The Knave of Souls - Fantasy - Sequel to The Jack of Souls

Chapter 24

FEAR & FOLLY

*

She woke to pain. Her hands and head and belly blazed with pain that ripped her mind like a blinding fire. She had no recollection of where she was, or why she was in pain. She tried to move, and received more pain as payment. Her body was not responding well. She opened her eyes and cried out as the dim light of the shuttered room sent lances of pain into her brain, and once again she plunged into unconsciousness.

When next she woke, her belly and hands still blazed, but the pain behind her eyes had lessened to a dull ache. She was cramped, and shivering. She opened her eyes, and recognized the room and the empty milk jars. Then in a rush of urgent memories she remembered the crone, and the sleeping knights.

I must stand. I must get to her. Her eyes searched in vain for the hour glass she had intended to use, to measure the length of her unconsciousness, but even as she did she realized she had forgotten it in her rush to begin.

Slowly, holding her breath, she peered down the length of body to see new, youthful limbs, supple flesh and skin as smooth as rose milk.

A sob of emotion escape her lips.

It had worked. She was young again.

A throb of burning pain in her hands reminded her of the cost. Holding her breath, she raised them from under the milk, and cried out at what she saw. Both palms had fused to her nexus stone in spite of the cooling milk. Huge blisters formed under the skin, and she could not separate her hands from the stone without tearing the blisters. She clenched her teeth tightly, and forced herself to twist the palms in opposite directions around the nexus, to tear away the skin. Pain bloomed anew as the skin separated with a nasty crackle, and darkness crowded her vision from the sides, threatening to take her again. When the pain subsided, she sat up in the tub and again raised her hands from the water.

This time she could only stare in mute astonishment. The skin had not torn away from the nexus at all. Instead, the nexus stone had split down the middle so each half remained fused to the blister of a palm. A low wail of horror died in her throat.

The two shards of her nexus stone—once white and pearly bright—were now dark, and brittle, and unmistakably dead.

Shame closed around her throat like a fist. The magnitude of her sin had no precedent. She had spent a precious nexus of the Bright Mother—a stone capable of healing thousands—on her own selfish resurrection. She pressed the back of one hand to her lips to hold back another wail and rocked back and forth in growing horror. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't speak.

What have I done?

The snort of a horse jarred her back to the present.

How long had she been unconscious? She studied the shadow and light against the eastern shutters, and judged it was still morning, but much later than she had hoped.

With tremendous effort she hauled herself into sitting position and clambered from the trough. Her body was weak and unfamiliar, her head faint and spinning. How thin she was, and hungry! She downed a cup of sweet carrot juice and greedily gulped a pitcher of water before she donned the robe. Reeling on new limbs like a new-born calf, she made her way down the stairs. Dimly she noted her robe was much too short now. With each step, her body seemed to remember itself, and her stride became more confident.

When she reached the outer door she fumbled with the latch on the window grate. The nerves of her hands still dazzled with pain, and the split halves of her nexus still stuck to her palms. She peered into the yard, daring to hope the men still slept. A riderless horse had waked, and now cropped grass near the crumpled grandmother. No other sound could she hear in the yard.