“Gladly,” Zelli tried to say. Only a whisper escaped, a slow, endless sigh. Then his eyes closed. He heard the rain in the distance, and a horrible sound, like nothing he’d ever heard before.
Then he heard nothing.
Twenty-Two
Zelli’s grandmother was in a chair covered in cushions that had not been at the side of Zelli’s bed the day before. Her hair was done up for sleep, and she was in a thick robe with a blanket on her lap, but she was awake, her gaze tired and faraway.
Zelli stirred, ready to apologize for keeping her up without being certain what he had done to make her sit at his bedside, but at the hint of movement, she turned to him. Zelli blinked at her in return, his eyes, like his mouth, very dry.
Grandmother startled him by getting up from her chair, which was closer to Zelli’s bed than it seemed at first glance. She poured him a cup of water from a pitcher on a table also placed by his bed. There were lit candles on the table as well, and a fire in his fireplace. The curtains were drawn.
She only poured a few mouthfuls of water, but Zelli downed them gratefully then put the cup on the table. His hands trembled with the effort. His arm was heavy.
He looked to her in question.
“We gave you something to make you sleep easier,” Grandmother explained, her voice cracking. “You kept trying to get up.”
Zelli frowned over that, though it seemed something he would do. He reached for the cup and Grandmother got up once more, groaning this time, but again only poured him a small amount.
He drank it anyway, and nodded when he was told no more until that stayed down. He must have been sick. “Why shouldn’t I get up?” He did wonder that, even with the fog in his mind. “Was I fainting?”
Instead of immediately sitting back down, Grandmother took the cup from him and spent several moments sweeping some of Zelli’s hair from his eyes. Most of his hair was split into two braids for sleep. A tiny bit had escaped, but only the tiny bit. Very unlike his hair’s usual behavior, but Zelli accepted that for the moment too.
“We didn’t know if you’d be fully healed or how long that might take. Enforced rest seemed the best option.” Grandmother pulled one of the many—many, many—blankets and furs now piled on his bed to his chest and smacked the pillows at Zelli’s back that were keeping him propped up. Then her eyes met his, dark and devastated.
Zelli had seen that look before.
He sat up with a gasp, his hands grasping the front of his nightshirt where there should have been the shaft of an arrow.
Grandmother’s hands were gentle on his shoulders as she urged him back against the pillows. “You’re well and you’re with us. Breathe, Mizel. Just breathe.”
Zelli turned to her. Hewasbreathing, too fast and raspy, but he was breathing. He couldn’t relax his hold on his shirt, but Grandmother didn’t make him. She smoothed his hair again and wondered aloud if she ought to try giving him some watered-down tea.
“What happened?” Zelli demanded weakly, then glanced more intently around the room, which was empty except for the two of them. “Tahlen? Is he all right?”
Grandmother heaved herself back into her cushioned chair with a weary sigh. “Tahlen is not the one who had us worried, Mizel.”
Zelli’s heart thundered against his hands. He looked around his bedroom again, noting his clothing had been picked up from the floor and moved elsewhere.
“He’s angry with me.” Zelli didn’t ask. “But he’s well. That’s… that’s good. He won’t want to see me now. He asked me to stay back and I didn’t, and he had so much more to worry about today.”
“Calm yourself.” That was an order from The Tialttyrin. “Don’t make yourself sick when we only just got you back.”
Zelli turned to his grandmother again. “Was I gone?”
The bleak look returned to her eyes. “Yes.”
Zelli slowly lowered his gaze to his hands, to his chest and the arrow that wasn’t there. “What happened?”
“You mean, after Kear of the Villucatto tried to kill me?” Grandmother must have seen Zelli’s flinch but didn’t let him speak. “You were rather confident in your assertions,” she went on, perhaps hinting that she would like more explanation. “I think he took offense. But then, of course, you did accuse him of future treason in front of witnesses. I’m not sure how else he could have responded. I expected you to be bold, Mizel. I did not quite expect that.” She stopped for a moment. “When did you speak to a Canamorra?”
Zelli shook his head but it only made him dizzy. “Did I say that? I was only guessing. I usually have to guess because I don’t understand what’s going on. But the storm! You saw it too.”
“Yes, I did.” Grandmother agreed. “And when I did, it occurred to me that I had been too busy to send you a message, though I meant to speak with you if—whenI returned. It also occurred to me that, without word, you would take it upon yourself to find out what was going on. So I was sure you were somewhere in the crowd and decided to speak as though you were.”
Zelli dragged in a deep breath, holding it to feel the air fill his chest; the simplest blessing. He forcibly unclenched one hand before looking at Grandmother. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” She grumbled as she sat back. “Not for that, anyway. Perhaps for the rest.” She studied him, unforgiving. “If not, you should be.”
