Aviva
I wake from a dead sleep that leaves me in an absolute panic. I roll off the bed with a crash, and then Ryan’s voice cuts through the air in alarm over the sound of him ripping the sheets from the mattress in his haste to follow me out of bed.
“Aviva–Goddess–” he grumbles, scooping me up right by my armpits and tossing me back in bed just as a wail echoes through the house.
“Where’s Lexa?” I croak, my throat throbbing painfully like I’ve swallowed glass. I clutch my neck in alarm, swallowing hard past a massive lump nearly blocking my airway.
I’ve never felt so terrible in my life.
Ryan disappears and returns a few moments later with an incredibly fussy Lexa and a giant glass of water for me. Then, he fusses over us, propping me up against the headboard with several pillows and whisking Lexa away when she’s done nursing, all while I sit there in a haze, my head pounding and my joints aching so badly it nearly brings me to tears.
It’s early morning. I don’t even remember going to bed last night. I just remember Freya being here to help with Lexa. She told me to go lie down, and now?
I turn my aching head toward the bedroom door as the house goes ghostly quiet.
I’ve never been sick like this. Sniffles, sure. But never a dull, whole body ache. I rub my temples and nestle into the pillows, whimpering pathetically. Some commander, huh? I can’t even function through a fever… a fever that apparently returned overnight.
Several sets of footsteps reach the house, moving through the living area and toward our bedroom. Ryan opens the door, holding Lexa in his arms. She’s bright and alert–no longer plagued by the same fever threatening to drag me under. Cole steps into view carrying his medical kit. He gives me a flat but sympathetic smile as he edges into the room, asking, “How’re you feeling?”
“Absolutely fucking miserable,” I croak like someone stuffed rocks down my throat.
“Is that an improvement from yesterday?” A hint of sarcasm laces through the words as he sits on the edge of the bed to listen to my chest. He glances at Ryan, who’s darkening the doorway with an exhausted expression.
I want to ask how his night went. I know he went on a run with Misty, which I think she really needed, but I didn’t hear him come in. He looks like he didn’t sleep well, if at all.
Cole pulls a long, white stick with a fluffy end out of his medical kit, carefully removing it from a length of plastic.
“What is that?” I wince.
“I need to take a sample from your throat. It’ll feel weird, but it won’t hurt.”
“Why?”
He glances at Ryan again.
I realize that Ryan has had a very long night when he says, “Several of the adults are very ill now, Aviva.”
Cole adds, “The children, especially the ones still nursing from their mothers, are fine. But yes, whatever this is, it’s more serious than we thought.”
“What are you going to do with that?”
“I’m sending this sample to Crescent Falls and Moonrise to see if it’s something we can treat with medicine that’s not available here.”
“Misty,” I croak, but Ryan shakes his head.
“She tried. Her healing powers aren’t working well on this for some reason.”
I notice Cole’s eyes going a shade darker than normal and feel unease creeping in. “Are we sick? Or is this something else?” I ask my mate.
“Our food and water supply is being tested as well,” Ryan practically growls.
I sit up a little straighter. “Were we poisoned?” My throat burns as I look from Cole to my mate. Ryan must have considered this given our somewhat sour relations with the new packs that moved in just north of us.
“You’d likely be dead if that were the case,” Cole says point blank, and I grimace, falling back against the pillows.
He then proceeds to stick his torture device down the back of my throat. I nearly bite it in half on instinct but try to be good, at least for a moment.
“Kyra has herbs that’ve been helping some of the others with their symptoms. I’ll have her drop some off this morning, to be brewed into a tea,” he tells Ryan before taking his leave.
Ryan lingers in the doorway for a few moments before walking toward me, setting Lexa in my waiting arms. I’m immediately relaxed by her presence, but still, I feel like walking death.
“If I was poisoned,” I grind out, “I’ll kill–”
“I know, babe,” he says with a sad kind of smile.
“What happened last night? This is insane!”
“Well,” he says with a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “Misty and I went out and… to begin, you were right about something being in that clearing–something old. She thinks a Firestone castle used to be there. We didn’t have much time to debate it, though, because Andrew blew up the mind-link saying Teshkan warriors had just arrived with the boy.”
“The boy?” My foggy, fevered memory whirls. Then, I remember. “Oh, the boy from… Emberfyll? From the sea?”
“Yeah, he’s here in Silverhide and fucking terrified, I’ll say that much. He’s holed up with a household who didn’t get sick, but he’s not talking. The Teshkans seemed ready to get rid of him, though, saying he was a bad omen or something. I can’t really understand much of what they say because of their accent.”
I close my eyes, shaking my head. “What the hell is happening, Ryan?”
“I don’t know,” he says on exhale, slumping his shoulders and running his fingers through his hair. “But I have the harvest to worry about. Mercy’s sick.”
“Oh, no,” I whimper.
“She’s going to be okay. Reuben’s just fine, like Lexa and Sam. Addy’s still healthy. The babies are okay, but anyone originally from the tribes is hurting right now, so I have to deal with that. Jacob doesn’t want to leave Mercy’s side for obvious reasons, same with Andrew when it comes to Freya, so I have to put a hunt together so the guys can nab a few elk–”
He goes on to explain his plan to save our harvest season in detail like he just needs to say it out loud, but my brain is having a hard time keeping up with the onslaught of information.
“I’m in contact with Kenna. She’s going to come get the tests Cole’s taking on everyone who's sick and take them back to Moonrise to determine what this is, exactly.”
Because shifters don’t get sick. Not like this.
Especially not me.
“You need to stay in bed today,” he says, lifting Lexa off my lap. She squawks, her face twisted in fury, but I’m not sure I have the strength to even hold her right now.
Ryan says something about making me some tea, but my eyes are already closing, and when they open again, hours have passed somehow.
I’m too weak to even reach toward the curtains to see the last stretches of sunset playing across the sky. An entire day wasted. I could have been hunting. I could have been helping with the crops. I could have been weaving. I could have been holding my daughter.
I turn to the corner of the room where a figure appears out of nowhere, sitting in a chair they obviously dragged from the living room. It’s Misty, scribbling in a notebook. She notices me turning my head and looks up, sighing with relief. “I thought you were going to sleep all day. How’re you feeling?”
I swallow, feeling more of a dull ache than shattered glass. “Better, I think.”
“I knew it,” she says, smiling as she tucks her pen behind her ear and rises. “I dosed your tea with my tears. I wasn’t sure it was going to work. It hasn’t on most people, but it broke your fever.”
“Cole said the healer was dropping off herbs–”
Misty clicks her tongue. “Yeah, she did, and they didn’t smell right, so I threw them out and made my own concoction.”
“What do you mean?”
“You need to rest. We don’t need to talk about this now–”
“No, what do you mean? What didn’t smell right?”
“I just got a bad feeling when I got here a few hours ago and found Ryan brewing whatever herbs she brought up. I don't know how to explain it, but my powers go haywire when Kyra’s around. Do you… know her well?”
“No, not really.” She keeps to herself. She doesn’t join the pack for meals or confer with the women during the day. She showed up one day, and that was that–Silverhide had a healer… who stayed in her cottage and didn’t speak to anyone unless she needed to.
“Well, you’re drinking mint tea and my tears from now on, and I think it’s working.”
“Where are Ryan and Lexa?”
“Down at the pack house having dinner. I’ve been nursing Lexa today, I hope that’s all right.”
“It is.” I sit up, groaning but feeling… much better. My head feels fuzzy, for sure, but my joints don’t feel like they’re about to disintegrate.
Misty moves toward the bed, sitting down, her fingers picking at the spine of her notebook. “Aviva… what do your people say about the Firestone witches?”
“Why?”
“Because of that clearing. Something happened there, and it wasn’t just the hellhound dying. It smelled… strange.”
“Like heat and sulfur… like death.”
“Yes,” she confirms, her voice low. “Why?”
I shrug. “I don’t know, but when I’m well, I want to go back and explore it a little closer. I feel the same.” I sense a growing excitement between us that I know for a fact neither of us are ready to admit we feel.
“I want to go with you,” she says.
I nod. I wouldn’t go without her, honestly. I don’t have powers, but she does. If that place is calling to her like it’s calling to me, I’m going to need backup.
Two cups of tea with tears and an hour later, Ryan and Lexa return. Misty leaves to join her family, and I lie in bed with mine while Lexa falls asleep in my arms.
But I can’t sleep. I’ve been in bed all day, and with a copious amount of Misty’s powers working through my body, I decide enough is enough.
I sneak out of bed, snuggling Lexa close to Ryan, who is so exhausted he doesn’t even stir.
Then, I walk out onto the deck to look out over the especially quiet village.
A small, hooded figure emerges from one of the houses in the center of town. I watch the shadow scale the side of the house, jumping to the ground from a second story window, and walk stealthy into the night.
Obviously, I’m going to investigate.
Wearing a nightgown and slippers, I move with practiced grace, dipping into shadows cast by lanterns to stay hidden while the figure–a child–creeps through the village toward the road.
He has no idea I’m behind him, so when he finally looks over his shoulder, he freezes–pale green eyes holding mine.
“You’re a long way from your homeland,” I tell him in the old tongue.
His eyes go wide, but he doesn’t say anything. I edge a step closer to him, holding my arms out in surrender.
“It’s a very long way back to the coast.”
“I want to go home,” he says, heartbreak evident in every word.
“I know,” I reply, holding back my grief as his eyes shine with tears. He’s definitely young, but not really a child. A young teenager, perhaps, maybe only twelve.
Far too young to be without his parents.
“Are you tired? Hungry?”
He shakes his head, trying his hardest not to cry.
I take another step toward him like I’m approaching a skittish wild animal, but he doesn’t move away.
“Do you want to see something…” I try to find the world cool in Firestone, but I don’t think they used it. “Something incredible?”
He hesitates then nods.