1st Draft Fridays - A Fistful of Deception: Book #4, Chronicles of Marsdenfel

Year 253 of the Bynding - @ Skulls' Pointe - Harvestime, part III

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I’m lying on a bed.

I open my eyes and promptly recognize my room. I must’ve blacked out.

Blacked out?

I force myself to lurch up, grabbing the dagger from inside my pillowcase as I sit up. Aldrik’s crouched by the door, leaning back against the wall across from me.

He’s asleep, I notice as the spinning world nearly makes me hurl again, and conveniently positioned to keep an eye on me while I was unconscious. I brace myself with hands gripping the edge of the mattress, the hilt of the dagger under one hand.

This is past ridiculous and well into worrisome. At this rate, I’m not going to survive long enough to get a chance to see what my magic can help me with—and if this is a side effect of that magic rush’s affect on the child… My magic probably won’t do anything, since it’s ‘natural’ for different magic types to conflict.

Which means I’ll probably need an unusually powerful water elemental, like Aldrik, to survive the week, much less the pregnancy. And I’ll have to trust the water elemental enough to let their magic in past mine.

I feel inclined to curse aloud, but considering Aldrik’s poise…he’s probably in a warrior’s sleep and would awaken at the sound of a voice or a boot.

I’m still barefoot, in my wet wrap dress, and dirty in ways that mean I wasn’t bathed in my sleep and that I might’ve just blacked out because I hit my head…if I weren’t a montai, whose magic would’ve healed me immediately. The stinging, scraped-up skin is a worrying sign, too. Why didn’t my magic heal that, while I was on the ground?

Maybe I can eat something.

I consider the nausea and my new propensity for losing anything that’s in my stomach. Drinking is likely more important, right now. And, perhaps, spending the next day or fifty in bed, since I’m fine if I don’t move.

Can’t help Firthé if I stay abed.

Won’t be any good to him dead, either.

I pinch the bridge of my nose to relieve some pressure. Aldrik looks exhausted, sorely in need of sleep, but accessing my magic to call Cappie would wake him up anyway…and maybe my magic didn’t heal me because that would’ve triggered more dehydration-worsening illness.

“Aldrik?” I croak. Creator, I sound pathetic.

He wakens immediately, as I expected, but his eyes are bloodshot. I wince in sympathy. He moves smoothly, though, as he stands and comes over to me.

“Tuelzi?” he asks, far too quietly for anyone outside the room to overhear.

I give a self-depreciating smile. “Mind carrying me to the baths?” I can find a more suitable go-fer there—someone who isn’t exhausted.

He studies me a moment. “You don’t wish to eat?”

“Bath,” I repeat, holding up my scraped and dirty arms. My elbow actually looks worse than I expected, considering it isn’t throbbing.