Chapter 4: A Slow Awakening
Breaking Fast, Revealing More
I was stunned by the revelation. Nearly a sevensun had passed since I was attacked. And to make it worse, I was injured in bed, so the chances of making an appearance at the harvest festival's opening were next to nothing. But all of that was secondary to a growing, gnawing concern that formed a pit in my stomach. Or perhaps I was hungry from having not eaten in seven suns.
"Lady Myrtia," I began hesitantly, "would you mind asking my sister to bring me some food? I feel like I haven't eaten in such a long time."
"Yes," she shot a quick glance at the door, "I can get that started for you, Roisin. Is there anything in particular you would delight in?"
I had to consider the thought for a few moments, but I essentially landed on something fairly simple, hoping to lighten the load from Delia, who was probably wracked with emotion about all of this. "If there are eggs and bread, that would be enough."
"Perfect!" She seemed a little too excited about that, but I let it go when my stomach, apparently pleased at the mention of food, let out a low rumble. I hoped it wasn't fully audible across the room, but her smile made it abundantly clear I was not so lucky. "We will get you fed in no time at all. I shall be right back."
As my well-to-do attendant left the room and closed the door behind herself, I was able to breathe a relieved sigh at last. Up to that moment, I'd only made a fairly half-hearted effort to move, stopped by aches all over my body. But if I were to eat, I'd prefer if I could feed myself. So I needed to get myself mobile, sooner rather than later.
My legs didn't simply feel like lead. The right leg, which is the one that had been crushed, wouldn't move at all. I could still feel it, but the attempt to move it, even to wiggle my toes, resulted in no change of position, only more pain. The other leg idly flopped back and forth, and each adjustment felt like I was moving a boulder.
I was able to move my right arm a bit better, but to call it 'successful' would be an insult to the normally dexterous flow I was accustomed to. My left arm burned like fire at even the suggestion of an attempt. From fingertips up to shoulderblade, everything lit up all at once, sending shocks through me. And yet, somehow, I managed to move the offending appendage to my face and brush a bit of hair out of the way.
After achieving its task, the whole arm fell back to the bed with a muffled thump. I was, for the time being, an invalid, and that wouldn't serve me at all.
My efforts must have drawn a distressed sound from some deeper part of me, because I was quickly joined by a concerned Lady Myrtia wielding a kitchen knife and frying pan in combat ready positions.
"Is everything okay, Roisin? I heard a noise." She looked genuinely concerned for a moment, but the expression turned to fear when she saw me. I wasn't sure why she would be so worried when I was safe and still mostly in the same position as before. "Now, I don't want to alarm you," she said the words haltingly, apparently expecting some dire response at whatever was to come next, "but you seem to be bleeding. A lot. From your face."
As she said it, I was suddenly aware of the trickling sensation between my nose and chin, and my left hand flew to the spot instinctively. That shot a second searing pain through every inch of the arm, which spread further across my chest like a series of carpentry nails being driven into the skin just below my collarbone. I did all I could to ignore the sensations as I drew my hand away from my face to inspect it, and sure enough it was covered in blood.
I didn't have time to react to any of that, as Lady Myrtia was already at my side, moving my arm gently back down and cleaning my face with a towel she had apparently kept at my bedside. Something about me must have told her I wasn't doing too well with the pain because she started making gentle cooing noises that I swear sounded like a lullaby coming from her.
As the burning subsided and the world started coming back into focus, I noticed tears on her face, streaming gently to her chin before they dripped and landed somewhere far below. I couldn't say if they hit the floor, me, or something else, but just the same they fell. Lady Myrtia was far out of her depth, and I was going to cause her stress enough to kill her.
Where the hells had Delia gone?
Before I could ask, an acrid burning smell accosted us both, and she ran from the room without a word. In my solitude, I was left to imagine the worst about my entire circumstance with no certainty as to how or why anything had happened. Attempting to move again was not even a temptation.
Lady Myrtia returned with a small plate. A single egg adorned the centre of it, the edges nearly black, with brownish spots pock-marking the surface. The egg's highly irregular shape told me there had been a second egg, though its presence was lacking now. Beside the lonely egg was a mangled piece of toast that had the appearance of being cut with a hammer.
Despite its appearance, my stomach roared for the modest plate of food, which drew a giggle from Lady Myrtia and lightened the mood between us substantially.
"I give you, to the best of my ability, bread and eggs." She said it with such style that I would've probably believed her pride in the effort, except that she sheepishly corrected. "Well, toast and egg," she emphasised the word to make it clear that she knew there were not plural eggs on the plate, "and I'm not entirely sure I even did this correctly."
"Better than I could've done for myself," I offered peaceably. "So, thank you."
"Care to tell me what happened in here?" She looked worried, still holding the plate too far from me to attempt to swipe it, even if I had the energy and ridiculous desire to repeat whatever had happened.
"I tried to move," the answer slipped out as a whisper. "I managed to move, I suppose. But apparently it took more out of me than I thought."
She breathed a deep sigh, I suppose from relief. "Apparently. Well in any case, allow me to help you sit up. Can not have you choking on this fine cuisine."
We shared a laugh at her self-aggrandisement, both of us aware that the food was almost certainly inedible. She set the plate down before moving into position for her impending feat of strength before turning her gaze back to face me.
"Two things. First is that I'm about to move you, which will cause all of your cover to fall off, no matter how I try. If it helps, I have seen you naked for most of the last sevensun as I've watched your wounds heal." She tilted her head as though awaiting my assent or denial. When it didn't come, she moved close enough to perform her task, and a scent reached my nose that tickled my memory, but I couldn't say just why. As she placed her hands below me, she continued speaking and moved me with apparent ease. "The second thing is that your sister is gone. Taken by an envoy from the first district on the sun of the attack. Her husband and children too."
I sat with the news dumbly. There was no malice in her delivery, but it wounded me all the same. Delia had been taken, the same as our mother and father. For what? To add more bodies to the queen's army? Why though? Why take the whole family? That wasn't the way this was supposed to work.
As she finished situating my body, Lady Myrtia stepped back some and waited a bit longer before she said something worse. "They were looking for you, Roisin."
I sat with the words for several minutes as Lady Myrtia somehow managed to feed me. There was a measure of unresponsiveness to the outside world that I could feel, but I could neither correct nor articulate it. Like a sort of numbness to everything except the sounds of our breathing and the food going into me.
Despite being burnt and mangled, the food was satisfying. Enough so that I didn't need more, even though I'd not eaten in so long. She wasn't a half-bad cook, this courtly Lady Myrtia. It's not that she was good, but she could at least use the kitchen well enough not to kill me.
When she returned after having handled the dishes, I managed somehow to turn my head in her direction. "So, why were they here for me, and why'd they take my sister?"
"As to the second," she was hesitating again, apparently not certain what she should reveal about the situation, "it's because you and she look similar enough that the envoy believed Delia 'good enough'. At least I surmised as much when I arrived and got bits of the story from the townsfolk."
"Did there happen to be three of them coming from the deimward road?" It was a stupid question for several reasons, but I had to ask. An envoy coming from the first district would have no choice but to take the deimward road this close to harvest. The mornward road was too dangerous to travel, even if it were faster. Of course it was foolish to ask Lady Myrtia that question, as it revealed I knew more than she thought.
"I do not know much more than I have told you." She grimaced at her own lack of information before brightening at a thought. "Though they must have come along the deimward route, as I followed the mornward route, and we did not cross paths."
Either she was terribly brave or terribly foolish. In both cases, I would need to keep her in the dark about what I knew until I understood her motives.
"Thank you," I said softly, "for the food. And for watching over me. Could you tell me more of how you found me?"
"There's not much to tell. I was on the mornward road, travelling eveward in the dark of night. Worrying over herd changes or tidal shifts or anything of the sort would cause me to arrive too late." She'd rehearsed this part of her story, I could tell, but fighting her about it was pointless. "As I made it within an hour of Powell's Square, I heard an animalistic shriek. It sent a chill down my spine.
"I had to decide quickly of course. Do I continue on my path, or do I investigate." A sheepish grin crossed her features for a flash. "I have a habit of ignoring my own safety, so of course I chose the latter and started into the woods. My cold-flame lantern was a gentle green, making it easier to pick out forest features, but terribly difficult to see by.
"Had I not encountered a pale glow in the distance, I might have abandoned the sidetrack for good sense, but how could I not investigate. The light was much more than a cold-flame would produce, but much less than a proper torch. Just enough that I was too curious to back down.
"Once I arrived at the clearing where I found you, my heart rejoiced and recoiled at the sight. I had found you before the envoy, but something else had found you before me. Around your apparently lifeless form were no fewer than twenty larabrin corpses. I rushed to your side and began to investigate.
"You had no wounds I could see, but there were several scars that were a bright blue. Your right leg and left arm were the worst, while several puncture holes formed a nearly perfect line across your chest. At the centre of the line was a small silver flower that resembled a rose, its stem adorned with several thorns.
"I lifted you from the ground and carried you back here. It was dark, but the townsfolk were helpful. Although they weren't so tremendously helpful that I will not be furious with them later that they did not correct my pronunciation of your and your parents' names."
That caught a laugh from me, doubling me over in joy as my hands raced to my stomach and my legs pulled to. Once the laughter subsided, I noticed that Lady Myrtia was staring, mouth agape, at me.
"Do I have a bit of egg on my face? If I do, it's definitely your fault."
"You moved. A lot." She said haltingly. "Did it hurt?"
I only realised then that I had moved almost involuntarily during my laughing fit, and I'd not felt even the slightest ache. I shook my head just a little.
"Can you try it again?"
A second attempt at moving my various extremities was much more successful than had been the first. I still couldn't fully bring my legs under control, and my right arm was still somewhat useless – I didn't dare attempt to move the left – but I was apparently getting better.
"You certainly do recover quickly, Miss Roisin, daughter of Omela and Tarant."