Page 56 of Taken to Lemora
“Just breathe through it. You’re alright.”
“Nob, I’m notttttt,” I moan, starting to cry.
He chuckles. “Yeffa, you are. You will be.”
“Awm so sooooooosawee…” I wheeze before the next surge of bile shoots up my lungs and into my mouth and then into the bucket. The splatter…the splatter is so horrible. The little spray of acidic, disgusting, wet, bile. I’ve never… My brain shorts. I cringe away from my own sick in disgust as huge, heavy hands come against my back and rub up and down in awkward, jerky movements.Raingar.
“I told you not to apologize to me anymore.”
“I throoooawp on yoooo,” I groan.
“What did we talk about yesterday? We’re trying for each other. This is you trying. I’d say, it’s going pretty good. Besides, you think you’re the first creature to throw up on me in this ohring inn? Not even close.” He hacks out a laugh that makes Charana beside me laugh even harder.
“You bloody wench, you’ve got no right to laugh,” Raingar barks at her, shaking his fist in her face. “This is entirely your fault.”
“Myfault?”
“You plied your miriga with lobba and got her sick. No more lobba for you,Essmira,” he scolds, full of irritation.
“Daaawntell me whaz to…doooooo.” I throw up all over again, brain frying as the inn comes to life around me. Embarrassment can’t touch the female I’ve become.
Raingar chuckles, “Wouldn’t dream of it, miriga. Just get it all out. Then we’ll get you back to bed. Moreth brought healing salts for your bath. He also brought giri to help settle your stomach. When you’re feeling better, Celia has a large platter prepared for you. You can eat it a little at a time. And then sleep. You need lots of it. Here, or we can take you back to Merquin’s. Or, if you’d like, you can move into my chambers. I’d like for you to have them. The keys, I mean. And the chambers. They’re yours. I’ll sleep somewhere else. Or there, if you want me to. But I won’t…you don’t…you don’t ever have to fear being kept anywhere. The keys to Lemora belong to you. I swear it, miriga.”
And the funny thing is, as I throw up for the hundredth time, I believe him. I try to smile, but heave instead, making good friends with this bucket below me. In between the dry heaving, I manage, “I thrust you, Raingar.”
“You…you what?”
“Trust…trust you.”
“Nob,” he says, touching the top of my head and gently stroking his fingers through my hair. So, so gently. With extreme care. “You don’t yet. You can’t. But you will. First though, I’ll give you a reason to.”
They weren’t necessary, his words, though I liked hearing them anyway. And, if I could have answered the dumb brute then, I’d have told him that I loved him.
Too bad the lobba got in the way.
14
Essmira
It takes methreeohring solars to fully recover from my first brush with lobba-spiced ale. I spend the first lunar in Celia’s inn, the second I spend at Merquin and Librida’s. Raingar refuses to leave my side and irritates the comets out of my gracious hosts. To spare them, I agree to go with Raingar back to his keep on the third lunar.
Raingar steers me directly to his chambers, rudely waving off the creatures in the great hall who greet me as I pass. Had I not been so ill, I’d have shoved Raingar off and spent more time with them. As it is, I’m fairly grateful for Raingar’s rudeness.
Mostly, grateful.
Gorman meets us at Raingar’s chamber doors, looking fine in the robes I tailored for him. “It’s good to see you back, Essmira. I’m glad the rope I procured for you worked. I heard you had an excellent time at Winter’s End.”
I snort and giggle at the obvious teasing in Gorman’s tone, but Raingar just waves a large mitt at his friend and shouts, “Get out of my way, you bloody traitor!”
“Yeffa. Thank you Gorman. I’m so sorry I lost your cloak, but I couldn’t find it the coming solar and I don’t remember where I put it. I think I might have had a littletoomuch fun with the lobba.” My arms cross instinctively over my sore and queasy stomach.
Gorman’s lips hitch up on one side. He blinks his large, black eyes and they glitter. “Yeffa. I heard. I also heard you gave Raingar a much deserved shower.”
I gasp, horrified, but the sound of Gorman’s laughter makes me smile. Raingar watches our exchange with round eyes and a slack jaw. “You…” He starts, then shakes his head. “I’ll get you another blasted cloak, Gorman. Now scram!”
Gorman straightens his robes and clutches his notebook close to his chest. He winks at me and I grin, giddy. I wink back. “When you are available, Raingar, there’s much to deal with. We have a fresh harvest of bulberry that needs distributing, a mating ceremony that requires your attendance, Walrey honey allocation between Leelee and Moreth — both are convinced that they need more of it than the other.
“We’ve also got an incoming delegation of Asgid arriving to procure kintarr. The local Asgid population would like to throw a festival — something called an Ashashana — to celebrate with their community and need your keep to do it, it’s the only place big enough. Lastly, one of our trading ships was intercepted by a band of ohring Eshmiri and we lost seventy pouches of kintarr to them.”
