Page 27 of These Immortal Truths
It’s just as Khiran had warned her.
The caretakers are dropping as quickly as their charges, the air ripe with tears and pain andhopelessness. There is no salvation, no lives to be saved, when they can’t even save themselves. Anna wonders how anyone is to survive—ifanyone will survive. Khiran said it wasn’t a punishment from God, but as she sits in her own putrid sweat with the ceiling spinning nauseating circles above her, Anna wonders how it could possibly be anything else.
A hand, blessedly cool and achingly soft, rests against her burning temple. It feels so good, Anna shudders. A soft sound, weak but appreciative, passes her cracked lips. It’s the closest to a ‘thank you’ she can manage when her tongue sits, thick and useless, inside her mouth.
She tries to open her eyes, the crust around her lids making her eyelashes stick together and blurring her vision. All she can make out is a blurred form of a habit.
“Foolish girl.” The words are soft, a sigh in the dark. Anna gets the sense that they aren’t spoken for her sake. The palm resting against her face retreats, and Anna whimpers in protest. “How long will it take before you learn?”
Then, those same hands are lifting her. Cradling her. Anna rests against an unfamiliar chest, her burning face buried in the crook of a clean, cool neck.
Her last lucid thought before she loses consciousness, is if Death has come for her after all.
She’s not sure how many times she wakes up; it’s hard to know when everything feels like a dream.
Did she imagine the cold cloth dabbing at her face and neck? Or the soft reassurances she couldn’t quite make out the words to? It’s a sea of moments, the first as murky and dark as the last, but through the depths she thinks she can make out Khiran’s face—his true face—hovering over her for many of them.
When she opens her eyes and finds herself in a small cottage, she thinks perhaps she dreamed him up as well. There’s sunlight streaming through an open window and the breeze smells sweet, like clover. The stone walls are lined with bits of artwork, and the floor of the seemingly single room is covered with an ornately woven rug decorated with fruits and flowers Anna has never seen.
“Ah, she wakes. Do you plan on staying a bit longer this time around?”
His voice is close, just to her left. She cranes her neck to see him, mildly surprised that she didn’t notice him before. He’s sitting just beside her head, his chair wedged into the corner. She licks her dry lips, searches for her voice in the depths. “What happened?”
He hands her a glass of water. Anna can feel his gaze as she clumsily gulps it down. Some escapes her lips, running down her neck and soaking into the front of her nightdress.
A nightdress that isn’t hers.
He must catch her alarmed look, because a soft chuckle leaves him as he reaches for the empty glass in her grasp. “Magic, Anna. Don’t fret. As for what happened. Well,” he trails off, refilling the cup before handing it back to her. “You died. Or, would have?” He shakes his head. “The details are complicated, I’m afraid.”
Anna brings the glass to her mouth, trying to still the tremblingin her hand. She can feel the water sloshing unpleasantly in her stomach, and forces herself to take only a small sip. She wonders what being more disturbed by his uncertainty than the news that she may have died says about her. “Where are we?”
“A tiny, inconsequential corner of France.” He shrugs. “I’ve found it’s more convenient to be closer to nowhere than somewhere. Less looters.”
Anna frowns, looking at the items decorating the tiny cottage with a closer eye. “This is yours?”
He stands, stretching. “Try not to sound so skeptical. Did you think I’ve moved through time with nothing to my name?”
The opposite, actually. “I thought you’d have an obnoxiously showy castle.”
A laugh, as breathy and light as the breeze flowing through the window, leaves him. “Well, I may have one of those stashed away as well.” He walks to the other side of the room, tapered fingers wrapping around the handle of the single door. “Wait a moment.”
Anna isn’t capable of doing anything else—her limbs are too weak. Still, she cranes her neck so her gaze can follow him as far as the open door will let her. When he returns, she’s mildly surprised to see a wooden bowl cradled in his palms. With the rise of steam comes the scent of what she recognizes to be some version of stew.
He places it on her lap with a gentle command. “Eat.”
She picks up the simple wooden spoon, stirring the contents. “How long have I been out?”
“Long enough to be hungry. Noweat.”
She looks down into the bowl. It’s a stew of some kind—she can see bits of meat and what looks to be carrots and potatoes—but it smells off. “What is it?”
“Food.”
She takes a tentative bite before shuddering. There’s an ungodly amount of garlic; she has to physically force herself to swallow it down. “Are you sure?”
Khiran scowls, taking the bowl back and trying a spoonful himself. He blanches. “I … am not practiced in this particular skill. I am now remembering why I gave up on it.”
He says it as if it means nothing, but Anna feels her chest tighten. “You cooked this … for me?”
