Hierarchy (Book Four of the Torrent Skies Saga)

Chapter Thirty-Six: Surprises Earned, Surprises Spoiled

Katerin hazily remembered Arjiah's healing, a snippet of Dagir's voice, and the disjointed free-ness of being carried. When she regained her senses, she was laying in a plush bed, staring at a wooden ceiling. A hand was warm in hers, and she turned to find Fykes next to her. Bandages wrapped several wounds, including a large one around his foot, and a bruise that colored his face on its right side.

"My lady awakes," he whispered, hoarsely. With a grunt he sat up and looked down at her.

She could see the pinkish skin of healing wounds across his chest, dipping below the line of the blanket on his chiseled sides. Katerin looked down and beheld no bandages upon her. There was not even a scratch. She groaned. Maybe more sleep would have been wise. For the lack of wounds, she felt as if she had been beaten while both underwater and poisoned. "Are you alright?" she asked, confused, for a second. Then she remembered. Like she was looking out a window. Lodyne... Lodyne had overcome her.

"Not in the simplest sense of the word." Fykes shook his head weakly. There was a hint of amusement deep in his eyes, but it was drowned out by earnest, and the dull look of exhaustion. "Katerin? Do you want to leave me a lonely, hopeless old man?" His gaze burned into hers, and it was an expression she would not forget.

"I—" Katerin coughed, finding even talking to be a taxing endeavor. "I didn't mean for..."

"Lodyne and Kryrial can have any gods-dammed city they want. Hell, they can have the universe, for all I care." His conviction shone through his words, and he traced a crisscross pattern on her knuckles. "So long as they can't have you. What—what happened to you?"

Katerin tried to puzzle out where they had been, and what they had been doing. It came over her like rushing water. The Reclaimer, and the guardian, and feeling as if she were stuck inside herself, yet as expansive as the heavens. She took a shaky breath. "Lodyne... took me over. She wanted the Reclaimer.. wanted to help me defeat Kryrial. She wanted to make a deal, I think." Her hands shook. She had hurt Fykes. Her own hands. She remembered the sound of him hitting the wall, screaming as she drove Ahlindrion into his foot. They were vivid, too bright in her memory.

"Did you make one?" Fykes swallowed, and it looked painful. His whole appearance seemed ragged, in fact.

"No... No. I..." Katerin blinked. There were too many thoughts fighting for dominance, so she squeezed her eyes shut, some desperate part of her hoping it had all been just another nightmare. "I couldn't stop myself. Or... I mean, I tried, but she was... I didn't mean to hurt you." The words felt empty, as she remembered the sense of pain, and the power that came from his, and her own.

She kept trying to find a new way to phrase it, but nothing seemed correct. She had not attacked him. She would never. But she had. Or... Lodyne had? It seemed muddled. She remembered the goddess's presence, but she could not tell herself apart from it. There were no words to explain. She kept trying to piece together some logical explanation to remove the sickening guilt she felt, until there was a soft weight atop her, and Fykes was kissing her.

When he pulled away, there were no tears in his eyes, but there was a look she had never seen before. As if he were in a terrible situation, and could do nothing. He looked... helpless. Lost. Scared. He looked just how she felt.

"Do you love me, Katerin?"

"Of course I do," she said, fear lancing her. He could not believe she had hurt him on purpose, could he? You're my best friend, she thought. Please, please believe me.

Fykes nodded, pulling a hand across his face. He looked as if he was taking her answer as a lifeline in a terrible storm. "Talk to me, then. Tell me what happened. How, and why, and we'll make sure it doesn't happen again."