Page 8 of A Dream Shrouded in Fury
I looked down at the bandages wrapped around my waist.My thoughts, dazed with confusion and wonder, spun like spiderwebs in my skull.
“You saved me.”
My voice was hoarse, and the vibrations set off a coughing fit that triggered more agonizing spasms around my middle.
“Stay there,” she said, as if I could go anywhere, and rose to her feet.When she returned, she pressed a cup into my hand.“Drink.Slowly.”
I took a small sip of sharp, cold water and did as she ordered, taking my time until the cup was empty.When it was, I handed it back to her.
“Better?”she asked.
I nodded.
“Ready to see if we can get you into bed?”
I wanted to say no.I wanted to tell her I needed to leave and see if she would allow it.Was I a prisoner here?But even as I opened my mouth to pose the question, I accepted that for now her answer didn’t matter.I wouldn’t get far as I was.So instead, I nodded again, and she slid her arms around my waist and helped me to my feet.With a bit of shuffling, I lay down and settled against the pillows.
“Why?”I asked once I was as comfortable as I could be given the pain.
“Why what?”She adjusted my blankets and frowned at the blood seeping through my bandages.
“Why didn’t you kill me?”Why did you drag me back to this world of suffering and torment?I needed to know, because without a reason, I could only assume I was still breathing for the sake of someone else’s sadistic pleasure, and if that were the case… Well, if that were the case, I would try for that exit, exhausted or not.Death would be better than going back to what I’d already escaped.
Without speaking, she peeled back the bloodstained fabric and went over to the table where a jar of something vaguely greenish sat waiting.She took so long to answer I believed she wasn’t going to, until finally, she said, “I was recently told that I need to surround myself with something other than death.Then I found you.”
She offered the explanation with a tight smile, and her head tipped forward as she applied more salve to my wound.I clenched my teeth at the burst of pain that quickly softened into a gentle numbness.
I wasn’t sure if I believed her, though she gave me no reason to think she was lying.Yet for her sake, I hoped her reasons ran deeper than that.Otherwise, she’d wasted her efforts.For all she’d done for me so far, I hated to disappoint her.“You saved the wrong man, then.”
She looked up, her blue eyes so clear I swore I was swimming in them.“Why do you say that?”
“Because death is the only thing I live for.”
The effort of falling out of and getting back into bed had exhausted me, and my eyelids sagged.I struggled to keep them open, which she noticed.
With confident, practised movements, she tied off the last of the new bandages.“Sleep.I’ve fed, so I’ll be awake and nearby if you need anything.”A pause, and then, “I’m Kalla, by the way.”
Kalla.A name that reminded me of the fields of lilies that sprang up across Soldara when the season was right.Kalia lutrena—song of the lily—we called them, for the sounds they made when the wind blew through their leaves.
“Jael,” I murmured.“My name is Jael.”
As I fell asleep again, I considered how fitting it was that this woman should be named for the music that had once fed my soul.
Kalla
VI
I remained close to Jael as I’d promised I would.The sight of him falling out of bed on my return made me hesitant to walk away, not wanting him to injure himself again.
Not wanting him to leave.Not until I got the information I needed, anyway.
That’s what I told myself as I sat on the wooden chair in the corner of the room.I’d lied about my reason for saving him, knowing the truth would make even less sense to him than it did to me, but also to avoid him holding the truth against me.I probably shouldn’t have given the fae my name, either, but it had slipped out before I could think better of it.
You saved the wrong man, then.Because death is the only thing I live for.
His answer echoed through my head, mocking my attempts to harden myself against him.He’d said it, and I knew I should believe him considering he couldn’t lie, not to mention how I’d found him and the quality of his blades, which I’d discovered when I’d peeled away the layers of bloodied cloth and leather.
And yet every time his words replayed, I heard the heavy regret woven through each syllable.The fae words he’d uttered when I’d stumbled across him in the woods had been poetry—magic.Proof that he could create as well as kill.I found it sad that he should think otherwise.
