Page 96 of House of the Iron Reaper

Chapter 50

Deyanara

A series of faces look down at me.

I open my mouth to speak but my tongue feels swollen and I only succeed in making a gargled noise.

“Deyanara!” Elder Lysandra peers down at me, her warm hand against my cheek. “Thank all the Saints, you’re alive.”

“Glggr?” I gurgle, but even as I try and speak, the feeling starts to come back to my mouth, replaced with a familiar tingling.

“Dey, what happened?”

I turn my head to see Novalie kneeling beside me, her face creased with solicitude. Her face is wet and her voice is hoarse. Ronan is next to her, sniffing my limp hand. I flex the fingers as the feeling returns and he blinks in surprise.

“I do not…” My speech is still slurred but passable. I blink again, slowly. The arena seats are empty. “I do not know. I felt odd. And then I woke up.”

“You don’t smell different,” Ronan concludes. “But you smell… more. If we’re being candid, you usually smell like this when you’ve had a rendezvous with this one.” He jerks a thumb at Novalie, who blushes. “But it’s much more apparent just now.”

“I do not know what you speak of but it sounds like nonsense,” Lysandra snaps. “She has obviously been poisoned. Look at her.”

“I am well,” I say with a light groan, pushing myself up to sitting.

To my surprise, Elder Nyrah stands behind Novalie, peering down at me with concern. And behind her, further back, stands Aythora, brow furrowed.

“We should get her to a cleric immediately,” Aythora says. “And let her rest. We can ask our questions later.”

“Agreed,” Lysandra says with a firm nod.

“I will take her,” Aythora offers. “It is my responsibility as her trainer.”

Novalie continues to stare at me as I clamber to my feet, under Lysandra’s strong hands.

“But this does not make sense,” Novalie mutters. Her hand finds mine with a crushing grip, as though the harder she grasps, the safer I am.

“Novalie’s right,” Ronan says gruffly. His eyes, too, have not left me. “Dey, what did you eat and drink today?”

“For Saint’s sake, let the girl rest,” Aythora snaps, beckoning me over to her.

Ronan ignores her.

“Dey?” he prompts.

I try to think, my mind still moving slow.

“I… I only ate my usual meals at home,” I tell him, thinking back over the day. And then I remember. “Oh.”

“Come on, girl, do not fret about what happened just yet,” Aythora says, taking my arm.

“No, wait.” I shake my head and turn to Novalie. “Before the fight, I drank the bahk you left out for me?”

“The what?” Her face is blank.

“The bahk I told you I drank as a child—the one I believed would make me stronger,” I tell her. “You left it for me with a note. Aythora showed it to me.”

Novalie’s face drains of colour. Something heavy and atavistic starts to form in my stomach. A lurch, like taking the wrong step and realising you’re falling.

“Dey,” she whispers. “I didn’t leave you any bahk.”