Suddenly anxious, I tried to rise, but Salina’s hands held me down.
“Try to keep your head and neck still,” she murmured.
“I’ll explain everything,” Valeria said quickly. “You just stay put.” She sat down on the bed beside mine, which meant I couldn’t see her without turning my head, which I decided not to do.
“We were with Linnet in the valley with the brolka,” she began. I let my eyes close as Salina gently probed my scalp with her fingertips. “The borog appeared. This one’s some adjacent species, or a new evolution or mutation. It’s got wings, so it can travel a lot farther than anyone had expected. It came out of nowhere and attacked. You, Tilly, and Zaria were in that little skinny spot that leads out. It landed above you and started smashing on the rock overhead. Tilly and Zaria both say that you pushed Zaria out of the way of a falling rock. But you got knocked on the head pretty good in the process.”
As she spoke, images brought themselves to life inside my soupy head. I didn’t remember anything about falling rocks, butI could, I was fairly certain now, remember the borog. Huge and grey. Wings.That’s right.
“Then what?” I croaked. How the hell had we escaped? “Anyone else hurt?”
“Everybody else is just fine. I got a good shot in on it. I think I took out one of its eyes with my gun. Nowhere near enough to kill that thing, of course. But it seemed to have done enough damage to scare it off.”
She sighed heavily. “But we don’t know when or where it’s going to pop back up. If it’s underground or in the sky. As a result, no one is to leave the mountain except for warriors on braxilk-back for hunting and patrolling purposes. We’ve also decided that we won’t use the shuttle to travel back to Gahn Errok’s next week. Not until we have a better handle on this whole situation.” I thought I heard a smile enter her voice. “We tried to convince Linnet to come live inside. That went about as well as you’d imagine. She refused to leave the brolka. She and the other Linnet are going to remain in place for now.”
I softly snorted, imagining how that conversation must have gone, then immediately regretted it for the red throb that went through my head in response. “Ow.”
“What pains you?” Salina asked, pressing cool fingers to my forehead.
“Everything,” I groaned. When I heard her sharp intake of concerned breath I said, “Not everything. My head.”
“What about your neck?” Valeria asked. “Your back? Any tingling or numbness anywhere?”
With my eyes shut, I tried to take mental stock of how I felt. It was surprisingly difficult, like all of the gears in my head were gummed up, the connection between my brain and body slowed down to a crawl. But after a moment, I could reply that I wasn’t aware of any numbness anywhere.
“My neck feels stiff, I guess,” I added. “It’s hard to tell without moving it. But I don’t think it hurts the way my head does.”
“Hopefully that’s a good sign, then,” Valeria said, her brows furrowed. “We thought about taking you back to the Sea Sands for an X-ray.”
“Really?”
She laughed. “Yes, really. You heard us from the stretcher and made it pretty clear you didn’t want to do that. And then we realized that even if the X-ray showed us something, we wouldn’t be able to do much about it. Plus, there was the risk of the borog attacking the shuttle on the way.”
I didn’t remember any of that at all. She told it to me like it was a story about somebody else. Although, the stretcher sounded strangely familiar. Suddenly, I could picture it clear as day, a big yellow contraption of plastic and metal strapped to a wall in Valeria’s shuttle.
“Nasrin?”
“Right,” I said, losing track of the conversation and what reply was expected of me right now. “I’m so tired.”
“Go back to sleep,” Salina said softly, her hands drawing away from my face.
When I woke next,the light had changed. Instead of cozy dimness lit by candles and fire, bright sun streamed in through what was a sort of naturally occurring window in this cave. The healer’s cave was partway up the mountain, about the equivalent of being on the third storey of a building. On its outer wall, the room buckled outwards with a large opening at eye level,creating a natural sort of balcony. There was someone on that balcony. Thaleo?
No, this person was much too small.
“Tilly?”
“Ah! You’re awake!” she came into the cave and rounded the other beds until she reached mine. “It’s very good they have this little window area in the healers’ cave. You need the fresh air.” She sat on the edge of my bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Like shit, to be honest.” But I could already tell I didn’t feel quite as dire as the last time I’d been awake. It didn’t hurt as much to talk, and my head wasn’t pounding the same way.
“Valeria had some acetaminophen on the shuttle. It’s safe to take. No chance of increasing any potential bleeding.”
Potential bleeding. In my brain.
Lovely.
Tilly handed me a pill, then cupped an open valkiri plant to my mouth. Without moving my head too much, I was able to clumsily swallow both.
