The De'Nauguath Chronicles - Book 1: The Summoner's Daughter

Chapter 12: Shadow

Biyaño

A scream woke me. Mine.

No, not woke – it tried to rip my forehead apart.

Someone washed my face. The boy? No, the movements weren't the same.

I sweated. My stomach clenched and unclenched. My head throbbed like a hammer smacking hot metal.

Another scream tore out. When my ears recovered from it, I cleared my throat. "Where's the shewla?" I barely heard my own voice. My head moved around to find whoever was with me, but my sight was dark and blurry.

Silence.

"Where'd she go? Is she here?" My words felt far away. My eyes were scraped dry.

"A boy was with you when they found you."

The voice was like a star in the night.

I nodded. My muscles relaxed a mite. "Aye. Devna. Where's the monk? I fell. He found me." Every word made my stomach shudder. My eyes burned. I shut them in a futile try to avoid the pain. I writhed. My arms were too heavy to lift, but I couldn't stop myself from trying to move.

He offered me water. I gulped the whole measure but sputtered and coughed. This water was different. It wasn't stale. It was clean. I reckoned it was spirit at first. No Krócian water was sweet. I groaned. I was still clenched in a ball. Sharp twitches made my limbs jolt around without warning.

"Weakness has a deeper hold on you than I expected."

What was that in his voice? Not blame. Pity? I tried to quiet myself in case he spoke again.

"If this was less urgent, I would wait until you could help the effort." He wet my face again and gave me another drink. "I'm sorry."

I frowned. "For what?"

I expected him to burn something, flick oil, anything. Instead, he leaned over me and chanted. It took me awhile to realize what he was doing. He let out a rapid, low, quiet kind of prayer. I listened hard to the sounds. I couldn't find any meaning.

But there was music in his voice. I listened. Everything else fell away while his voice was on the air. The twitching paused. The sweat wasn't as cold.

He laid one hand on my shoulder and the other on my forehead. I was too tired to move away. His hands were immense and long. He hadn't known outside work – he didn't have the cuts or calluses for it. He touched the rash, but not in malice. These were calm fingers. This was a healer, or maybe a surgeon. I clung to his voice. I thought his hands buzzed a little.

He worked slowly. His main weapon wasn't his hands but his chanting. His fingers didn't wander once. He was drawing poison out. He must've been. I sweated more, struggled more, twitched harder, but the pain fell away. He was putting me into a trance. It was easier to follow it than fight it.

But I was alone in the dark, with only his voice for a guide. There wasn't anything to run from, but it wasn't somewhere I wanted to be. I still didn't know what his speech meant. The louder he spoke, the thicker I was in the black. But I heard him. He didn't fade away. Even the silence between his words was music.

I didn't notice it straightaway, but he was shouting now. I'd never heard shouting like this. It wasn't rage or a threat or blame. It was – begging. It was pleading.

He was calling out to something, maybe. It was more than ordinary healing. He was reaching his mind into mine. My thoughts wriggled around, tried to defend it, but it came awake. It was neglected and tired and underused. It let out pain and joy and things I didn't remember the words for.

My forehead split again. I thought and half-thought words and stories. I was in a close cave. I was swimming in the past – in the swill. The more I yawped, the more sewage it trapped me in. Harshest memories passed through my sight. Even the locked-away memory almost came. I wasn't sure if my screams were real anymore.

Through all this, something moved in the corner. It was his hand, or something like one. He stretched it out, or – it was waving in reach, I didn't know. I wasn't any surer of that than if I was asleep or awake. I shook away. Each noise I formed was an echo from somewhere. I was breathing, but I was choking. I was trying to gag out a bad taste.

I didn't know how to do it.

There was a spark in the dark three times.

I pulled away three times.

I didn't know why.

One last flash tore through my head, like a knife baring a vein to open air.

I screamed until my voice cracked, and then I screamed some more. Another light come with his hand this time. Something frayed in me. I wasn't breathing. My lungs ached. I reached for the hand and roared.

He pulled me out.

It was silent now. I floated above the muck like oil on water. I woke with a hard jerk through everything. My head was clear. My eyes flicked and focused and blurred. My hand was a vise around his.

He smiled.

My eyes were heavy again, but not from pain.

"The worst is behind you. Sleep."

I barely heard his words as I fell away.