The fever has decided that through no way is Renit Marron going to get through without a substantial amount of sweating or vomiting. And he hasn't. Every hour of the night, whether he's sleeping or awake, the vomit finds him and he leans over the side of the bed and hurls. He wears nothing other than his undershorts to keep himself from sweating profusely and I'm left with the duvet and two spare blankets as I curl up on the other side of the mattress and hope the vomit doesn't find its way in my direction.
His moans and groans waft into my dreams, stopping them before they start. I'm glad to have his presence there, awake and protesting to the scorching fever, as that makes me unable to have complete nightmares about Celestine or the king looming over me with a sword, the blade dangerously close to scraping my skin and impaling my heart.
Every time I open my eyes, I find Renit staring at the ceiling. His breathing is labored through the night and his skin is slick with sweat. The stench of him hovers over the vomit, at least, but that does nothing when I have to dump the bucket on the other side of the village multiple times through the night. I walk out there, relieved to smell the fresh air, only to be hit by the bitter smell of Renit's vomit.
Upon noticing my grimace on the way back, Tesha chuckles from where she sits atop a stone building. If I wasn't taking care of a sweaty, fever-stricken, cranky prince, I might join her and gulp down as much alcohol as she'll let me before hopping back down. But Renit needs my help—he was there for me so, in return, I'll do the same for him.
He doesn't want the company. I've never witnessed someone get pissed so fast but Renit, he's a completely different story. The fever didn't take well to him and the same can be said for the other way around. Renit cannot stand to have an irregular body temperature and no matter what I do—cold washcloths, stripping him down into nothing but his undershorts, removing the blankets, sitting him outside the front door to breathe in the cold night air—it doesn't work.
Sweat continues to pour off of him like a leaking faucet and more times than I'm able to count, I've wiped the droplets from his forehead before they fell into his eyes.
Each hour is excruciatingly long. I drift in and out of sleep, as does Renit until he wakes up with the need to hurl. More times than not, I find myself filling a rusted cup with water and forcing him to drink so he doesn't become dehydrated from emptying his already empty stomach. This is more vomiting than I did when enduring the Grounding bond, and Renit being over three hundred years old, a warrior on a battlefield that stood as his father's executioner for that many years—he's not taking very well to the conditions.
I can't say I blame him. He fights every drink of water until I yank on the bond and force him to do it, otherwise he'll vomit again and taste the acid from his stomach rather than the apple I force him to eat, too. It's all we have. There are no other foods I could provide him with; Alaric wouldn't give them up, anyway.
The rebel commander was only here for a few minutes before disappearing back through the door. Immediately seeing the bruises and cuts along my left side, he blamed Renit for almost killing one of their strongest assets, in which I told him to get the hell out if he planned to make Renit a steaming, sweaty mess. Not in result of the fever, but at the need to claw Alaric's eyes out. He'd threatened it once Alaric left.
Our visitors have filtered in and out throughout the night. Once they saw Renit vomit, they decided they had better things to do than stick around and help the banished prince feel like himself again. It'll be a long road before that happens.
Dalis and Citlali came first and helped clean the wooden bucket for another bath in case Renit, or myself, needed a small break from the fever, the vomiting, or any other symptoms he might develop within the next few hours. Both witches were silent, they hardly spoke, but each has troubles they must get through. Dalis is still dealing with Celestine's death, she embraced me this time and asked how I was doing. I believe I'm faring better than the witch of water.
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Conquering The Unbroken
Фэнтези[Book 4 of the Grounding the Storm series] Roux is back in the safe hands of those that care for her most. With a ticking clock over their heads, the rebellion forms into the operation Bren dreamed it would be since the day he joined. But the threat...
