Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 205594 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1028(@200wpm)___ 822(@250wpm)___ 685(@300wpm)
I manage a nod. “I’m fine. I don’t think I can eat though.” My stomach roils at the thought. “Maybe just some water.”
He holds me while I sip and wash my mouth out. It takes several minutes for the nausea to abate, but then I feel much better. I straighten and give Nemeth a weary smile. “Shall we keep going?”
“You’re sick, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m okay.”
“Candra, don’t lie to me. Is it your potion? Is it not working as it should?” The look on his face is frantic. “Do you need another dose?”
I shake my head. “It’s not the potion. I just…I don’t want to eat water-bloated food supplies.”
“That might be all we have left soon.” He glances up at the sky. “This rain is never-ending.”
It’s because the goddess is angry. She’s punishing the world because we left the tower. Maybe she’s going to rain us right out of our cities and sweep us all out to sea. Never mind that we didn’t want to leave until we had to. “Let’s keep going.”
“I’m worried about you, milettahn.” Nemeth doesn’t let go of me. “If you’re sick…”
“I’m sure it’s just the weather,” I lie. I need to ask my knife questions, to make sure Nemeth won’t be upset that I’m pregnant. I don’t want him to feel I lied or that I’m using him. Or worse, trapping him at my side.
I have to tell him today, for better or for worse. I just need to find the right moment.
Not right now, I decide. I need to gather my courage first. Because if Nemeth is furious with me, I don’t know what I’ll do.
We find another abandoned town close to sunset. This one is bigger than the last, but just as empty. We call out, looking for anyone that lives nearby, but our searching is fruitless. The only thing we find is a recently deceased cow, stiff legs stuck in the mud. It looks skinny and unhealthy enough that we avoid going near it. The one bright point in this town? No dead Fellians.
Nemeth picks out a small house in the midst of a cluster of houses. It’s got a decent thatched roof, and when we step inside, the never-ending rain isn’t pouring from the ceiling. “We’ll stay here tonight,” he tells me.
I’m too tired and soaked to protest. As weird as it is to think of spending the evening in a stranger’s bed, it’s warm and dry and that’s all I care about. Nemeth barricades the door and covers the windows, latching the creaky wooden shutters. Strangely enough, I find being boxed in like this comforting. It reminds me a bit of the tower and its thick, impenetrable walls.
“We can’t make a fire tonight, Candra,” my mate tells me. “With our luck, the rain would clear and then everyone would see our chimney smoking.” He digs through a trunk at the foot of one of the beds. “There are plenty of blankets, though. We can spread out our clothes and hope they dry a bit.”
I don’t need to be told twice. As Nemeth pulls out one of his lamps and taps it to turn it on, I strip off my soaked layers. The room is frigid—two days of rain has made the air chilly and unpleasant—and I shiver as I wrap myself in a musty wool blanket. I sit on the bed and watch as Nemeth spreads out our possessions around the cottage, trying to dry out everything. Our foodstuffs are a pathetically small bundle, but I know from checking the cottages that there’s no food here. There’s no food anywhere.
As if he can read my mind, Nemeth comes to my side with a sodden bit of traveling cake, full of the last of our nuts. He holds it out to me. “Eat this. You haven’t eaten all day.”
“Neither have you,” I point out, but I take it from him.
The traveling cake is wet and unpleasant in my hand, and I wrinkle my nose. I don’t want to eat it, but I know I have to eat something. Without food in my stomach, my medicine will make me dizzy. And I’m carrying a child…
Gingerly, I take a small, mushy bite. “Yum yum.”
Satisfied that I’m eating, he turns back to the table and continues spreading out our supplies to dry. “It’ll be less wet in the morning, but you can’t wait that long between meals. This is hard enough on you as it is.”
On…me? We’re in this together. It’s hard for both of us. I eye him skeptically as I take another wet bite. “Do you think everyone’s gone because of the war?”
Nemeth pauses, thinking. “It seems doubtful. A benevolent ruler might let his people know that they’d be safe behind the protected walls of his capital. Does that seem like something Lionel would do?”