Page 104 of Cage of Starlight
His mind scrambles to place it.
Riese.
Tory scowls. Probably angry about Iri. His loss sits like a rock in Sena’s chest. Or maybe that’s the pneumonia.
Silence.
Riese is waiting for an answer, eerily still. He’s unhappy.
“Yes, sir,” Sena says, reflexively.
“Both of you,” Riese says. (But his eyes are only on Tory.) “It’s time to talk about our plans. Are you all right, Sena?”
“Yes, sir.” The world around Sena is gauzy and unreal, hazy with firelight. And in the distance—the first glow of sun melts on the horizon like liquid gold, turning the sky purple in shades from bruise to lavender. Kuhlu blooms sway in a breeze, such an impossibly vibrant blue they almost glow with it. Like lanterns for the dead.
Riese’s voice, far away like it’s coming through a tunnel: “You don’t look well. Go rest. I’ll fill you in when you’re feeling better.”
He needs to say something, but Tory speaks first. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea . . .”
“M’fine,” Sena says. “You go on.”
Riese says something, but Sena can’t focus.
He loses time again. He blinks in Tory’s direction and finds the stump he sat on empty. He wracks his mind for memories.
It offers up only these: a warm pressure and a blazing bolt of strange pain in the shoulder that was giving him trouble earlier, and Tory’s too-serious promise that he’llberight back.
Sena reaches up, curious, to his right shoulder where the ache comes from, settles his hand over the cloak and presses.
He gasps, withdraws, curls double. He makes an ugly sound and murmurs thanks that no one is beside him to hear it.
This is wrong. Sena has had pneumonia before. This is different. His whole right arm burns when he tries to move it, hammer-clangs of pain andheat, like it’s caught fire.
It’s wrong.
No—no.
It’searly.
He finds his feet after a few tries, grabs a bright metal pitcher from the grate over the fire. It smells of coffee, turns his stomach. Reflective—it will do.
Into his tent, onto his knees.
Signal mirror from his front pocket.
Breaths fast. He won’t cough.
Crackling in his lungs like crinkled paper, gray haze around his eyes, not enough air. What a mess he is.
Cloak off, buttons freed to expose his shoulder. Arm burning, burning. He loses time checking it’s not on fire. A fool notion. Of course it’s not, it’s—
Signal mirror over his shoulder. Pitcher in front, warped but serviceable in the reflection it offers.
Unmistakable. He’s seen it on a corpse or three before: purple-black lines under irritated skin.
Roots. Like a tree, the tree they stand on to get to the top.
Mechanically, he buttons his shirt again. Lets the pitcher down. Tucks the mirror into his pocket, closes the cloak around himself. Warm. Woodsy. Smell of smoke, treated against water and given to Tory by someone who loved him. Sena closes his eyes and for the first time in ages allows himself to long for home.
