I lift up my fingers weakly, gazing through narrowed eyelids at my hand as it shakes, watching the dust motes and light play along my skin. The next instant I turn my head, heavy as an anvil, feeling a pang of headache and nausea, and realize my left arm is attached to an IV drip. . . . My vision blurs.
I moan, stirring, squinting, blinking to clear my sight. Oh, why is it so hard to keep my eyes open?
“Gwen. . . .”
At once I hear Aeson’s voice, and his silhouette rises from the chair nearby and moves closer to lean over me.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
Aeson’s face draws even closer, and suddenly I feel the warm touch of his fingers brushing my forehead. “How do you feel?” he says very softly, and his breath caresses my cheek.
“Okay, I think.” I open my mouth and my voice cracks with dryness. “Could I have some water, please?”
“Of course!” He places a glass up to my mouth as I attempt to raise my head, feeling an immediate head-rush.
I drink then lie back down because my head is spinning and I’m starting to see double again—two Aesons, two window slits between four curtains, two of everything. “Oh, no . . .” I whisper and then explain to him what’s happening to me.
Aeson listens to me mutter, and strokes my forehead and cheeks. “I know,” he says. “You’ve been exposed to a very powerful hallucinogenic substance, and it will take most of today to cleanse your system of it.”
“Is that why the IV?” I ask.
“Yes. Plus, the hydration and nutrients, and a little bit of other medication to restore you before tomorrow. Your only other injuries were relatively minor, thank all the divine forces—a bruised shoulder and hands scraped raw from handling stone surfaces.”
He takes my fingers gently in his own, and I realize that, indeed, I’m no longer feeling any pain or soreness there. Furthermore, the constant numb weakness and bleeding callouses that developed over the last four days are replaced with normal skin sensitivity.
“The medical techs took care of it overnight,” he continues. “So you shouldn’t feel any discomfort and be healthy and ready for the next stage tomorrow.”
I shake my head, smile painfully, and groan. “That’s right, tomorrow, ugh . . . Stage Three, tomorrow.”
“You don’t need to think about it now, just rest,” he says firmly.
I yawn deeply. “What time is it?”
“Only the sixth hour of Ra. Still very early. You need to rest some more.”
“Wow . . . I’ve been asleep all night,” I whisper, yawning again.
“You desperately needed the rest.”
“Hah!” I say, chortling. “What about you, mister? How long have you been up? Please don’t tell me you were sitting up all night next to me?”
“Don’t worry about me.” He laughs softly, but I can hear the edge of exhaustion in his voice.
“I do worry about you!” I stop and cough, feeling my heads spinning again like a carousel. Did I say, ‘heads?’ Because yes, I feel like I have two heads suddenly, and they’re turning in different directions. . . .
“So, what happened, where is everyone?” I try to keep my voice steady, forcing the dizziness away. “I still can’t believe it, my teammates and I, we survived, Aeson! That was crazy! Now, where is Gracie, Gordie, the others? I thought I saw everyone last night in the end, but I think I was hallucinating them, just as I was seeing all kinds of other crazy things while in the Game Zone—oh my God, Aeson, any news of my parents and George? Aeson! Please tell me you have some news!”
But Aeson places his large palm over my forehead and says softly, “Not yet. . . .”
I exhale, feeling crushing disappointment. But it dissipates quickly because I’m too weary even for that.
“Can I at least see Gracie?”
Again he pauses, smoothing my forehead once more, then leans in and kisses me lightly at the corner of my mouth, which acts to wake something deep and sensual inside me. . . . With a sudden rush I’m at once distracted as I feel a pang of desire—a thing that almost atrophied inside me, buried away so deep for the duration of the Games.
“It’s best if you don’t see anyone else today, due to your unusual condition,” he says. “The complicated drugs in your system are causing all kinds of mind-altering sensory effects, and your sister and brother and all your friends know you need to be undisturbed in order to recuperate by tomorrow. Too much sensory stimulation can aggravate—”
“Blah, blah, blah . . . oh, come on! I’m okay!” I mumble, still feeling the slight buzz of arousal added to the mind-altered equation. I put my hand up to touch his own cheek and brush my fingers against a lock of his hair and tug it gently.
But he chuckles and taps his index finger on the tip of my nose. “Gwen, you really need to sleep—right now. It’s the quickest way to clear your head. Your body underwent extreme strain and needs time to repair itself and recover. Go back to sleep.”
“No!” I say with a deep breath. “Tell me instead what’s happening with the Games, what kinds of results and scores and junk—I mean, what are people saying? Rurim Kiv won the Blue Grail, and—”
“Oh, but you’re stubborn, Lark!” he mutters with another chuckle. “We’ll talk about it later. . . .”
“Did you watch me?” I continue in a rambling voice. “In the Games . . . what parts were you watching?”
He makes a sound of amusement. “Every moment.”
“What? No! Tell me that’s just an exaggeration, please!” I exclaim.
In that moment there’s a soft knock on my bedroom door. Then Oalla peers inside, letting in the bright illumination from the adjacent room which happens to be Aeson’s own bedroom. “Aeson?” she whispers in a super-quiet voice.
“She’s awake, come in.” Aeson glances back at Oalla, then at me. “Gwen, I don’t want to tire you out, as I said, you shouldn’t have visitors today.”
“I’ll make it quick,” Oalla says, stepping into the room and leaving the door open. She approaches me and smiles, carrying a big bouquet of flowers. “Happy Flower Day! And congratulations, Imperial Lady Gwen, you’re officially halfway done with the Games! What a great achievement! So proud of you! Not to mention, I’m amazed at all the ingenuity and the things you’ve had to endure—”
“Daimon, please, not now,” Aeson interrupts, and in the low light his eyes glitter with intensity. “The drug is still in her system—”
“Yes, I realize, Kass. All the Contenders are drugged out of their minds and recovering right now, and Gwen’s no different. She’s a big girl and can deal with it,” Oalla interrupts him in turn, laying the bunch of flowers directly on my coverlet. At once a sweet delicate perfume fills my nostrils. She then folds her arms together and looks at him. “My Imperial Lord, you look like crap. You need to sleep—right now. Gwen, tell him!”
I nod and attempt to sit up despite the vertigo. “I’ve just been asking him if he’d gotten any rest, or if he has been watching me non-stop, which I’m hoping is impossible. . . .”
Oalla shakes her head and makes a disgusted sound. She turns her back on Aeson on purpose and addresses me: “He hasn’t slept in eight days! Nor eaten properly! He’s been in that damned Imperial balcony at the stadium and then, during Stage Two, in the Imperial Seats on the floating terraces—and I mean, day and night! The Imperator would arrive late and stay for a few hours each day, but Aeson lived there. I don’t know if he even managed bathroom breaks. . . . The rest of us were taking turns sleeping, but this one—no, he wouldn’t budge! Ker and Xel would bring him food and drink, but he mostly refused—”
“Oalla, enough . . .” Aeson says.
Oalla pauses, still with her back turned, ignoring him, and stares at me meaningfully. “Honestly, I’ve no idea how he’s conscious, much less upright.”
“What?” My mouth parts in horrified surprise. And I turn to Aeson with a frown.
Now that there’s some light in the room and I’m more awake, I can see the true condit
ion of my Bridegroom—his pale sickly color, stark lines of cheekbones and jaw, dark circles under eyes that now have narrowed pupils and a feverish expression. Yes, he’s clean-shaven and dressed in fresh clothing, but he looks absolutely ill. My heart wrenches painfully, and I feel like crying.
“Oh, my God, Aeson. . . . Go to sleep! Please, right now!”
“Come on, just for a few hours, Kass,” Oalla echoes me, pointing to his bedroom, then continues persuasively. “Go lie down, right now, I’ll watch Gwen. Leave the door open, if you like, so that you can come running in here at any moment. We can see your bed from here and you can see us. Okay?”
Aeson stands silently, almost stupefied, staring first at me and then Oalla. I realize now just how truly tired he is, that the effort of responding, of making a simple decision is taking so much out of him.
“Please, im amrevu!” I repeat, in a trembling voice. “You don’t want me to get upset, right? So—this is making me very upset!”
He stirs at last, and says, “Two hours, no more. Then wake me.”
“Yes, all right!” Oalla nods, and bites her lip.
Aeson nods, throws one lingering glance at me, full of intensity. And then he heads for his bedroom. I notice he doesn’t close the door behind him.
Oalla turns back to me and rolls her eyes in relief. “You have no idea . . .” she whispers to me. “No idea, how bad it’s been for him. . . .”
I frown, looking at her thoughtfully. “It’s my fault he’s suffering,” I whisper in reply. “I—I don’t know what to do.”
“Simple—” Oalla pulls up a chair and sits down next to me. “You just need to do what you’ve been doing. You need to survive.”
I nod, despite the pang of headache and the vertigo that comes and goes in waves. “Yes, I plan to,” I reply in all seriousness.
We continue to talk in quiet voices.
Then after a few minutes we hear the sound of soft snoring coming from the open bedroom next door.
At once Oalla grows silent and raises one finger up. “Shhh . . . listen! Can you hear that?”
We stop to listen.
“Finally!” Oalla says. “Oh, thank all the gods and stars. . . . He’s out! He’s asleep at last.”
I nod as I focus on the sound of Aeson’s deep breathing.
“Now that is the sound of complete exhaustion.” Oalla points in the direction of his bedroom with her finger, looking at me with intense relief. “Oh, and you don’t need to worry about it when you share a bed with him—he doesn’t always snore, and not all that much. . . . He only snores when he’s absolutely dead-tired, such as right now. . . .”
I stare at her.
“Wait, no!” Oalla reassures me urgently, seeing my curious look. “So that you don’t misunderstand and wonder how I know this—it comes from years of sharing a dormitory during our Cadet days. Girls and boys, all sleeping in one large dorm space. . . .”
“Oh . . .” I say, letting out a held breath and feeling my tension fade.
Oalla draws closer to me, and places her hand on top of mine, patting it warmly. “Let me tell you a funny story about that,” she says with a mischievous smile. “We call it the ‘snoring bug’ story.”
“Okay,” I say, watching Oalla’s lovely face. “And I wasn’t really worried.”
“Really?” Oalla cranes her neck at me and her lips barely hold back another smile. “Bad liar! But let me reassure you, Gwen, this was when we were all very young, and many years ago. Okay, I admit, at first I too had a little crush on Kass when I first met him as a little girl—I mean, who didn’t? All the girls adored him and many of the boys—in any case, I got over it soon enough, after getting to know him in a different light. It’s what happens when you have to live together and spend all your waking hours with other Cadets. He quickly became like a brother . . . not merely adorable but annoying and adorable.”
I listen and smile, just imagining. . . .
“So anyway,” Oalla continues. “We all had to sleep in this big dormitory, rows and rows of beds, even bigger than your Qualification dorms on Earth. And let me tell you, when you get that many people together, it gets loud at night. Seemed like everybody was snoring—nearly all the boys and half the girls—and those of us who were light sleepers couldn’t get any sleep, no matter how tired. This went on and on every night, until a few of us decided to get revenge on our tormentors and play a silly mean prank.
“First, we spread rumors around the dorms that there was this very unique local species of insects that was in season. Supposedly these bugs called the re-re-xut, which in your English would be translated into a word similar to ‘snore’ such as snorat, were attracted to the sound of human snoring—the exact frequency and tone, we had to make it all scientific—and they would come to you at night. Then, a few girls and I went out at night, and we gathered these medium-sized but harmless beetles. . . .
“We put them in containers, and brought them indoors with us. When it was time for bed, lights out, we waited until the snoring began. . . . Then Elikara, Mirin, and I went around the dormitory, and we dropped bugs into all the snorers’ open mouths.”
“Oh, no,” I say, smiling.
“Oh, yes!” Oalla giggles quietly. “It was insanity, of course. We were stupid little kids and we did something obnoxious. But oh, it was hilarious at the time! Everyone who snored got a bug. Xel, I don’t remember. Erita, yes. Ker, definitely—I put the bug in his mouth myself!”
“And Aeson?” I press my hand against my lips.
“Oh, yes, Kass got one too. . . . I think that one was handled by Elikara.”
I chortle, keeping a hand over my mouth for quiet.
Oalla grins. “They woke up and chased us, naturally. You can imagine the screaming and the outrage and the dorm-wide punishments and eventual retaliation. But—it was entirely worth it. Of course it didn’t stop the snoring. But it resulted in quite a few excellent friendships—and even gifts of earplugs.”
Chapter 72
“And that’s the snoring bug story,” Oalla says. “So as you can see, things turned out well for most of us. Now—how are you feeling?”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” I say with a soft smile. “I used to share a bedroom and even a bed with Gracie, and she snores sometimes, so. . . .”
“No, I mean how do you feel physically right now?” Oalla leans forward and touches my forehead. “No longer hot, that’s good. And no cold sweat. . . . Means the med-fluids are working.”
“Ah.” I blink and exhale slowly, running my fingers against the coverlet and touching the flowers lying there. “Better, I guess, thanks.”
“Good. Do you need to use the toilet?”
I think about it, then nod.
At once Oalla stands up. “Let me help you up. I’ll just get that fluid bag—careful, watch with your IV line. . . .”
Once I’m upright, I’m fighting a surge of dizziness. Oalla holds my arm and the IV fluid bag. Slowly we make it to my adjacent luxury bathroom where I take care of nature’s business.
When we return to my room, instead of lying down immediately, I pause and glance in the direction of Aeson’s open bedroom. The vulnerable sound of his snoring is still there and it tugs at my heart. . . .
Oalla notices my hesitation to return to my own bed and understands. “You want to see him?” she says gently.
I nod. “I want to sit with him. . . . Just for a little while? Oh—as long as it doesn’t wake him up. It won’t disturb him?”
Oalla purses her lips and there’s a tiny warm smile there. “Nah. . . . It should be just fine. Go ahead.”
I start moving on tiptoe. “I’ll be very quiet.”
“Not necessary. He’s dead to the world now, and you won’t wake him up. Besides, he won’t mind you being there. . . . Just don’t overtire yourself.”
And Oalla moves behind me, gently directing me forward.
I sit with Aeson for at least an hour, mesmerized with hunger and love, watching him sleep—while Oal
la astutely gives me some much needed privacy and goes to wait discreetly in the other room.
My Bridegroom sleeps like an innocent, head thrown back, arms wide. From my bedside chair I watch every beloved movement of his body—his chest rising and the fine twitching of toned muscles, the pulse in his throat, the beautiful angles of his relaxed face, the tendrils of golden hair on his pillow. . . . Eventually I’m so still and quiet that I almost forget to breathe—so focused on him and the heavy sound of his breathing that my own dizziness and disorientation is temporarily forgotten.
There is no worry, no Games, no impending doom . . . only the moment.
At some point Oalla looks in on us, and then she takes me back to my own bedroom where I get back into bed—because the room is now spinning around me again—and then I fall asleep.
The next time I wake up, my bedroom curtains are partially open and it’s around noon. Oalla is gone and Aeson is back on his guard duty in the chair next to my bed.
The moment I stir and open my eyes, he gets up and moves closer to me. I notice he looks much better, healed by his own sleep. His steady confident gaze is back, and it caresses me with strength.
“Nefero eos,” I say with a sleepy smile. “Or is it nefero dea now?”
“Gwen!” He smiles and reaches to touch my cheek. “It’s Noon Ghost Time, which means nothing. Feel free to sleep as long as you like. How do you feel now?”
“Better—hungry.”
“Excellent! We’ll both eat.”
He uses his wrist comm to order us a dea meal. When done talking with the estate servants, he turns his attention back to me. Touching my forehead, neck, and hands, Aeson examines me carefully. Next he runs his fingers along my wrist to find my pulse. “You definitely appear better.”
“And so do you.” I sigh and ease into his many touches, placing my hand lovingly over his arm. “Oh, I am so glad you slept!”
Aeson shakes his head with mocking reproach. “About that—the two of you left me to sleep for five hours!”
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