The Stormcrow Cycle [Slow-burn Slice-of-Life Tragic Fantasy Romance]

Chapter Eleven: Rescue

It was cold. Ba'an curled up on herself, shivering. She felt so sick. Her insides were burning up and sloughing off at the same time. Everything hurt. Her skin was hypersensitive; the places where her clothes touched felt as though they were being sanded.

She whimpered.

"Ba'an." Someone stroked her hair away from her forehead. A cloth drenched in cold water mopped her face. "Ba'an. You have to drink." The voice was familiar. He was speaking in K'Avaari, though his thick accent made it hard to understand.

There was a wet cloth pressing against her mouth. It was too cold, the cloth too rough. She tried to turn her face away. "Ba'an. Please. Please. Can you suck on the cloth?"

He sounded hoarse, like he had been crying. Something bad must have happened to make a grown man cry.

Well...she could try it. She opened her mouth and sucked. The water hadn't been that cold, after all; it tasted a little stale, as though it had been sitting in a waterskin for days.

"Yes. Good. Thank you." He did it again until she refused. She was tired.

"No," she mumbled, and he wiped her face with the cloth again.

"Okay," he said. "Can you try this?" He pressed his finger against her mouth, and when she opened it, he put a bitter paste on her tongue. She made an angry noise and bit him. "Ow." His voice was calm. "I should have known. No spitting. You must eat it."

It was disgusting, but her mouth was still too dry to spit it out. Weakly, she tried to wriggle away.

"Okay, I will stop. Do not move." She felt the cool cloth again, though this time it settled on her forehead. "Try to sleep, Ba'an. Rest."

---

The next time Ba'an woke the ground was moving.

No, that wasn't right.

She was moving. Her head felt stuffed with wool, and she was thirsty. Her insides felt uncomfortable still, the way one would often feel if they'd eaten some bad fish. Her skin still hurt, especially where she was pressed against his arms and chest. The man was very strong. That was nice. He would not drop her then.

"Sorry," said the same voice. "We had to go. That was a bad place."

Well, okay then.

She slept again.

Sometimes he woke her on purpose. He would pester her and pester her until she opened her mouth, and he would make her drink, or put some terrible-tasting paste onto her tongue. There was no use in fighting; he was persistent. He would not stop until she did what he wanted, and only then would he go away and let her sleep.

Ba'an didn't know how much time had passed. She slept. She woke. She drank, then she slept again. She often felt cold, but then something warm would wrap around her until she stopped shaking. Sometimes they were moving, but more often than not she was lying down on something hard.

She dreamed, sometimes. Ba'an didn't remember what she dreamed, but it made her heart race in a bad way and sometimes her throat hurt when she woke. When she woke like that the man stroked her head gently and told her silly stories until she fell asleep again.

He had a very nice voice. She liked listening to him.

Once he'd told her a story about a boy who tried to make himself a pair of wings. He had fallen in love with the moon and had wanted a way to reach her. In the end he had fallen and died, smashing into pieces on the ground.

"That is stupid," she'd mumbled, and he had laughed.

"Theoi," he had said, and he had sounded relieved. "Yes," he agreed, "But he loved her very much. He was very desperate."