The Amulet Of Nicmir (The Scripts Of Neptune, Book 1)

Chapter 42

"Here." Lynn sat on the ground beside Nyle, her back against the wall, and held out a full skin of water. "You need it."

Without a word, Nyle lifted it to his mouth and drank greedily, closing his eyes at the relief it brought. Lynn grabbed the back of the skin to slow him down. "Careful," she said with a slight smile. "Drink too fast and you'll throw up."

As much as he didn't want to, Nyle lowered the skin and took a sip or two every few seconds, letting the cold seep into his ribs.

They were in a corridor of what Nyle assumed was the hospital. It was underground, safe from the sun, carved from the same rock that made up the buildings above ground. On their way down, Lynn had informed him that these passageways had been hewn hundreds of years before, and the stone from it had been either stacked into buildings or ground up and fashioned into bricks.

Once he'd drunk his fill, Nyle leaned his wrists on his knees and stared at the door across from him. Lillian was in that room, being treated. She'd been sickly pale when they brought her in, burning with fever, moaning unintelligible words. The bandages covering her wound had been a mottled mix of yellow, red, and nauseating, palish green. He grimaced just thinking about it.

Chad was in a room down the hall getting his arm fixed up, but Nyle wasn't sure where Sam and Crynia were. They'd been dragged back unconscious, and their captor hadn't seemed very happy that there were Canivera in the city, but Nyle had been too concerned about Lillian to ask where they were being taken. Now he regretted it. He would've done almost anything for Sam's humor or Crynia's oddly comforting quietness right then. Or the good-natured bickering you got when you stuck them both together.

"So," he finally said to his companion, deciding to ease the heavy silence. "You're not dead."

Lynn chuckled lightly, gathering her legs up to cross them under her. The gesture was so familiar, so like Lillian, that Nyle had to look away. Because she wasn't out of the woods yet. There was still a chance she wouldn't make it.

"Indeed I am not," Lynn said softly, twisting her wedding ring. It was made of pale gold, set with a clear, flat stone the color of the sky. The metal embraced the jewel with twisting tendrils like slender tentacles, curling into a tiny design at the top. "Although I can imagine why you thought I was."

Nyle snorted. "Yeah. When someone vanishes in the desert, they're usually presumed dead."

Lynn's smile was wistful and mischievous. "I nearly was, you know," she said, her tone low. "My husband and I wouldn't have made it if these people hadn't found us."

Nyle frowned at the floor. "Your husband. His name was Nigel, right?"

A sad smile slipped onto Lynn's features. "Yes," she said. "He died several years ago from complications with his heart."

"Figurative heart or literal?" Nyle asked, deciding to be forward. If he remembered anything about Lillian's grandmother, it was that she didn't mind brashness. "I know he wasn't always the most faithful. And you never really tolerated cheaters."

"Clever as I remember you," Lynn remarked fondly, reaching out to ruffle his hair with a grin that belonged to a woman half her age. The skin around her eyes, wrinkled from laughing and smiling so much, creased even more. "But the world may never know what my husband's true cause of death was."

Nyle was quiet after that, not sure how to rekindle conversation. He counted the moths fluttering around the torch on the wall, watched how they shied away from the heat when they got too close. Their wings glowed virid in the dark, a slash of color against the firelight and shadows.

"Think she'll make it?" he finally whispered, his eyes wandering back to the door.

"She was always defiant, when I knew her," Lynn responded after a beat, straightening her robe. "But she's changed, I'm sure. So I cannot say. It's up to her."