An Enchantment of Ravens(30)
Gently, I closed the pin, but I had to press down on his chest to secure the latch, and I think it hurt, because his eyes flew open. Their unearthliness in the light of day gave me an unpleasant jolt. They were glassy, burning with fever. He tried to move and started panting.
“I feel strange,” he announced, struggling to focus on the empty air beside me.
“You look strange.” I steeled myself and touched his forehead, which proved hot as an oven against my chilled fingers. “I was under the impression fair folk didn’t get fevers,” I said, concerned.
“What’s a fever?” he demanded with a scowl, which didn’t improve my fears.
“It happens when a wound goes bad. I’m going to touch this.” I indicated his clothes and he tensed, but nodded. While he waited for me to do my work he took his hand out of the dirt, inspected it, then cast about for something to wipe it off on. I had the annoyed suspicion he considered my dress before he victimized a patch of moss instead.
I peeled his coat open, and my stomach flopped over. The flesh around the wound had turned black. Black veins spiderwebbed out of it, vanishing beneath the edges of his clothes. How extensively had the poison spread? I dragged his coat and the shirt underneath open farther, undoing buttons toward his waist without a care for preserving his modesty. Or my own, for that matter, as while I’d educated myself thoroughly on the subject, I’d never seen a man undressed.
Rook propped himself up on an elbow. Despite his weakness, he suddenly looked very interested in whatever I might be doing. Then his eyes alit on his chest. He cried out in disgust and seized his clothes from my hands, fastened the buttons back up, and stood with more alacrity than I would have thought possible. I evaluated him warily. In some ways he had greatly improved. But as fevers went, this could be the final blaze before his body burned itself to ashes.
“You can’t just pretend it isn’t there,” I told him, climbing to my feet.
“But it’s hideous,” he replied, as though this were a reasonable objection.
“Festering wounds are always hideous.” I ignored the affronted look he gave me at the word “festering,” perhaps under the impression that I’d just insulted him. “Do you have any idea why this is happening?”
He turned his back to me, lifted his collar rather squeamishly, and peered under it. “That land wasn’t . . . right. The Barrow Lord shared its affliction, and appears to have passed it on to me. Temporarily, of course.”
That didn’t sound good at all. “Rook, I think you need medical treatment.”
“And you know how to treat me? No. So I thought. We resume our course toward the autumnlands, which should not take long now that I can walk unaided.” He avoided my eyes as he said this. Last night clearly wasn’t one of his proudest moments. “Whatever turn my wound has taken, it won’t matter once I can properly heal. Therefore we’re better off leaving without delay.”
I grudgingly admitted that in this matter, he knew better than I. He strode to the edge of the brambles, weaving only a little, and set his hands on one of the thorny coils. They began wriggling like worms, and retracted to form a doorway. I hastened after him, wincing at the chafe of my soiled skirts against my legs.
The forest we emerged into wasn’t as ominous as the place with the standing stones, but it still had an ill look about it that I hadn’t noticed in the dark and couldn’t easily explain. The green leaves were too glossy and glittering, almost as though a fever lay upon them, too. The sun labored to burn away the soupy mist I’d mistaken for clouds.
While we traveled, I couldn’t shake my memories of last night. Whiffs of imaginary decay dogged my steps. Inspecting myself, I found a smear on my left stocking where the corpse had seized my ankle. It was all I could do not to stop and tear the stocking off right then and there. In the way of minor discomforts, now that I’d noticed it I couldn’t put it out of my mind, maddened by the way it itched in the summer heat.
And with that thought, something occurred to me.
“The thane was from the summerlands too, wasn’t it?” I asked Rook. “The one you destroyed the day we met. The temperature changed when it appeared, same as the Barrow Lord. But nothing like that happened with the Wild Hunt’s hounds.”
Reluctantly, he nodded.
I narrowed my eyes. “And what about the unusual number of wild fairy beasts you told me about? Were the rest of those coming from the summerlands as well?”
“Ah,” Rook said. “A strange coincidence indeed, now that you mention it.”
“I sincerely doubt it has anything to do with coincidence!” I grabbed fistfuls of my skirt and trundled up next to him, feeling dirtier and more disgusting by the minute. Good. He deserved it. “You mean the connection’s never occurred to you before? Do you have any critical thinking skills at all?”
He stared straight ahead in full hauteur. “Of course I do. I am a—”
“Yes, I know. You’re a prince. Never mind.” I got the distinct feeling he’d never heard the term critical thinking before in his life. “Have any of the other courts been talking about it, then?” I pressed on.
He tore his crown off and ruffled his hair. “Why is this so important to you?” he exclaimed, vexed.
“Why is it . . .” I halted in my tracks. He turned around when he noticed I’d fallen several paces behind. “Why? Because a fairy beast from the summerlands probably killed my parents. Because one almost killed me, twice. Because they’re going to kill more humans if nobody figures out what’s going on. You know—just stupid, mortal reasons.”