Brightly Woven(37)

The thread fell from my lifeless fingers. I breathed in the cool air of the cabin, but the heat inside me was too much; there was little I could do but crawl toward the bedding, trembling and crying as I wrapped myself in its heavy layers.

It was only a short while before I woke again, my mind hazy with sleep and something else. The room was darker than before; the fire had died down to mere touches of warmth and light. My hands and feet felt stiff and cold. I brought my knees up to my chest and tried to rub some feeling back into my limbs.

Cold, I thought. Cold, cold, cold.

I woke several more times after that—or maybe I wasn’t even awake, I couldn’t be sure. The world around me felt like a feverish dream. Everything was slow and so, so painful. I sat up and dragged my bedding loudly across the wooden floor until it was directly in front of the fire. I picked up a log from the small pile, but it fell through my hands and thudded loudly against the floor. There was no feeling in my fingers, my palms, my arms. I braced my side against the wall and slid down, forcing my knees to stop straining and aching.

The rest was a blur of sound and agony. I must have pushed the log into the fireplace and sparked something, because the next time I woke, it was to Lady Aphra frantically calling my name and pulling me out of the fire I had started.

“Sydelle!” She was shouting. “Sydelle, wake up!”

I tried to open my eyes, to let her know how badly I hurt all over, but all I could mumble was “terrible, terrible cold” because it was all I could feel and think. Hundreds, thousands, millions of needles pricked my skin, and I let out a cry of anguish. Worse than breaking my arm, worse than falling onto fire-hot rocks. Worse than anything I had ever felt.

“Wayland!” she yelled. “Wake up!”

North’s face hovered above me, but there were black blotches floating in my vision. It wasn’t until he took my face between his hands that my sight momentarily cleared. Eyes, nose, lips, cheeks, gloves. Gloves. He had put his gloves back on.

“Syd,” he said. His voice sounded much closer, and I was beginning to feel his hand rubbing hard circles on my chest, over my heart. My eyes closed, too heavy to keep open.

“What did she have?” North demanded. “What did she eat? Drink?”

“It was just milk and a sandwich,” Lady Aphra said. “The healer is coming; it’s taking her a while to get up the hill with the storm.”

“She doesn’t have time to wait,” North said sharply. “Go get me some of the thyme and heartroot from your garden. Get my bag and find me a bloody bowl, please!”

“The snow—” Lady Aphra began. Yes, the snow, the snow. My mind clung to the word deliriously, even as my entire chest constricted with immeasurable pain, and I cried. The snow…

Something hit the ground beside my face. I felt it shake the floor, but the voice that accompanied it was much harder to distinguish.

“Pale…pulled her out…hands…”

A pair of strong arms pulled me up from the floor, though my limbs were dead weight. I was a lump of skin and bones, lifeless, freezing. Something warm wrapped around me, something red that I could sense beneath my closed eyelids.

I felt North before I heard him. That same tingling warmth that I associated with him seeped under my skin, even if just for a moment. My back was pressed against his chest, and his tall frame completely enveloped me. I felt his heart racing.

“N…Nor…,” I cried. “Please help me, please, it hurts, it hurts. I can’t breathe. Please…”

“You’re going to be all right,” he said fiercely. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

There was pounding and screaming all around me. For one horrifying moment, I thought that the shrieking was coming from me, but my throat and voice were frozen. I couldn’t breathe—I couldn’t breathe.

“Shut…door…here!”

“Storm…help…”

“Get over here!” North barked. His face turned next to my ear, and I could feel his hand rubbing my chest for a brief moment. “Just breathe, Syd. I’m here. I know it hurts, but you have to breathe, you stubborn girl….”

I was gasping, willing my hands to lift from my lap to pry off the imaginary fingers that had encircled my throat. Everything was lethargic and cold and dark except for North’s glove and its hard, uneven circles. That glove and the slowing beat of my heart.

“Mix the heartroot in now; just squeeze out two drops or it’ll kill her—can you possibly go any faster? Give me the bowl; just let me do it—here, now put it over the fire—have you never made a kulde antidote before?”

“Wayland! Don’t…”

“…the storm…get more…”

“The girl…”

“…Sydelle…look…she’s not…”

“Be quiet, both of you!” North thundered, and the room was silent once again. North’s body was shaking erratically, and he was breathing against my ear, breathing hard as if for both of us. He grasped my jaw gently and forced it open. Something hard was pressed against my lips.

“You have to drink this. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “Please drink it, please.”

The warm liquid went down my throat, even as I coughed and sputtered against it. Disgusting. It tasted of death and dirt.