan, alive, were dismissed as hallucinations. They were certainly tired enough to be having mad visions–what with
all the extra training sessions they were having.
The queen, after declaring war, had chosen not to take immediate action. Unrest reigned supreme, but she cared not. ‘Let them worry,' Serenitatis thought savagely. She recalled most of her troops from the countryside to put them through intensive training. She had been extremely disappointed in the maladroit performance of the palace guards the day Darrian McKellan, her daughter, and her son had been within her grasp...only to vanish into thin air.
Two days after the declaration of war and her fiancé's removal from the palace, Lady Luna Lucina was discovered missing from the capital. The servants had no clues to her whereabouts, but it was suspected that she had run off to the folk kingdoms, from which her mother had come to marry Lord Lucina. The queen was in a fury; her cousin promptly broke off their engagement and renounced his ties to the errant lady.
Luna had been in ill favor with Serenitatis ever since she had tried to warn her that the actions she took against the folk were unjust. Artemis's condemnation of her actions restored the queen's faith in him, and he was promoted to the position of Chief Advisor.
****~**~****
One late night, Lirita and Nathair sat together on the deck. Most of the others were in bed, exhausted from the day's labors. Ami and Jalen were keeping vigil for Zaccheus; they had sent Malina to bed not too long ago. Her protestations had been weary and short-lived, for Kentan had appeared, briefly, to scowl at her fiercely. He had then returned to keep Seren company, as Darrian had not yet awoken from his slumber. Reisha, upon finding out that there were enough people keeping watch over the injured, was keeping a lookout for the queen's ships with Matthias, one of Darrian's rebel fighters.
The ocean was calm that night, deep and dark, a ceaseless pool of black run through with rivulets of glistening silver moonlight. The waves left in the wake of ship were noiseless, the trail smooth and rippling. All was quiet; the low murmur of Rei and Matthias's voices in the distance was soothing. The atmosphere enveloped them in a blanket, and Lita leaned her head on Nath's shoulder companionably.
Her nose twitched, taking in his scent: he smelled of salty breezes, on the surface. He had been drenched in seawater sometime before. It made her think of traveling to far-off, unknown places–but her thirst for adventure had been tamed, somewhat. A second deep breath brought tantalizing hints of spices, cinnamon strong among them. It made her think of home and all the woodsy scents. He belonged to the water, she to the trees.
"You've been so quiet lately," he observed, encircling her shoulders with his arm. He smiled faintly. "Not that you're a regular chatterbox," he amended.
She nodded, closing her eyes as she inched closer to his secure warmth. An image flashed before her eyes: it was Nathair plastered flat against the ground, a thin trickle of blood coming out of his mouth. A soldier's boot was planted in his back and dug in viciously; Nath still shouted her name and reached towards her, his blue eyes alight with anger and fierce protectiveness. She shuddered, and Nath's arm tightened around her.
"What's wrong?"
She shook her head, both to dispel the image and in answer to his question.
"Are you cold?"
No answer.
He was about to rise for a blanket when she lifted her face and turned towards him; the chill, pale light of the moon outlined the trails of tears on her cheeks.
"Do you know," she began, "that I can imagine just about everyone's reaction to the declaration of war? Darrian would be pleased–he would say that it would spur the folk kingdoms to act at last. Seren is frightened of this clash between Darrian and her mother. Mina looks at the grand scheme of things: the army, the generals, weapons, ammunition, fighting ground. Rei thinks about strategy and tactics; Jalen sees it from the intellectual's point of view–the battlegrounds, the numbers, the outcomes. Zacch–if he knew–would worry for his people, wondering how many more he can afford to lose. Ami thinks about the healers and wonders how many will be wounded, how many will die.
But I...am I the only one who wants to stop it now? Is there any way to turn back the wheels of this terrible, terrible thing that comes ever closer? Do they all take it as an inevitable course of events?"
Nath was quiet for a few minutes, digesting her words. His fingers moved through her hair comfortingly, in rhythmic patterns. This time, however, she could not be lulled into sleepiness. "Don't be so harsh on them, Lita. I'm sure that each and every one of them–even Darrian, for whom this war has been the greatest cause since his youth–would like nothing better than to avert such a disaster. The death toll will be the highest yet, with magik on both sides and old scores to settle.
The folk will be fighting for the survival of their remaining people, the queen for their eradication. Even if the folk do not fight, I don't know if anyone could change the mind of the queen. Although I wonder," he said thoughtfully, "what spurs her on so. What grave injustice has been done to her that she hates the folk so...abhors them...enslaves them...and uses them?"
She thought of the land nymph they had met in the hallway, the mind reader. "Nath...the Mindelo we saw...he said we would see each other again."
His jaw clenched, and the warmth in his eyes cooled. "Don't worry, Lita. He won't touch you–ever. I'll make sure of it."
She raised her eyebrows, a wry smile coming on in spite of herself. "I'm not entirely useless myself, you know."
Nath inclined his head in acknowledgment of her prowess. "Of course."
"The fighting...it bothered me. So many soldiers all wearing the same thing, all fighting for the same person...and not really knowing why. Some of them must have helped keep their own prince imprisoned."
The thought suddenly struck Nath that he had recently helped to rescue his own prince. He had been living at the land nymphs' palace for too long, he thought ruefully. ‘I'm more folk than human–except for the obvious lack of magik.' It was something that had troubled him for the larger part of his life. Kentan was his prince–but not Malina or Lirita's.
"And we say they're the enemy, but they're just people. They're people, too! Some of them are gone...like some of ours are gone. How many more are we going to lose?"
‘I hope you're asking yourself the same questions, Darrian,' Nath thought to his friend silently. The concern for the black-haired young man returned; he wondered when he would awaken. Ami promised that it would be soon...soon. They didn't know where they were going without him. Kentan and Malina had a thousand plans each and no one to choose for them..
He shifted position, careful not to disturb the brunette leaning against his shoulder and wiping away her tears. "I have no idea myself," he told her gently, "I can only hope for the best and prepare for the worst. What else is there to do? I am one single person in a world of several hundred thousand. Can I tell each and every one of them that this road leads only to disaster? I have no other option to offer them. If they cannot force themselves to coexist with each other, peace will never come."
A heartrending silence.
"On a lighter note, my fellow idealist, I notice that you didn't predict my reaction. So what am I feeling, Lirita? What am I thinking about?"
She smiled up at him, a wistful, sad smile. "I had no idea that you were an idealist."
Nath smiled gently. "I'm much less cynical and world-weary than Jalen, however well he hides it. But I can't lie to myself, either."
"I want to go home," Lita said softly, turning her face into the cloth of his shoulder. "When this is over–when we can–will you come with me? I'd like you to see the Sylvan Forest."
"And I would like to see it," he said gravely, despite the quickened pace of his heart. She was so unconsciously, innocently beautiful.
"But we aren't going to sail there," she said with a choked laugh. "I'm sick and tired of this damned boat."
He smiled at her, only for her. "As you wish."
****~**~****
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