“The dark doesn’t bother me.” I wouldneverlight a candle again. Ever. The one Maddox kept lit had already given me a couple of panic attacks, and I stayed far away from it.
“And I can get you bedding…” Maddox continued.
“I don’t need it.”
Maddox sighed and stepped into the room. “How is he?”
I tilted my head as Cheriour let out a garbled, “I willnot!”
“‘Bout the same,” I mumbled. “How you holding up?”
Maddox looked like a walking zombie: big, dark rings encircled his eyes. He’d dropped weight quickly, and his clothes hung loose around his body.
When I’d seen Quinn earlier, he didn’t look much better.
They were both stretched too thin.There were too many wounded.
“I’ll be alright.” Maddox touched Cheriour’s side.
The bed shook as Cheriour flinched and let out an animalistic snarl.
“Can you hold him down, Addie?” Maddox asked. His hands trembled. He didn’t have the strength to suppress an ant.
But neither did I.
I hadn’t been injured in my encounter with Seruf and Ramiel. Not physically, at least, except for a few bruises. But my body hadn’t gotten that memo.Everythinghurt. My joints creaked as I walked to Cheriour’s bed. The ache in my head had dulled, but it was still there, always pulsing behind my eyes.
Maddox said I needed rest. That my pain likely stemmed from emotional and mental trauma. But every time I closed my eyes, I was back at my parents’ house, watching them die. Or trapped in the gaudy gold room with the mystery woman. So, yeah…sleep wasn’t coming easy these days.
I perched beside Cheriour, grasping his arms, pressing my body into him as Maddox lifted the bedsheet and inspected his wounds. “It’s healing,” he said, lowering the sheet back over Cheriour’s naked body. “Slower than I’d like, but…I...”
Maddox and Quinn had self-imposed a hard rule. They did enough healing to keep a person’s heart beating. No more. It was the only way two healers could save the thousands of dying that had fled to Sanadrin after Niall’s fall.
Maddox touched two quivering fingers to Cheriour’s forehead.
Cheriour thrashed again, nearly bucking me off him, and almost knocking poor, wobbly Maddox on his ass. “Heisgetting stronger,” Maddox said. “I gave him a little more…”
“Maddox,” I sighed.
“…it might be enough to break his fever.” Maddox staggered when he walked away from the bed.
“You need to be more careful.” I wanted Cheriour better. Desperately. Didn’t mean I wanted to see Maddox go down.
“I am.” Maddox’s teeth flashed in the dark as he smiled. But then he swayed again.
“You wanna sit?” I asked.“You can shirk off your duties for a bit. I won’t tattle.”
“I can’t.” He leaned against the wall, pinching his nose between his forefinger and thumb. “The symptoms of Elion’s disease have started.”
Ice clanked around in my belly. “H-How many are sick?”
“Over a hundred.”
The whole freaking group. Just as Belanna had feared. “So…so…what do we…”
“We’ll keep them comfortable,” Maddox said. “For as long as we can. It’s all we can do for them now.”
“A-are you setting a room up for them? Do you have enough beds? I can—”
