This is…
What is this?
Tharn arrives moments later, a frantic Haroth right on his heels. He steps past Sarven and through the partition, throwing out a thick arm to block the way, leaving Haroth vibrating with suppressed panic near the entrance, his eyes locked on Tina’s prone form.
“Tharn says this is different from the other sick smell,” Jacqui translates.
“I know,” Alex says. “I just need to figure out what it is.”
I stay beside Tina, keeping my hand on her shoulder while Alex and Jacqui confer in low voices.
And behind me, Sarven stands guard against an enemy none of us can identify.
“We’ll figure this out,” I tell Tina softly, hoping it’s true. “Just hang on.”
Chapter 4
WHEN ‘PROBABLY NOTHING’ BECOMES ‘DEFINITELY SOMETHING’
MIKAELA
The day after Tina collapses, I wake up… fine.
Well, “fine” is relative, but on a broad scope, I feel okay.
Tina is still recovering. She’s lying flat, her skin looking like thin paper and her eyes glassy.
Alex has her on strict bed rest, which in Alex-speak means: “move and I will tie you down.”
I lower myself onto the mat beside her, careful not to jostle anything, and hold out the bowl I brought.
“I brought porridge,” I say. “Gourd and a little meat. It’s not gourmet, but it’s soft. How do you feel?”
“Like I got hit by a truck,” Tina rasps. The words scrape on the way out. “But better than yesterday. So… yay?”
“Do you remember anything?” I ask. “Before you went down?”
She squints, scanning back. “One second I was making notes on Drakav anatomy, and the next my stomach tried to evacuatethrough my throat.” Her mouth twists. “I don’t recommend the feeling.”
I wince. “Yeah. Hard pass.”
Alex appears then, moving in that focused way she gets when she’s worried. She presses a full waterskin into Tina’s hands.
“Drink,” she orders. “Slowly. You’re behind on fluids.”
“I’malwaysdrinking,” Tina mutters, but she obeys. “It just doesn’t stay where it’s supposed to.”
I watch her carefully. The thin sheen of sweat on her brow. How the waterskin trembles in her grip. The way her shoulders sag as if gravity suddenly doubled.
She looks… depleted. Like something is quietly siphoning her strength.
And she’s not the only one.
Lucy lies curled on a nearby mat, knees drawn up, arms wrapped tight around her stomach. She hasn’t puked like Tina, but she’s complained about brutal cramps all morning. She’s on her second full waterskin since breakfast; I know because I watched Alex refill it from the spring about an hour ago.
Across the cavern, Pam sits near the wall with her back braced against it, eyes half-lidded. She’s been drinking almost constantly too, throat working in steady swallows, but her lips remain stubbornly dry and cracked.
A thin thread of unease pulls tight in my chest.
