Love's Blush

by Sabrina Zbasnik

  She wanted to let him, but aware of the eyes always watching, she was quick to stagger a foot down. Maker, that flared up a bruise stretched down her side. Was it from the fall? Alistair slid a hand around her waist, trying to take some of her weight as Reiss began to limp towards some destination. She hadn't any idea where to go aside from away.

  "I am interfering with your trials. I can attempt to make it back to my room on my own."

  "And have you bash your head in again with another faint? I don't think so," Alistair tugged her even close, the pair of them hobbling away from her site of disgrace and towards their side of the castle. "Besides, I'm certain Eamon's having a wonderful time soothing all the gentry wishing for more blood right now. I left him with some juggling balls just in case."

  "You're terrible," Reiss gasped as she clung tight to the man who rushed to her side and was tenderly guiding her to bed.

  Alistair brushed his cheek against the top of her head and in a soft voice murmured, "I know."

  By the time he deposited her in bed, a healer was already waiting outside the door. She had a heavy leather bag in hand which jangled with every drop of her arms while chasing after the King all but carrying some invalid elf to her room. Reiss plummeted against the mattress and began to crawl up it, murmuring that she just needed a few minutes of rest and then she could return to work.

  "Don't you dare even think it," Alistair ordered. Despite the strange woman standing at the foot of the bed clicking her teeth, he drew his hand down the side of her arm. "You took a pretty bad fall."

  "It's nothing," Reiss tried to insist even as she had to lay on her side to avoid the rising goose egg on the back of her skull. "You need someone to guard you during the trials," she tried to slide her feet back out off the bed, but he was quick to stop her.

  "I'll be fine," he said. "We're nearly done and Cade'll be there to keep me from doing something incredibly suicidal. It's his speciality." Those warm brown eyes all but pleaded for her to get back into bed, clear worry stinging his still smiling face.

  Acquiescing, Reiss leaned down into the bed, aware that her armor was biting into her but uncertain how to get out of it now. "You win," she groaned. "But promise me you won't do something that requires you to ask someone to hold your mead." She tried to reach out to tug on his collar, but Alistair dipped down enough her palm curled against his cheek.

  As it lifted with his smile, he pushed back her hopefully not vomit stained hair and said, "You have my word." Groaning, Reiss let him walk away, her hand tumbling off his cheek to drift across the empty floor. Her body didn't have the remaining strength to lift it. Even staying alive was on a fifty: fifty chance at this point. Reiss was uncertain which ache came from the illness and which the fall.

  "Get better, that's an order," Alistair said beside the door to the hallway. Reiss limply waved and nodded. She had every intention of trying even if succeeding may be beyond her hope. Quietly, he closed the door behind him, leaving Reiss trapped in her room with a stranger.

  "Your Majesty," the woman bowed to the vanishing King, before focusing on the pathetic elf clinging to life. "I am Healer Orana."

  "Reiss." Biting down on the pain flooding every vein in her body, she sat up to come eye to eye with the woman. Surprised to find Orana sitting on the bed, Reiss almost leaped backwards, but her body refused to comply -- the entirety of its energy spent getting her upright.

  "What hurts?" the woman asked. She was that age where the lines and wrinkles showed more than vanished by soft lift, but wasn't to the autumn years just yet. Cracking open her bag, she began to lay out various tools. Reiss glanced down at them and felt a fresh flop stir in her stomach. They reminded her of gelding day on the farm, each clamp and cutting bit laid out neatly on a tray before the animals were corralled over for the next part.

  "I'm," Reiss began, trying to find anyway to get out of this alive.

  That got her a slow glare from the woman's left eye. It was behind a thick glass inside wire frames, while the right was milky white and stared at nothing. The refraction on the glasses made her iris pop, the grey blues reminiscent of storms on the grasslands on the south. Tutting her tongue, she yanked up Reiss' arm. Her touch was cool but not painful, calming her fevered body.

  "Everyone's so afraid of healers, I promise I won't steal your soul in the night."

  "It isn't that, I..." she glanced down while the woman drew her fingers up in strange measurements until hitting her elbow and yanked it back down to begin again. "I grew warm in the room filled with the gentry, and upon exiting it I...purged my dinner on the floor before fainting." Maker, it sounded ten times worse now that she said it.

  "Fever, don't even need to feel your forehead, your cheeks are lit up with the blood spots," Orana waved her hand to dismiss it as she tugged something out of her bag. "How's the stomach? Been feeling queasy long?"

  "Most of the day and..." Reiss struggled to remember when it began. It fell into the background of her life because she had other matters to deal with. "Some of yesterday perhaps."

  "Feel better after...how did you fancy it up? Purged your dinner?"

  "Sort of," she hung her head down, wishing to be left alone. Having to recite each of her bodily failings made her want to climb into a closet and never leave. Healers rarely bothered with elves unless there was blood spurting over their clean clothes. A lot of the alienages got by with old wives tales and idioms, which did a little worse than the average non-magic healer for humans. All she wanted was a tiny elven woman to pinch her cheeks hard, slap a wet blanket to her head, and shovel koomtra down her throat until she felt better.

  "Here," Orana fished out a small biscuit that was rectangular and dark grey. "Eat this, it should help calm your stomach."

  Nodding, and knowing she couldn't get out of it, Reiss accepted the biscuit and took a bite. "Sweet Maker," she gasped, "it tastes like burning logs."

  "That'd be the general idea. Charcoal will bind up all the bad stuff, but, uh, you'll want to keep a bucket near. It has a way of 'purging' fast and often violently."

  Reiss nodded, while trying to not be terrified. The woman quirked her eyebrow up at her no longer chewing. Accepting her fate, Reiss continued to eat the biscuit briquette, the Maker blighted taste clinging to her tongue and esophagus on the way down. It tasted as if she licked a fireplace clean -- which was probably a punishment a shem thought up for an elf at some point in history.

  "Is there anything else I should do?" Reiss asked.

  "Rest, a cool compress to help fight that fever. I don't recommend blood letting for someone of your type."

  "My type?" she asked after mercifully finishing the last of that damn biscuit. Orana passed her a glass of water, which Reiss was quick to chase down her throat.

  "Here," Orana yanked up her limp hand and pointed at the wan flesh below, "the pale shade of yellow means any blood loss on your part wouldn't balance correctly. Purging the system is the only hope. Too much bile, got to get it all gone."

  "Ah," Reiss glanced down at her own skin as if she'd never looked at it before. She figured the inability to bloodlet it was an elven thing and not because of her bile.

  Orana patted Reiss' knee, a ring clanging against the metal, before she began to close up her medical bag. "What do you think may have caused it?" Reiss asked, curiosity clinging to her.

  "Could be any number of things. Been acting extra bilious lately?"

  "Uh, I don't believe so," Reiss tried to scan through the last few days. While she'd been distraught, she'd hardly been irritable, and Atisha's letter cleared that cloud away in an instant.

  "You don't seem the type, despite your skin hue," the healer seemed to compliment her, "if not that, maybe something you ate, or ate at the wrong time. Food can have quite an effect on our constitutions if we're not careful. It's why I only eat things that bear an appearance like brains -- walnuts, broccoli, sweetbreads. The real thinking woman's dinner."

  "That makes some sense," Reiss nodded, aware that she
'd been scrounging more than usual and at odd times. Perhaps something in there grew vengeful upon her, combined with the emotions she kept swallowing down, it all turned vengeful against her.

  "Course," Orana chuckled as she closed the latches on her bag, "there's always pregnancy."

  "Wh...what?" Reiss blinked madly, her throat drying to sandpaper.

  "Fainting, queasy stomach, vomiting, exhaustion -- all hallmark signs a little one's on the way," the older woman glanced up at the wall before turning to find Reiss glaring at the ground.

  No. No, it... No.

  Orana's good eye narrowed, "Didn't your mother teach you about it?"

  "A little, before she died," Reiss admitted to this complete stranger. She knew the basics of how babies were made and then came out, but even when her mother was pregnant with Lorace she made it seem like it was all sunshine and rainbows. Almost willfully hiding the bad parts under the guise of excitement so that the Maker knew she wanted the baby growing inside her. "There were a lot of stillbirths," Reiss whispered to the air, her hands clutching tight to the empty cup of water.

  "Ah, I see," Orana licked her cracked lips and scooted closer on the bed. Despite the two of them being alone, she lowered her voice to a whisper, "Do ya have any thinking idea you might be with a wee one?"

  Reiss tried to voice a no, but her lips were numb. All she could do was shake her head, as mute as the man who chopped out his own tongue.

  Orana sighed, her kindly fingers patting against Reiss' gauntlet, "When's the last time you bled? If it's steady, you're good."

  "I..." Maker's sake, this is an easy question. She knew it always fell around the middle of the month. Steady as a rock once she passed the age of twenty three. It had to have happened, right? It was so common she stopped noticing it, stopped thinking about it. Was it this month or the previous one?

  Orana read her silence and carefully opened up her bag. Extracting out a glass jar, she passed it to Reiss. Clear liquid sloshed around inside, all held in place by the wax seal at the top. "If ya want to know know without having to wait 'til you feel a kick, put a drop of your blood in here and wait for a color change. Goes blue and you're empty, turns red and...congratulations."

  Her eyes glared at the clear liquid sloshing back and forth. It moved slower than water, whatever gave it the magical abilities to sense life almost sparkling under the weak candlelight. "I don't need this," Reiss said, trying to pass the test back.

  Folding her hands away, Orana smiled kindly down at her as she got off the bed. "Keep it, in case you ever need it, or come across someone who might. In the mean time, get rest. Your body will require it regardless of the outcome."

  "It's not, I..." No, Maker's breath, no. It wasn't possible. She couldn't be... What have you done, Reiss?

  "Do you need help getting free of the metal can?" Orana asked, still showering the scared young woman in a kindness that was shared between those who faced such a precipice.

  Reiss shook her head, "I've gotten out of it in worse states, but thank you for helping me and...helping."

  The woman smiled and nodded, "It's my pleasure, dearie. Rest up, you'll not want to worry the King by fretting too much. Gives you wrinkles." Bobbing her head once more, Orana exited Reiss room. On the way out she blew out two of the three candles, leaving only a whisper of orange light to crawl across the walls.

  Broken into a million pieces, Reiss stared at the liquid bobbing back and forth in the bottle. Why was it doing that? Should it sway while being held? Was that a sign of...?

  Oh Maker, she swallowed hard, realizing her hands were trembling. Reaching forward, she placed the bottle on her vanity, right next to the bouquet of flowers. Each one a reminder of every time she... Blessed Andraste, no. Of course not. It wasn't possible. Sure, in the theoretical sense of the word there had been the mechanics accomplished to create a...

  "No," Reiss said aloud to herself. She worked quickly, dumping the armor on the floor. Even if Karelle saw it and yelled at her until she was blue in the face, Reiss didn't care. Her body was exhausted from the illness working through her system, and she needed sleep. In the morning she'd feel much better and any lingering doubt would be washed away.

  Digging under the covers, Reiss tried to lay down on her pillow, but the bruise on the back of her head enraged in anger. Pain burst through the headache, throbbing up into the back of her eyes. Accepting defeat, she turned to the side, her eyes drawn straight to the big question sitting on her vanity.

  No.

  Never.

  She couldn't be.

  Reiss yanked the blanket up to hide her face away from the world and let the exhaustion digging into her body finally take claim. As sleep wound up through her, a single thought echoed in her head.

  Maybe.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The Test

  Reiss lay crumpled in bed the rest of the day, when she wasn't curled over the edge clearing out her stomach of that disgusting black biscuit and everything else left inside. After wiping off her mouth and rising up, her eyes would linger over that ominous clear bottle mocking her from the vanity. It was foolish to worry, this was a stomach bug, something she ate like she guessed, or one of those illnesses that prey upon elves. They seemed to succumb easier to some of the really unfun ones, while humans passed by fine. Shaking off any idea that she might be...it was foolish.

  Sleep came in spurts, the exhaustion slinking away for an hour or so until it ravaged her system and once against dragged her back down. In the middle of her non-dreaming state, Alistair checked in on her. She tried to wave him away, aware of not only that she looked like the diseased liver of a bronto left to fester in the dirt, but smelled of it too. But he didn't mind her state, his hands trying to brush apart her matted hair as he sat upon the bed.

  "This is dangerous, what if you catch this?" Reiss tried to argue. Turned on her side, she tried to glance up at his handsome face, but her eyes kept trailing back to that bottle. A fear gurgled in her gut that he had to know what it was for. Oh Maker, what would he say? Or do?

  "I've had worse, and the healer seems to think it's unlikely to leap around," Alistair waved her concerns away.

  "Of course she'd say that," Reiss muttered to herself. She thinks I'm knocked up, little hard to go passing that off to someone else, in particular a man. Aware she was stewing to herself, she broke away from glaring at the blanket to find Alistair's eyes crinkling at the edges.

  "Something gnawing on your thoughts?"

  "No," Reiss gasped out quickly, "I...the trials?"

  He accepted her change of topic easily, still not giving a single look to the bottle Reiss couldn't stop watching. "Going well. As well as condemning a bunch of men to their death can go. No one's raised themselves back from the dead, so plus in that column. Harding thinks they'll be done tomorrow, and Karelle agrees."

  "Karelle? I thought Chancellor Eamon was coordinating the effort." She was trying everything she could to not think about the contents of her stomach or any unwanted passengers therein. Which seemed to be working on Alistair. His fingers paused in brushing through her hair so he could shrug, the hidden politician rising up to the surface a moment.

  "He is in that 'I'm going to stand here and read a bunch of words while being extra important' way. Karelle's doing the grunt work, making certain next of kin are notified, putting out official criers, all the nitty gritty bits that have to be done or else. I have no idea what comes after the or else part, but it's probably bad." Groaning, Alistair mashed the heels of his palms into his eyes and tumbled into his lap.

  Reiss ran her cold fingers up and down his back, trying to soothe him, "You're exhausted."

  "Me?" he peeked out through the fingers, "I've been sitting on my ass all day while everyone else runs around. What about you?"

  "I believe I've been in bed, doing nothing but vomi..." she trailed away the word, while mentally kicking herself. Way to be romantic there, Reiss. Why not discuss your bowel movements as well? That's sure to
win him over. "You must have more important matters than checking in on me in my sick bed."

  "Probably," Alistair's warm eyes drifted over her, "but I'd rather be here."

  Trapped below the heavy blankets that barely cast any warmth as she struggled through the fever, Reiss had never felt so fragile. Her body all but vanished in the middle of the bed, that sallow skin that couldn't afford to be bloodlet clinging tight to bird-thin bones. She knew she cut a pathetic picture, but it wasn't right of her to usurp the King's time and attention so. Especially with so many people talking about them.

  "Tell you what," he scooted a bit closer, "you owe me one."

  "What?"

  "Next time I drink filthy river water, or break a bone and wind up bedridden, it's your turn to take pity on me. I should warn you though, I've been told I'm terrible when sick."

  "Really?" Reiss felt the stirrings of a laugh in her acid roughed throat.

  "Oh yes, constantly whinging, damn near at throw myself on my own sword to end the agony levels. And all because of a small cold. It's damn near impossible to put up with me. Everyone runs as far as they can. I once sent a healer all the way to Antiva just to avoid having to deal with me."

  Giggling at the inanity, Reiss butted her flaming forehead into his chest while her limp arms struggled to reach around the back of his neck. Alistair stopped talking long enough to return the hug, his hands scooping around behind to pin her close. Why couldn't it just be this? Two people sharing moments together, building upon one another, and...caring for each other? Why did duty, and whispers, and rumors, and what was proper have to get involved? Even while buried in his arms, Reiss' eyes darted over the bottle full of a potential future that was beyond her understanding. She should tell him, or no. Not tell him. Did mistresses tell their lovers when they suspected or wait until they knew? Maker's sake, why wasn't there a book on all this?

  "Do you think you'll feel up to making the trip out to Teagan's place?" Alistair asked, his voice breaking through the stillness.