The world tilted as my stomach contracted, and I partially stood. “Ryder, I?—”
“Prince Sutton,” he reprimanded. “You will not leave your seat.”
Steadying myself with one hand, I covered my mouth with the other as the food threatened a reappearance. Ryder placed a firm hand around my steadying arm, keeping me in place and half leaned over the table. My stomach compressed, helping the fish jump upstream into my mouth again, but I couldn’t force it back down.
My eyes darted as my stomach began violently pulsing, and before I could do anything else, the contents of my belly and mouth retched onto the table in front of me. Ryder retreated immediately as Leanna did the same.
“Fucking gross,” Hunt’s familiar voice provided commentarybehind me.
Red liquid mixed with the contents of my stomach pushed up and out, and though I tried to keep it contained in my mouth, it burst through my fingers in crimson streams on repeat.
Grave scrambled for a bowl of grapes and emptied it onto the table.
“What are you doing?” Ryder yelled at the king, who was the only one still standing near the vacated area.
He moved to my side, gave me the empty bowl, and I buried my head into it just in time to capture a mouthful of vomit. One violent episode after another, there was no relief between the swells of retching.
“Get a healer here!” Ryder shouted somewhere to my right.
Dropping to my knees, tears poured from my eyes and into the bowl of liquid and minced food as I continued to spew. Grave bent down at my side as the vomit covered not only his boots but the bottom of his pants. I threw my hand out attempting to create distance, but he ignored the gesture, bringing a cloth napkin to my wet brow.
Leanna began directing people into the corridor—she always knew the right thing to do, even in the face of disaster. Soon after, Mirael ran through the doors, still tying her apron around her waist.
“Get back,” she ordered Grave, and he immediately complied, putting his hands into the air. “I’m going to put my hand on you, Audryn, my magic will–”
“Yes!” My throat burned. “Do what you must, just make it stop!”
The rush of magic into my body was dizzying, or maybe it was a side effect from the vomiting. My body trembled as the heaving continued, and I nearly collapsed. The cold floor would be a sweet reprieve if I could just lay on it for only a moment.
Mirael’s magic moved through me, but it wasn’t thewelcoming buzz I remembered. It was frantic and only furthered my unending nausea. Whatever was inside me pushed back against the magic, and I knew her attempt was of no use.
“Get her a bucket or something larger,” Grave yelled to Fisher. I was surprised to see how quickly the guard obeyed a king other than his own.
“You’ll be okay,” Mirael spoke near my head. “We’re going to get you to your room.” She turned and faced the group of horrified people watching the scene play out. “Who can carry her back, she?—”
“I will,” Grave interrupted and stepped forward.
“You’ll do no such thing!” Ryder snapped.
Another wave of nausea hit, and my belly constricted, forcing another mouthful of liquid into the container.
“I’ll take her.” With a bucket in hand, Fisher moved to my side.
Before I could protest, the guard hauled me and my flurry of crinoline skirts up into his arms. He began walking, letting the bucket dangle at my side. I curled into him as the nausea waned, allowing me only a moment of peace.
“Put me down, put me down,” I begged, before sliding out of his arms and dropping to the floor of the corridor. Voices echoed against the walls as I threw myself around the bucket to retch once more. After the heaves subsided, I was back in Fisher’s arms and we were moving. We repeated the process a dozen times before we finally made it to my room.
“Unlace her gown,” Mirael ordered as she moved to gather a wet cloth from the bathing room.
Without hesitation, Fisher’s hands were moving to the laces and pulling them from the criss-cross pattern across my back. Mirael returned and attempted to quell the rippling nausea with her magic, but it was futile. I yanked the wine-stained gown down from my sweat-soaked body. The material was less flowy and instead damp and heavy. Fisher pulled the dress out fromunder me and promptly exited without needing a request to do so.
I crawled to the bathing room in nothing but my panties and brassiere as the heaving continued. The muscles in my stomach ached and burned in agony. By the time I’d made it to the toilet, little more than saliva was ejecting from my mouth, and I’d transitioned to dry heaves.
“Am I going to die?” I asked the healer, “because it feels like dying would be easier than this.” Hopefully my mother’s experience was nothing like the pain I was being hit with. At least Kamden’s execution was quick, though the mental anguish leading up to it must’ve been miserable.
“You’re not dying. Give it another thirty minutes, things will ease,” Mirael said as she wiped a damp cloth on my neck and upper back.
“What’s wrong with me? I don’t understand what happened.” My question hung in the air for so long that I wasn’t sure she had heard.
