“Help me undo them.”
He crouched before her. He was close enough now that she could count his eyelashes. He brushed her cheek with a warm thumb.Yes.
He pulled her into his arms and swept her away.
???
Ellina woke with an unpleasant start. It took her a moment to sort through her thoughts. She had been dreaming again.
Yet it had seemed soreal. Part of her could not quite believe that it had not been.
She pulled her knees to her chest. She tried to shake the feeling that she was losing her grip on reality. It had been days since she had eaten. She was sore all over and hot with fever. But she was not hungry anymore. She was not thirsty. Even her shoulder, which had been a source of almost constant agony, scarcely bothered her.
She was dying.
The thought offered itself up plainly, rising like the sun only to set again. It touched her, and it also did not.
She was so tired. Her heavy head sank into her hands.
She closed her eyes and tried to find her way back into Venick’s arms.
THIRTY-TWO
The door swung open.
At first, Ellina thought she was imagining things again. She stayed huddled in her corner, eyes closed, willing the harsh light away. When that did not work, she turned her face. Ellina did not want to be drawn in by dreams. Though they promised escape, they always hurt afterwards. During, even. They reminded Ellina that that door was never going to open, and no one was coming.
A hand touched her forehead. There was a press of warm fingers at her pulse. “Ellina?”
She blinked her eyes open. Kaji loomed in her vision.
“Move quickly,” ordered a second voice. Ellina came fully awake. Her eyes found him over Kaji’s shoulder.
Raffan.
She jerked back, pressing against the cell wall, baring her teeth.Get away from me, she wanted to say to him. She wanted to snarl it.Do not come any closer.The words stuck in her chest. Ellina choked on her own silence. When Raffan stepped through the doorway into her cell, her choke became a sob.
Raffan nudged Kaji aside, coming to crouch before her. He peered into her face, then reached out a hand to grip her wrist. Ellina tried to twist away, heels scraping the stone floor. Her pulse went on and on.
“Get the supplies,” Raffan told Kaji.
“I have them here, but…” Kaji hesitated. “This is worse than I thought. That wound…she needs aneondghi. A real one.”
“And whicheondghishall we call?” Raffan’s tone was cutting. “Farah’s personal healer? Do you trust Jival to keep quiet?” He kept his hold on Ellina’s wrist, even as she struggled. “It is not worth the risk.”
A muscle moved in Kaji’s jaw. “I wonder why you have risked coming at all.”
They locked eyes. The room strained with the effort of things unsaid.
Kaji said, “Wound-fever is the least of it.”
Raffan broke their gaze. “It was never supposed to be this way.”
Raffan pulled Ellina off the cell wall, spinning her around with ease. Ellina continued to fight him even though it was useless, it was comical, his strength to her weakness. Her energy was already sapped, everything dizzy and dark and warping. She was a puppet in his hands.
There was a sharp tug, and the cloth of her shirt ripped at the shoulder. Raffan dug his fingers into the tear and ripped it further, exposing her back. Hot tears sprang to Ellina’s eyes. It was as it always had been between them: her, bared and vulnerable, and him, ready to inflict pain. All that was missing now was the whip.
She began to struggle anew.
