Cason’s arms swept under her chest before she could face plant in that, too. Tugging her into his lap, he held a hand against her freshly scraped cheek, his other peeling rain and sweat slicked hair away from her forehead.
She grinned weakly. “Hey, dragon. Have I told you you’re very handsome?”
She hadn’t opened her eyes once.
“Four hells, Brela,” he whispered. “We should have stopped.”
He’d known something was off, even before they’d found Fowke. Her nervousness before they’d entered the camp, her ragged breathing and heavy steps. Hells, he’d even noticed it when she came up with the plan in Xodrith. She’d dismissed her friends’s concerns too quickly.
Red-rimmed and pale eyes blinked up at him. “We should keep going.”
Gods, that rasp. He hadn’t heard it that thick since… wait, since—
She rolled out of his arms and retched again.
“We’re stopping, even if just for a few hours,” he snapped, scooping her into his arms. He stumbled a few feet away before depositing her onto a grassy knoll. A considerable effort with her long and limp limbs offering no help, but at least he didn’t drop her. And she didn’t protest—couldn’tprotest—since she’d somehow passed out a second after he had lifted her.
After securing the horses, Cason grabbed their waters and soggy blankets and was back at her side, propping her head up. The rain had turned into a heavy mist, fog blanketing their surroundings. Theirwide-opensurroundings.
Dangerous. Too dangerous to be so exposed, but Brela was in no shape to continue.
Whywas she in no shape to continue?
Tapping her cheeks gently to wake her, he lifted her head and pressed the water skin to her lips. “Drink.”
She grumbled but complied, choking slightly as she managed a few swallows. Her head rolled back as she looked up at him. “You look like you’ve seen a celvusa. Just… an hour. I’ll be—“ Groaning through a breath, he watched her hands wrap around her stomach. “I’ll be fine.”
Around her stomach.
“You are very clearly anythingbutfine.”
Hands around her stomach.
Brela rolled her eyes, then fought against another bout of sickness. “I’m not dying.” She must have seen the color drain from his cheeks. She swallowed more water and rested a palm on his thigh. “Cason, seriously. There’s nothing—“
“You don’t think you could be…” he trailed off.Hatedthat he couldn’t finish the thought.
“Farrah and I are still taking the preventative,” she whispered, squeezing his leg, then laughed at his whoosh of a relieved breath. “I can retch a few more times and be ready to go.”
Cason narrowed his eyes on her. “That’s not funny.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You couldn’t breathe in the camp, your steps were louder, and you couldn’t walk straight. Are you sick? Injured? What the hells aren’t you telling me, Brela?”
Her jaw tensed as she wiggled herself to sit upright, pressing a fist to her mouth briefly before swallowing. “How shall I put this delicately…” She chewed her lip, then grimaced. “I have been poisoned.”
* * *
Cason’s eyesmight have burst from his face. “You…what?”
Oh, she was screwed. Utterly and completelyfucked.
Her plan had been foggy at best, concocted between flashes of clarity as they continued to ride; as her body fought to rid itself of the hellthorn that poisoned her system.
Brela had never gotten the chance to ask Fowke if the injections gave anyone shadow magic, nor find the answers in that book detailing the experiments, but she’d found her solution to the other problem. An answer to something she’d wondered her entire life.
Their experiments—those injections—made non-magic users vulnerable to hellthorn. Maybe that’s what happened to her as a child. She had never remembered anything before being found. Perhaps she was an experiment that had gone right… or terribly wrong. Daughter of… something unnatural.
Right now, that was her saving grace, thanks towhatevergod was looking out for her.
It sure as hells wasn’t Ryia, though.
