Delirious

Fifer lay perfectly still, seemingly unconscious as Florence tended to her. But in her mind, wrapped up in the tremendous pain that rocked her body, the same old things they’d all been discussing for months about the Revinir swirled around like a song she couldn’t get out of her head. Emma. Queen Eagala. The monstrous dragon-woman. She didn’t care who lived or died. She wanted to rule all of the worlds. She was selfish and greedy for power. What was her weakness?

Bits of Emma’s journal pages wavered in Fifer’s mind. The girl had been jealous. Left behind. Lonely. Thisbe had landed on these notes and was out there trying to exploit them. And Fifer knew she needed to rouse herself and help. But try as she might, the injuries she’d sustained and the whirling thoughts pressed her back firmly into the pavers and left her body weighing a thousand tons, unable to move. Emma. Queen Eagala. The Revinir. What was the consistency that connected them? What were her fears that stayed with her?

Emma. Standing next to a stream with the others, watching them do magic, happy to be included for once. But also glad to be excluded in a similar situation. Queen Eagala, building dozens of ships that had no purpose. Ships that would go nowhere because she commanded everyone to stay in Warbler. Why?

Sky and Crow’s story came to mind—they’d escaped from Eagala on a raft and told stories about how they weren’t allowed to learn to swim because their queen didn’t want anyone to be able to leave.

Eagala’s huge loss to Artimé and what everyone believed to be her death, being sucked down the volcano. But she’d survived, and her power after that had multiplied.

Then came Dev’s story about hiding in the river and the strange way the Revinir had communicated with the red dragon to collect fish for her—when a dragon’s natural hunting tendency seemed to imply fishing for oneself would be an experience to savor.

There was also Thisbe and Fifer’s most recent traumatic abduction—the Revinir from above the trees, but having an elaborate setup of six dragons hiding under water.

The memory of a sound of fear rang in Fifer’s ears as she lay battling for her life. A strained little whoop. It had been a strange, frightful sound that the Revinir had emitted when Thisbe had escaped the Revinir’s grasp and fallen into the sea. The Revinir, with Fifer in one claw, had scooped Thisbe up and had made that sound. Like she was terrified for a moment.

The images swirled into one story: The rocks next to the stream. The ships with no purpose. Allowing no one to swim. The volcano sucking her ship down. The fish at the river. The inadvertent fearful whoop when her talons had plucked Thisbe from the sea. Around and around these thoughts churned as the magical medicine began to do its work.

Fifer needed to talk to Thisbe. She tried to, in her mind. Tried to send a message. A single word over and over again. Was it going through?

The weight of Fifer’s body was stifling. Suffocating. The weight of her thoughts even more so. She struggled against it, feeling trapped. Needing to escape. The pain was secondary to everything as she wriggled and pushed and slid out from the heavy unconsciousness. Her eyes fluttered and opened, and she gasped. “Water.”

In an instant, Florence was there. She lifted Fifer gently around the shoulders and held the canteen to her lips.

Fifer was too weak to push it away. “Water,” she whispered again, and closed her eyes as the suffocating weight returned.