A Place To Bloom

Friends

I was upside-down. My arms and legs were chained to each of four wooden posts, and I hung in that position while my hair drifted past my ears and fell in the mud. A trillion daggers once again reminded me that I was supposed to be healing from where that snake had cracked my ribs, and my whole body strained to breathe.

Ta'o squatted low and bent his head down to look at my face. "I thought you said she'd agree."

I pulled my arms in for enough leverage to make words. The iron shackles dug into my wrists hard, and every breath was unspeakable agony. "She will."

Renou sat cross-legged, leaning his back against one of the posts with a book open in his lap. "You do have a strange way of convincing people."

I wasn't in the sling to convince her, but rather as a logical conclusion when she told me if you ask me one more time, I'm putting you in the sling. So technically, I did ask for it.

Ta'o shifted around in apparent discomfort. "Why are you doing this?"

It hurt to breathe. "I owe you one, remember?"

He shook his head. "Come on, bro. You don't have to. I didn't mean..."

"Were you serious?"

He took a deep breath and let it out through his nose, clenching his jaw.

I pulled in with all my strength to gain enough breath for what I had to say. "You told me you wanted to fight for your home."

"Yeah, but..."

"I want you on my team."

Ta'o bit his lip and sat down, shifting his yellow eyes all around.

It was different this time. The last time Princess Rosalynd had put me in the sling—and the time before that—I didn't have an array of broken bones up and down my chest. For all my bravado, this was the most excruciating pain I could imagine. I once again pulled in for enough breath to speak. "I need you to do me a favor."

"Me?" Renou lifted his chin.

"No, him."

Ta'o nodded. "Anything."

I grunted and strained. "I need you to talk to Rosalynd... tell her... one of two things. You pick."

"OK?"

"Either... you were full of shit... in which case tell her... I'm sorry. Or... that you were serious and... she shouldn't get in... your way. Either way I'm ready... to come out. Now. Oh, God!"

Two injuries. One where that dog tried to rip my leg off, and some cracked ribs where that snake tried to swallow me whole. If I survived a year, I would have a nasty scar below my left knee, but my ribs would be fine. Today, my leg didn't hurt, but a quadrillion needles in my chest converged into a unified agony I couldn't handle any longer.

I needed Ta'o to hurry.

Renou leaned over to tilt his face below mine. "Do you want me to keep reading?"

I could barely register his presence. Yes, I wanted him to, anything to take my mind off the pain. "Please."

"... hoping to escape allegations of heresy, Bishop Emanue took the Bibyu Scrolls west through the mountains. Passing through several kingdoms, he was met with hostility until he arrived at the coastal Kingdom of Golago, then ruled by the Tyryus Dynasty. King Meshan Tyryus received the foreigner with an open ear.

"Meshan was in his second year. His deceased father, King Eryk, was a malignant force that damaged the reputation and prestige of the Goloagi both internally and throughout the region. Meshan had inherited a world full of enemies. Desperate for support, the Daenma priest presented an opportunity to build an alliance with a powerful force from the East..."